President Biden is visiting France to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day, when tens of thousands of Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy and turned the tide of World War II.
As many American presidents have made the pilgrimage, as Biden does, the lessons of 80 years ago are being discussed once again and have particular resonance for his re-election bid.
The anniversary comes as the Russian invasion of Ukraine raises the stakes as land warfare intensifies once again on the European continent and World War II recedes from memory into the history books.
“He will make the most of the opportunity to talk about the moment we live in: the importance of democracy and American leadership working together for the people,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. reporter.
Biden says democracy is under attack
To understand how Biden views this current moment in the context of history, take a look at his most recent State of the Union address. He began with an image of President Franklin Roosevelt in early 1941, just months before the attack on Pearl Harbor that plunged the United States into World War II.
President Roosevelt's purpose was to wake up Congress and let the American people know that these were not ordinary times. Biden said this while speaking in the same House of Representatives room where Roosevelt spoke. “The world is under attack on freedom and democracy.”
At the time, the United States was still involved in the war. But Hitler was marching on Europe and America's allies were under attack. As he did then, Biden insisted that these were not normal times.
“What makes our moment rare is that freedom and democracy are simultaneously under attack at home and abroad,” Biden said.
Biden speaks at Pointe du Hoc.
Biden is expected to expand on these themes in an address to Americans he is scheduled to deliver at Pointe du Hoc, overlooking the beach where the Americans landed on June 6, 1944. More than 70,000 American soldiers joined Allied forces for the dangerous and daring D. – Weekly operation. Casualties were so great that 2,500 Americans died on D-Day alone, and approximately 29,000 more died in the subsequent Battle of Normandy.
Biden's speech is not a campaign speech, but the undercurrent is unavoidable. Biden has framed his reelection campaign sharply against former President Donald Trump, as he did at a fundraiser in New York earlier this week.
“The reasons those soldiers lost their lives must never be given up,” Biden said. “Democracy is literally on the ballot this year.”
Asked whether the speech on democracy and freedom was aimed at Trump, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said it would focus on universal themes. “The principles that have been the bedrock of American security and American democracy for generations, including this generation and the next, including the generation that crawled off the cliff,” Sullivan told reporters traveling with Biden aboard Air Force One. said. “He will speak about principles, values and lessons from history that can be applied today.”
Trump questioned the value of the NATO alliance
Biden, who has portrayed Trump as an existential threat to America's position as a global leader, has taken pride in rallying U.S. allies to support Ukraine after the Russian invasion and expanding NATO to include two new members.
President Biden is scheduled to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday during international D-Day commemorations, and the leaders will discuss the status of the war with Russia, Sullivan said. Biden recently authorized Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied weapons to attack inside Russia, an escalation as the war enters its third year.
Republicans in the Trump wing of the party have questioned the usefulness of continued U.S. support for Ukraine. And Trump himself has repeatedly toyed with the idea that the United States is not keeping its promises to the NATO alliance.
On the campaign trail in February, President Trump said that if Russia attacked, the United States would not defend an ally that does not spend enough money to defend itself. “The fact is,” Trump said, “I will encourage them to do whatever they want.”
The NATO alliance and its commitment to mutual defense grew out of the experience of World War II. And a poll by the Chicago Council on International Affairs found that a majority of Americans still support the alliance.
“We have understood for a long time, since D-Day, that our security, prosperity and freedom depend on the security, prosperity and freedom of our allies around the world,” said Chicago Council President Ivo Daalder. U.S. Ambassador to NATO during the Obama administration.
But Daalder says isolationist views are growing. “NATO is becoming politicized in a way we have never seen before.” Dalder said.
Biden will give a speech that said what Reagan said at the same event.
There is a huge difference between Trump's message today and the message then-President Ronald Reagan delivered 40 years ago during the D-Day events in Normandy.
“We, the United States, learned bitter lessons from two world wars. “It is better to be ready to preserve the peace than to blindly flee across the ocean to react only after freedom has been lost,” Reagan said. “We have learned that isolationism has never been and will never be an acceptable response to a tyrannical government with expansionist intentions.”
A lot has changed since 1984. The Berlin Wall fell. The Cold War is over. The Soviet Union disbanded, but Russian President Vladimir Putin attempted to rebuild it decades later.
The way Biden describes Putin and his war in Ukraine echoes Reagan's speech. But many people don't buy that argument.
“As the Cold War ended, we could sense a loss of understanding of the goals of our allies,” said Heather Conley, director of the German Marshall Fund.
Conley is touring Ukraine to advocate for continued U.S. military support for the country. And she is listening.
“The American people have some important questions to ask about what’s important about our security, our debt levels,” Conley said. “These are the right questions. But we have to bring them into the conversation.”
Conley, who was a senior State Department official under former President George W. Bush, said he was pleased Biden would speak this week. But she wishes he had brought this case up more forcefully and more often, she said.
“If it’s important to the country, we need to have important conversations with our citizens,” Conley said.