By Alan Dowd
14 April 2022
A year before his inauguration, President Joseph Biden vowed to “organize and host a global Summit for Democracy.” His objectives were “to renew the spirit and shared purpose of the nations of the Free World,” to issue “a call to action for the private sector,” and to remind the Free World that “democracy doesn’t happen by accident. We have to defend it, fight for it, strengthen it, renew it.”
Biden delivered on that promise by gathering together what he called “an alliance of democracies” in December 2021. As is so often the case with such events, the summit offered more style than substance, more words than actions. But those objectives Biden outlined can be glimpsed in the Free World’s response to Putin’s war.
