At last year’s Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of military chiefs and political leaders, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden made a promise to America’s allies: "This too shall pass,” he assured them, "we will be back.”
There was little doubt as to what "this” referred to — Donald Trump’s America — or who would be coming back. Biden, now running for president and ahead in opinion polls for November’s vote, might just have the opportunity to make good on his pledge.
Yet returning the U.S. and its alliances to a time before Trump is probably unachievable, and only in part because he has changed the U.S. since his January 2017 inauguration in ways that may be irreversible. Just as important, the rest of the world changed too.