Editor’s note: Guest columnist Nikolas Gvosdev is filling in for Charli Carpenter.
History does not repeat itself, as Mark Twain remarked, but it does rhyme. And when it comes to its policies on Russia, climate and energy, the Biden team is dealing with Obama-era echoes.
Seven years ago, in my then-weekly column for WPR, I called attention to the internal tensions in the Obama administration’s climate, energy and geopolitical priorities. Back then, the United States was trying to square several irreconcilable circles. One had to do with reducing Russia’s global influence by constraining its sales of energy. Another was putting the brakes on domestic U.S. energy projects that would both increase hydrocarbon usage and despoil the environment. Still another was making sure Americans weren’t paying the price for these two policies at the pump.