‘Who rules in Washington?’: The question now haunting the world as bumbling Biden stokes World War fears and antagonizes Russia, writes MARK ALMOND

The rest of the world tends to sit out the dull weeks at the end of a presidential administration and hold its breath to see what the new commander in chief will do once in the Oval Office.

Not this time.

With eight weeks until Inauguration Day, there is a sense of increasing instability, making the countdown to the end of Joe Biden’s term in the White House almost uniquely dangerous.

In fact, we appear to be closer to a World War III-style clash between superpower rivals than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

Back then, we had John F. Kennedy steering the American ship of state – a president at the height of his intellectual powers and energy.

Today we have Joe Biden, a sitting president who many believe is now too weak in body and mind to pay full attention 24/7 to the developing crisis over Russia.

It is therefore even more alarming that Biden and his team appear to be throwing caution to the wind and even increasing US involvement in the world’s most fraught conflict: on the bloody battlefields of Ukraine.

By suddenly allowing Kiev to fire long-range American-made missiles hundreds of miles inside Russia — after failing to do so for more than two years — and adding anti-personnel mines to a massive new shipment of American weapons worth $275 million Biden is seriously increasing Washington’s commitment to this conflict, even as Donald Trump tries to portray himself as a peacemaker in the wings.

Biden and his team appear to be throwing caution to the wind and even stepping up U.S. involvement in the world’s most fraught conflict — on the bloody battlefields of Ukraine. (Photo: Biden and President Zelensky at the NATO summit in Washington in July).

This is not only a recipe for confusion, it can make a brutal war even deadlier.

There is no guarantee that calm will return when Trump takes power in January.

The hope that this long war – which exceeds the thousandth day this week – will enter its final phase seems further away than ever.

On Thursday, President Putin hit back at the West’s increasing involvement, announcing that his forces had carried out an attack in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro using an experimental ‘new’ hypersonic missile (codenamed ‘Oreshnik’).

On Tuesday, he performatively changed Russian law to lower the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons.

How different the world seemed when Biden entered the White House in January 2021.

At 78, his decades on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, followed by eight years as President Obama’s vice president and point man on many foreign issues — including Ukraine’s rumbling volcano — made him a safe pair of hands.

But if Biden’s foreign policy credentials were a motivating reason to vote for him in 2020, that quickly changed. Real-world experiences tainted his legacy from the beginning of his reign.

The terms of the US exit from Afghanistan may have been previously set by Trump’s deal with the Taliban, but it was Biden who managed – or rather completely mismanaged, the final days of the 2021 withdrawal from Kabul. Thirteen American soldiers were killed.

Now the Biden White House has proven completely incapable of ending the conflict between Israel and its terrorist enemies Hamas and Hezbollah.

All this is why late action in Ukraine is now the president’s best chance, perhaps his only chance, to leave a positive foreign policy legacy.

It is certainly likely that the chaos of Afghanistan and America’s visible weakness there gave Putin the courage to think he could invade Ukraine.

That, of course, went terribly wrong. Ukraine was not subdued within days, as Putin had hoped.

Yet he has refused to weaken the conflict – and with good reason: for Putin, the outcome of his ‘special operation’ is a matter of survival.

While a victory, or the appearance of one, would secure his control over Russia, a defeat would mean the end of his tenure in the Kremlin and probably his life.

As President Obama noted a decade ago, Ukraine’s fate was always going to be more existential for Moscow than for Washington.

Part of the United States’ unparalleled greatness is its ability to endure defeats — like the fall of Saigon in 1975 and Kabul in 2021 — and roar back as the dominant superpower soon after.

On Thursday, President Putin hit back at the West’s increasing involvement, announcing that his forces had carried out an attack in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro using an experimental ‘new’ hypersonic missile (codenamed ‘Oreshnik’).

Russia lacks the same resilience. The country cannot afford defeat without facing revolution, as happened in 1917 – or the kind of humiliation it suffered after losing Afghanistan and Eastern Europe in 1991, which hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union .

This is why Putin is now determined to bring Ukraine into line. It’s not just Kiev he wants to cherish; other neighbors must also adhere to the rules.

He also wants to crush any hope of liberation that troubled regions of Russia, such as Chechnya, might harbor.

Even the brutal costs – both human and financial – of the war in Ukraine make sense to the Kremlin, because it sends this clear message to its citizens: ‘look at the terrible price of joining the West. This is what happens when you dare to defy Moscow.”

It’s a nasty, brutal calculation, but Putin knows that a prolonged war of attrition works for him.

Compared to Washington, the timescales for such crises – America’s attention span, if you will – are simply too short and cost-conscious to match such prolonged aggression.

And then there is the issue of indecision among America’s leaders.

There is an impressive unity in the Kremlin. There is no doubt or division about what should be done next or, more importantly, who is in charge.

Washington, with its slow transfer of power and mixed messaging, is very different – ​​uneasy like Berlin in 1914, on the eve of World War I.

It’s a historical parallel worth pursuing, because Ukrainians are just like the Austrians were back then.

Today, mortally threatened, Ukraine has pinned its hopes on a great ally, America, just as the collapsing Austrian empire once sought protection from the power of Germany, its industrial neighbor to the north.

At the end of June 1914, peace was in sight. Serbia – responsible for the fateful assassination of Franz Ferdinand, heir to Austria’s imperial throne – had accepted all but one of Vienna’s belligerent demands.

But that all changed when the Austrian foreign minister received not one but two telegrams from his allies in Berlin.

The first came from the German Emperor William II, who said that as the Serbs cooperated, the honor was satisfied and he, William, could resume his summer cruise.

The Chief of the German General Staff sent a very different message: “The Serbs have rejected one of your demands, invade now!”

‘Who rules in Berlin?’ asked the stunned Austrian Foreign Minister. Ultimately, he did what the German generals demanded: he set in motion one of the most terrible conflicts in human history.

Today the question on the world’s mind is, “Who rules Washington?”

Is Joe Biden really in charge until January 20, or is it his team? Real hold the diplomatic and military levers?

For example, are Biden’s top security advisers, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, trying to build metaphorical barricades and traps in Ukraine – to block any Trump appeasement of Putin?

Perhaps they don’t believe Trump’s proposed Ukrainian “peace plan” would be good for America or the West, and hope to be part of a big Democratic comeback in 2028.

That is the version of their thinking that Donald Trump Jr. and National Security Advisor nominee Michael Waltz prefer to believe.

But what really matters is what Donald Trump himself thinks – and that remains a mystery even as the crisis deepens.

It is understandable if Biden, in the twilight of his term, wants to give Putin a bloody parting shot. Who wouldn’t do that?

But what the rest of the world needs is a clear long-term strategy from Washington – not an old man going off in anger and frustration before the spotlight finally comes into focus.