More recently, Biden and his diplomatic team proved unable to prevent the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel from spreading into a regional conflagration and a devastating humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Both Carter and Biden, humbled by seemingly outmatched regional forces in Iran and Afghanistan, were also confronted by the territorial ambitions of global powers. Carter was lambasted for inadequately responding to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and then widely denounced for the move he did make – ordering a boycott by US athletes of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.
Biden has had greater early success countering the invasion of Ukraine, uniting allies to support and supply Kyiv’s forces in resisting the Russian advance. But as the war drags on, American resolve has been tested. Extended bloody conflict turned Afghanistan into a cauldron of instability that eventually gave birth to al-Qaeda and a global jihad.
The lasting impact of the war in Ukraine could have its own unexpected, and deadly, consequences – all of which could be laid at this president’s feet.
In the Middle East, Carter’s Camp David triumph has proven to be an incomplete accomplishment, securing peace between Israel and Egypt but failing to resolve the Palestinian question which, with the Gaza war, has once again become an urgent global concern. For more than a year, the war has been a constant reminder of the limits of American – and Biden’s – power.
The US was unable to prevent the conflict from expanding into Lebanon and including, for the first time, direct hostilities between Iran and Israel. The latter, America’s closest ally in the region, has time and again seemingly disregarded Biden’s counsel and forged a more aggressive path on its own.
Biden also has had to handle a tense relationship with an ascendant China, whose current place in the world is due in no small part to Carter’s decision to normalise US relations with the country in 1979.
That watershed moment set a course for the country to become a major economic, and military, power – ultimately creating the geopolitical rivalry with the US with which Mr Biden has had to contend.