Hal Brands, Columnist

Biden’s Foreign Policy Had a Rough 2023, and 2024 Looks Rougher

The president faces flagging support for Ukraine, an election in Taiwan and all sorts of nightmare scenarios in the Middle East.

December 21, 2023 at 5:00 AM UTC

By Hal Brands

Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

Things may get worse.
Photographer: Susan Walsh/AFP/Getty Images

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There hasn’t been much holiday cheer for Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy left Washington last week without any new US aid for his embattled state. That may be an omen of hard times ahead in 2024. The final year of President Joe Biden’s term will see the present world order facing trouble on every front — including the one on which it is most vulnerable, in the US itself.

Next year is shaping up to be ugly for Ukraine. Its much-touted counteroffensive has ended in disappointment. Its forces are bloodied and exhausted. Recriminations about whether Ukrainian timidity or Western avarice are to blame for that failure are playing out, predictably, in the US press.