Joe Biden’s summit with Vladimir Putin yielded only modest gains

THE AIMGNATOEU, President Joe Biden said, before setting off on a European tour that ended in a summit with his Russian counterpart on June 16th, was to “make it clear to Putin and China that Europe and the United States are tight”. He achieved that, more or less. After meetings of the 7 and and an -American pow-wow, it is clear that the rich countries of Europe and North America (and Japan) share common concerns about the two great autocracies that confront them. Whereas Donald Trump showed a strange fondness for dictators, Mr Biden is doing a fair job of uniting democracies to call the autocrats out.Mr Putin and Mr Biden arrived in Geneva without much room for manoeuvre. Mr Biden wants to look tough on Russia, but finds himself constrained. He needs Russian help on a range of issues, including climate change, keeping nukes out of Iran, ending the war in Syria, forging new arms-control treaties and, perhaps most of all, avoiding an escalation of the conflict in Ukraine that might suck America in.