Speaking abroad for the first time as president, Joe Biden on Wednesday told U.S. troops at a British airbase that he planned to “meet with Mr. Putin, to let him know what I want him to know.” The service members exploded into applause for what they hailed as a tough message to a menacing adversary. Was Biden’s message really all that “tough?” After all, what he was calling for is practically the definition of diplomacy and dialogue, which Biden has advocated since April. In the same speech, Biden repeated his goal of a more “stable and predictable relationship” with Russia, which some commentators believe is an overly soft approach. When it comes to the difficult, high-stakes U.S.-Russia relationship, toughness doesn’t mean refusing to talk to the other side, even when they’ve engaged in bad behavior. American presidents over the years have shown that successfully managing this relationship demands three different kinds of toughness: talking tough, toughing it out, and hanging tough. But tough talk also means clearly defining red lines against unacceptable behavior and what happens if those lines are crossed—and ensuring the other side believes you will to do what you say.
In Geneva, Biden must not only tell Putin to stop Russian hacking, but draw clear lines between competition in cyber space and criminal ransomware attacks, like those on JBS and the Colonial Pipeline, which Biden has said responsible states must not tolerate. The next step is to make sure Putin knows Biden will deliver if his red line is crossed. Once he addresses the immediate priorities of nuclear arms control and cyber crime, Biden should be ready for the grueling negotiations needed on the Kremlin’s aggression in Ukraine, support for Lukashenko’s regime in Belarus and attempts to strangle Russian civil society, including Navalny’s anti-corruption movement. Finally, Biden needs to hang tough on Russia for the long term. Biden impressed his audience in the United Kingdom with his tough talk and his willingness to take on Putin. But the full measure of Biden’s toughness will be whether he can bring clarity, credibility and persistence to the enormous challenge of managing U.S.-Russia relations.
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