But Biden also made it clear that, while he was trying to force the Saudis to face the enormous human toll of his intervention in Yemen, he was not leaving them alone to deal with a hostile Iran. He said he would continue sales of defensive weapons to Saudi Arabia that were designed to protect against Tehran’s missiles, drones and cyber attacks.
“We will continue to support and help Saudi Arabia to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity and its people,” said the president. He said nothing about the possibilities of imposing sanctions on the Crown Prince for his involvement in the Khashoggi murder, although Biden’s director of national intelligence, Avril D. Haines, said he plans to release information about the murder.
In another reversal of Trump-era policy, Biden also announced that he was “interrupting any planned withdrawal of troops from Germany”, interrupting Trump’s order to relocate 12,000 troops stationed in Germany.
National security experts from both sides considered the order shortsighted, saying it was rooted in Trump’s dislike for Chancellor Angela Merkel and her determination to force NATO countries to pay more for their own defenses, no matter what the strategic costs for the United States .
The New Washington
But strategically, it is Biden’s warning to Moscow that can, in the long run, say more about the redirection of American foreign policy than the decision to limit Saudi Arabia’s ability to wage regional war. He is the first president since the fall of the Soviet Union that has decided not to attempt a “reset” with Russia, instead of announcing what amounts to a new deterrence strategy, rather than containment.
Biden hardened his promise to respond to Russian efforts to disrupt American democracy and the hacking of SolarWinds, a vast intrusion into the American government and private networks whose dimensions are still a mystery. He said that in a call with Putin last week, he told the Russian leader “in a very different way from my predecessor, that the days of the United States are rolling in the face of Russia’s aggressive actions – interfering with our elections, cyber attacks, poisoning citizens – are gone. “
Mr Biden asked Moscow to release the imprisoned dissident Aleksei A. Navalny, adding: “We will not hesitate to increase the cost to Russia”. But he did not specify how he would do this, and his options may be limited. Although the president has suggested a “in kind” response to the cyber attack, it could trigger an escalation that worries many American officials.