Biden supporters thought President Biden would be especially adept at international affairs and defense policy because of his long experience in foreign relations as a senator and vice president. Although presidents always face challenges on the global stage, Biden discovered that his crises were sometimes self-inflicted or at least unexpected.

Initially, after four years of erratic policy decisions under President Trump, Biden aimed to return stability to U.S. foreign policy, rejoin treaties and alliances the previous administration abandoned, and restore the country’s standing in the world. The Biden approach jettisoned Trump’s “America First” nationalism in favor of rebuilding relationships with U.S. allies and bolstering international institutions that Trump denigrated, such as NATO and the World Health Organization. On his first day in the Oval Office, President Biden signed an executive order returning the United States to the Paris Climate Agreement. He then focused on Trump’s withdrawal from the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran and trying to limit China’s widening international influence.

Biden’s foreign policy team reflected a return to stability but also, some critics contended, a flashback to the past rather than a forward-looking agenda. While he built a diverse team, Biden also drew criticism for populating it with members of the Obama administration. His choice for secretary of state, Antony Blinken, had served as deputy secretary of state and deputy security adviser under Obama. He had been a longtime adviser to Biden, having served the former vice president both in the Senate and as his national security adviser in the White House. Blinken steadfastly supported building strong partnerships around the world. “Put simply,” Blinken said in 2016, “the world is safer for the American people when we have friends, partners, and allies.”

Other Obama White House alumni who served President Biden were Linda Thomas-Greenfield, ambassador to the United Nations, and Samantha Power, director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Biden named Alejandro Mayorkas, who was deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security in Obama’s second term, to head that department. Mayorkas had also served as director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Obama administration. He was the first immigrant and Latino secretary of homeland security.

Biden chose Avril Haines, who had served as deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and deputy national security adviser under Obama, as his director of national intelligence, making her the first woman to hold that crucial job.

Biden nominated retired Army General Lloyd Austin as secretary of the Defense Department. A four-star general who had served in the military for 41 years, Austin had led the U.S. Central Command from 2013 to 2016, the first African American to do so. He became the first Black defense secretary. Some observers objected to Biden’s choice because it placed a former military leader in a traditionally civilian role. Austin also faced another obstacle: the law requires at least seven years of retirement from active military service for a defense secretary to take up leadership of the Pentagon. Austin needed a waiver from Congress, where some lawmakers expressed hesitation after President Trump sought a dispensation for his first defense secretary, retired Marine Corps general, Jim Mattis. Biden was said to lean toward Austin for the job because of his experience with complex logistical operations in his previous roles, a skill that might be needed to tackle the distribution of coronavirus vaccines.

China

In an effort to limit China’s growing influence around the world, President Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a bilateral meeting in San Francisco late in 2022. They seemed to have a friendly enough connection, but tensions arose early in 2023 when Biden ordered a high-altitude balloon that China had floated over the entire United States from coast to coast shot down. Chinese threats against Taiwan also added to the strains between the world’s two superpowers. American Marines started training in the South Pacific for island-to-island combat. Trade and intellectual property disputes only added to the inflamed relations.

Afghanistan

As Barack Obama’s vice president, Biden had argued vociferously for U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan after the May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader who had planned the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America in 2001. As General David Petraeus noted, Afghanistan was never going to become Switzerland, but the Obama administration hoped that Afghan security forces, trained by the American military, could hold the line against the Taliban’s return to power.

After President Trump reached a peace agreement with the Taliban in February 2020 that called for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, President Biden finally had the opportunity to follow through on that withdrawal. But the chaotic departure of American troops in August 2021 triggered the rapid collapse of the Afghan government and its security forces, the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul, and scenes of desperate Afghans hanging onto American C-130 aircrafts as they raced down the runway from the civilian airport. The visuals recalled America’s 1975 withdrawal from Saigon, Vietnam, with the U.S. allies scrambling for the last helicopter to depart from the American embassy’s rooftop. During the chaotic departure from Afghanistan, 13 American service members lost their lives when a terrorist suicide bomber detonated an explosive device at the Kabul airport’s perimeter.

