Having the USA back on the international stage and re-assuming its role as a global leader once the Biden administration comes to the White House is as much expected as it looks difficult.

The survival of the nuclear agreement with Iran probably constitutes the most important stake and immediate goal for the international community, with regard to stability and security in the Middle East, as well as on a global level. It is not by chance that the signatories of the nuclear agreement with Iran met on the 21^st of December 2020, to express their concern regarding Iran moving away from the commitments it had pledged to under the accord (lately, the Iranians have installed three new uranium-enriching centrifuges at its Natanz facility, and the Iranian parliament adopted a law asking the government to enhance the nuclear programme and to forbid further inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, as set by the Vienna Agreement in 2015), and to express their hope that the USA will return to the negotiating table.

The USA is also expected to quickly re-join the Paris Agreement on Climate Change signed in 2015 and take over the lead of global efforts to prevent climate changes, as it is absolutely essential to the management of crises and conflicts in various areas of the world, as well as to fending off the continuous assault led by revisionist powers on the international principles and institutions. This implies a new strategic partnership between the USA and Europeans, a partnership for which each side should be fully prepared and completely engaged in.

Nonetheless, while the Europeans are facing deepening splits – inside their societies and at the level of the Union, the USA is also going through a rough period.

The leadership of the United States is to be taken over by an administration whose legitimacy (of the future president and of the American institutions) is being weakened from the start – on one hand by the unprecedented campaign of an acting president, who has not been re-elected, to undermines and eventually turn in his favour the result of a democratic electoral process, and on the other hand by the delay of the losing party in formally acknowledging the victory of the winner of the popular and electoral votes.

The future president inherits a socially divided country that is facing a pandemic whose effects are worsening by the minute and an economy in swift decline.

Which is why the first four priorities made public recently by the transition team of the future US president are: the COVID-19 pandemic, economic recovery, racial equality and climate change.

Such an agenda entails and foretells that the future administration will focus on domestic issues, meaning, America First.

As for the USA returning to the leadership of international affairs and taking over the initiative, the agenda made public by the transition team lets us know, just as Joe Biden announced during the electoral process, that the USA would re-join the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

The extent to which the Biden Administration will re-engage internationally sooner or later could be indicated by the stated willingness and in particular by the political will to return to the negotiating table on the Iranian nuclear programme. As it could be indicated by major changes in the current policies on the USA’s main competitors and adversaries – China and Russia.

When it comes to Russia, which strengthens – with the help of some European countries members to both NATO and EU – its ability to leverage the Europeans through their dependency on Russian energy resources, the situation is increasingly worrisome, given the recent revelations about cyber-attacks on a number of governmental agencies and private US companies. Publicly attributed to Russia by the secretary of state and by the US attorney general, the actions have successfully targeted the Department of Energy, the State Department and at the Department of Homeland Security.

While imperative, a response from the USA will be very difficult to calibrate, taking into account the lack of a clear, unanimously accepted definition of cyber-warfare, as well as the need to ensure a balance between restoring the credibility of the USA and preventing escalation.