Does India Belong in Biden’s Alliance of Democracies?

U.S. President Joe Biden claims that he warned Russian leader Vladimir Putin at their meeting in Geneva last week that “human rights is always going to be on the table” when dealing with his administration. He also threatened Russia with “devastating” consequences if opposition activist Alexey Navalny were to die in a Russian prison.

Criticizing the assault on media freedoms and human rights in Russia and China has long been an American political reflex. Indeed, Biden’s insistent rhetoric that democracy is in a global contest with autocracy marks him as one of the U.S. leaders intellectually conditioned by the Cold War’s simple oppositions.