Biden is an old-fashioned Democrat brought up during the Cold War, so this is familiar territory. The idea of weakness is fashioned as much by our own perceptions than reality. Biden was said to be weak given the handling of Afghanistan. Yet Biden pursued his strategy of pulling out of Afghanistan in the face of opposition from his Generals and European allies, all wanting him to ‘delay things further’. Irrespective of whether you agree with the decision, the way in which it was pursued did not suggest a weakness of resolve. Single minded stubbornness, deaf to reason, maybe, but weak it was not.
There was much wailing about the demise of the West after Afghanistan and maybe Putin drew comfort from that, but the West has responded well over Ukraine and the Americans were on the money throughout with their view an invasion was imminent - even naming the day ( which was a bit cheeky). There was a lot of rubbishing of the American intel and how Putin was simply ‘playing’ Biden, yet Putin is the one knee deep in Ukraine with bodies piling up and his economy in the shitter, so who is ‘playing’ who now?
Countries have stepped up and the US has been the one leading. The EU nor anyone else was going to go this far on sanctions unless the US was on board. Is Biden going to risk nuclear war over Ukraine? No. I doubt any US President would, but then the US isn’t threatening nuclear war. It doesn’t have to if it keeps applying nuclear economic sanctions and that is also telling when it comes to respective strengths because the US can arse fuck Russia economically, but Russia can’t do the same to the US. All Russia has is nukes and military threats. Outside of that it’s like being threatened by Portugal.