Follow us on social

Biden: Like the nation, I am indispensable too

Biden: Like the nation, I am indispensable too

The idea that he has been running the world betrays a dangerous arrogance about his importance — and current reality

Analysis | Washington Politics

The president insisted that his campaign would continue and that he was the best candidate for the job in an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Friday.

Rejecting calls for him to step aside, Biden defended his determination to remain in the race by using one of his favorite foreign policy talking points, the conceit that America is the indispensable or essential nation. Building on the idea expressed by then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright a quarter century ago, the president said, “You know, not only am I campaigning, but I'm running the world. Not — and that's not hy — sounds like hyperbole, but we are the essential nation of the world. Madeleine Albright was right.”

Later in the interview, Biden also maintained that there was no one else who could lead as well as he could. He asked Stephanopoulos, “who's gonna be able to hold NATO together like me? Who's gonna be able to be in a position where I'm able to keep the Pacific Basin in a position where we're — we're at least checkmating China now? Who's gonna — who's gonna do that? Who has that reach?”

The president would have everyone believe that he is an irreplaceable leader of the indispensable nation, but the idea that he has been “running the world” betrays a dangerous arrogance about both the president’s importance and America’s international role. The U.S. didn’t “run” the world even at the height of its power, and it is foolish to think that it could in an increasingly multipolar world.

Biden’s belief helps explain why the president refuses to end his campaign, but it also points to a key flaw in the current strategy of the United States. Washington is overstretched around the world and has more commitments than it can realistically honor. That overstretch is a result of the false belief that the world can’t do without American “leadership.” U.S. leaders refuse to shift burdens to anyone else in any part of the world because they wrongly assume that no other countries can bear them.

Just as Biden clings to his position when there are others able to take his place, the U.S. clings to its current strategy because it doesn’t want to accept a world where it isn’t “essential.”

It is beyond the competence of any state to be the “essential nation.” It is a self-important fantasy to believe that the world depends on any one country to such a great extent. When Washington has acted on this belief in its supposedly essential role, it has done considerable harm to its own interests and to other countries. There have been many crises and conflicts where American involvement was not needed and where that involvement made matters worse than they were before.

Everyone can see that in obvious cases like the Iraq war or the intervention in Libya, but it also applies to the frequent use of broad sanctions from Venezuela to Iran to North Korea. We can see it in the U.S. supporting role in the Saudi coalition war on Yemen, and we see it again today in Biden's support for the war in Gaza. In those instances when U.S. involvement has not been destructive, it is often not required.

Insisting that we are essential to the rest of the globe is how our leaders excuse constant meddling in things that have little or nothing to do with America's interests. It is a handy way to shut down the policy debate by claiming that the U.S. really has no choice except to intervene and take sides in disputes and conflicts where we have nothing vital at stake. That is how the list of commitments keeps growing and never gets any smaller.

No matter what one thinks about Biden’s fitness, the limits of American power and the relative decline of that power in recent decades make the indispensable nation belief more absurd than ever. Albright’s original claim wasn’t true when she made it, and it certainly isn’t today. It is a measure of how dated Biden’s worldview is that he still cites a Clinton-era phrase as if it were relevant to current realities.

Our current foreign policy is unsustainable given America’s limitations, and we need to have a much less ambitious one in the years to come if we are to avoid the costs of more unnecessary conflicts.

No president, regardless of age or condition, should imagine that he “runs the world” and none should try. No one can possibly shoulder that much responsibility, and no one is up to the task. Biden isn’t up to “running the world,” but then neither is anyone else.


ABC News interview with President Biden Friday July 5 (Screenshot/ABC)

Analysis | Washington Politics
Kim Jong Un
Top photo credit: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the construction site of the Ragwon County Offshore Farm, North Korea July 13, 2025. KCNA via REUTERS

Kim Jong Un is nuking up and playing hard to get

Asia-Pacific

President Donald Trump’s second term has so far been a series of “shock and awe” campaigns both at home and abroad. But so far has left North Korea untouched even as it arms for the future.

The president dramatically broke with precedent during his first term, holding two summits as well as a brief meeting at the Demilitarized Zone with the North’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. Unfortunately, engagement crashed and burned in Hanoi. The DPRK then pulled back, essentially severing contact with both the U.S. and South Korea.

keep readingShow less
Why new CENTCOM chief Brad Cooper is as wrong as the old one
Top photo credit: U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Brad Cooper speaks to guests at the IISS Manama Dialogue in Manama, Bahrain, November 17, 2023. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed

Why new CENTCOM chief Brad Cooper is as wrong as the old one

Middle East

If accounts of President Donald Trump’s decision to strike Iranian nuclear facilities this past month are to be believed, the president’s initial impulse to stay out of the Israel-Iran conflict failed to survive the prodding of hawkish advisers, chiefly U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Michael Kurilla.

With Kurilla, an Iran hawk and staunch ally of both the Israeli government and erstwhile national security adviser Mike Waltz, set to leave office this summer, advocates of a more restrained foreign policy may understandably feel like they are out of the woods.

keep readingShow less
Putin Trump
Top photo credit: Vladimir Putin (Office of the President of the Russian Federation) and Donald Trump (US Southern Command photo)

How Trump's 50-day deadline threat against Putin will backfire

Europe

In the first six months of his second term, President Donald Trump has demonstrated his love for three things: deals, tariffs, and ultimatums.

He got to combine these passions during his Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Monday. Only moments after the two leaders announced a new plan to get military aid to Ukraine, Trump issued an ominous 50-day deadline for Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire. “We're going to be doing secondary tariffs if we don't have a deal within 50 days,” Trump told the assembled reporters.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.