For the Biden administration, which had contrasted itself against Trump’s presidency by proclaiming its discipline and expertise, the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan represented a stunning blunder and public relations nightmare. It did not matter that two-thirds of Americans had wanted to exit the “endless war” of two decades in South Asia; the chaotic scenes damaged the administration. The president’s approval ratings plummeted to 40 percent from his initial high of 57 percent and never rebounded to more than 45 percent—and that only came after he exited the 2024 presidential race.

Russia-Ukraine War

When President Biden took office, he reaffirmed America’s support for NATO, which eased European allies’ fears over Trump’s threats to withdraw from the post-World War II treaty. But when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, in part over the former Soviet republic’s desire to join the western alliance, Biden encountered the treaty’s limits. Americans were in no mood to place boots on the ground in Ukraine. The American military advisers and materiel thwarted Russia’s immediate takeover, but the war dragged on.

The United States led more than 50 allies in coordinating assistance to the embattled country. In addition, American monetary aid kept the Ukrainian government, led by democratically elected President Volodymyr Zelensky, afloat, and USAID relief included medical kits, food, and shelter.

The Biden administration imposed sanctions on Russia to weaken its economic and financial institutions, along with oligarchic supporters of President Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian regime. The United States used diplomatic channels to condemn Russia’s invasion of a sovereign nation and its war crimes against Ukrainian soldiers and civilians.

Ultimately, the Biden administration succeeded in avoiding escalation of a war with Russia and refused to place American troops on the ground. By the time Biden left office in early 2025, his administration had supplied nearly $70 billion in military assistance to Ukraine since the Russian invasion began, including missiles, artillery, armored vehicles, and support equipment for F-16 fighter jets. Yet many Americans, including Vice President JD Vance, upset over the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, felt that the United States should have no involvement in Ukraine’s battle with Russia.

Hamas Attack on Israel

Adding to this difficult foreign policy landscape was Hamas’s devastating surprise attack on Israeli territory and settlements on October 7, 2023. Palestinian terrorists brutally murdered at least 1,200 Israeli and foreign citizens (including 46 Americans) and kidnapped some 250 hostages into the Gaza Strip. Biden was now forced to struggle to play peacemaker in the Middle East in addition to Eastern Europe.

Biden flew immediately after the Hamas attack to Jerusalem, where he embraced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and promised U.S. support (minus troops) to retaliate against Hamas. Like all American presidents since modern Israel’s 1948 founding, Biden prioritized Israeli security. Yet the Israeli attacks that destroyed the Gaza Strip and led to a humanitarian crisis, along with Netanyahu’s expansion of the war to Lebanon and Iran, divided Democrats, as well as Republicans, and prompted pro-Palestinian demonstrations, especially on American college campuses.

As with Ukraine, the Biden administration provided financial aid, weapons, munitions, intelligence, and humanitarian aid to Israel in its war against Hamas. In spring 2024, Biden signed a foreign assistance bill that included $17 billion for the Israelis. More than 100 arms transfers went from the United States to the Israeli Defense Force, and America approved a $20 billion sale of fighter jets and other materiel to the IDF. Biden also ordered two aircraft carrier battle groups to the region in an effort to deter more Hamas aggression.

Biden continued to denounce Hamas’s sneak attack and barbarous actions against Israel, defended its right of self-defense, and condemned anti-Semitism. At the same time, however, the administration urged Israel to decrease civilian casualties in Gaza—what some pro-Palestinian commentators and the International Criminal Court labeled a genocide. With Secretary of State Anthony Blinken engaging in shuttle diplomacy, Biden attempted to broker cease fires, hostage exchanges, and normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. He supported American humanitarian assistance to Gaza, including the construction of a pier on the strip’s coastline. Yet some members of his own party expressed disappointment that the administration refused to approve a UN Security Council Resolution to move forward full membership for Palestine in the international body.

Biden’s seeming ineffectiveness in bringing neither the Russia-Ukraine War nor the Middle East wars to an end undoubtedly raised concerns about the president’s effectiveness and contributed to his eventual withdrawal from the 2024 race.