By David Miliband
President Joe Biden has been blunt about the enormity of the challenge that his and other democratic governments face in this era of rising authoritarianism. “This is a battle between the utility of democracies in the twenty-first century and autocracies,” he said in his first White House press conference. “That’s what’s at stake here. We’ve got to prove democracy works.”
Values are back, and not only on the domestic front. Biden’s administration will place greater emphasis on defending human rights around the world, including in China and Russia. He wants humanitarian need to figure in military strategy and has withdrawn U.S. support for offensive measures by the Saudi-led coalition fighting against the Houthi rebels in Yemen, which is now home to the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. He wants the United States to live up to its legal and moral commitments and has restored some rights to asylum seekers.
For all this, there are good reasons to be grateful. Former President Donald Trump’s commitment to deals rather than values emboldened autocrats around the world. Civilians killed in war were not Trump’s concern. Nor were refugees driven from their homes or journalists imprisoned in
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