The Guardian

Welcome to Politics Weekly Extra, I'm Raphael Bear standing in for Jonathan Friedland

this week.

A few weeks ago, Joe Biden gave his first major speech on foreign policy since taking office.

In that address, the president ceremoniously declared,

America is back.

And we all kind of knew what he meant, although it wasn't clear where America had

actually been, and if it's back to stay, what exactly will be different?

That question is being asked most urgently by allies in Europe.

That was supposed to be the oldest and strongest relationship, defining what it means to be

the West.

But that didn't seem to mean much if anything to the Trump administration.

So can the old flame be rekindled?

And that could be the easy bit.

Biden has set his administration a target of holding abusers of human rights to account,

using American power to uphold values of democracy and the rule of law.

But how will that work when even some NATO members seem to be heading down an authoritarian

path?

And how does Washington even begin to engage with Vladimir Putin's Russia?

It's one thing to prove yourself trustworthy to your old allies in the West, but that

presumes there is still such a thing as the West as a coherent strategic block, and

that it still has some function in the world, some recognition elsewhere as a beacon of freedom

...