Chapter 4

Presidential Image Repair on

Starting and Ending Wars
President Vladimir Putin on Ukraine and
President Joe Biden on Afghanistan

This chapter investigates two instances of image repair by presidents. In

2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine.
In the same year, American President Joe Biden ordered the withdrawal
of American troops from Afghanistan. Each of these presidents dissem-
inated image repair messages on different phases of war, which will be
examined here.

President Putin’s Victory Day Speech

Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of neighboring

country Ukraine on February 24, 2022. This war was a terrible catastrophe.
“About 14 million Ukrainians have been forced from their homes—includ-
ing more than six million who have fled the country. . . . The number of
people uprooted by the fighting amounts to nearly one-third of Ukraine’s
prewar population of 44 million” (Sugden, Luxmore, and Orru 2022).
DeSilver (2022) characterized the Ukrainian refugee crisis as “among the
world’s worst in recent history.” Ukraine had suffered an estimated $60
billion in direct damages as of April (Lawder and Gallagher 2022). The
consequences for Ukraine’s economy generally were even larger: Halpert

63
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(2022) reported that Russia’s invasion had cost Ukraine’s economy as much
as $600 billion. In addition to the thousands of casualties among soldiers
who perished on both sides, “at least 3,496 civilians have been killed since
Russia began its invasion” (Sugden, Luxmore, and Orru 2022). This act,
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, had extremely serious consequences. Many
people consider it to be extremely offensive.
President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken both charac-
terized Putin as a war criminal (Cathey and Nagle 2022; Blinken 2022).
In a press statement (Blinken 2022), the Secretary of State stressed the
fact that Russia’s offensive was not limited to military targets: “We’ve seen
numerous credible reports of indiscriminate attacks and attacks deliber-
ately targeting civilians, as well as other atrocities.” Deliberately targeting
civilians is a clear example of a war crime. Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelenskyy seconded this accusation, declaring, “There is ample evidence
that it is Russian troops who destroy cities, abduct, torture, kill civilians”
(2022). These accusations—the destruction of cities and abduction, tor-
ture, and killing of civilians—are very serious. Benoit (2022a) uses the
Theory of Persuasive Attack to analyze these persuasive attacks on Russian
President Putin.
Ukraine was not the only country to suffer damage from this inva-
sion. It is not possible to link particular actions against Russia to these
specific attacking messages investigated here; nevertheless, countries and
companies retaliated against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. A number of
countries (Australia, Bahamas, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland,
Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland,
Taiwan, and the United Kingdom), as well as the European Union, joined
the United States in imposing sanctions on Russia (Funakoshi, Lawson,
and Deka 2022). Many companies also took actions against Russia at this
time (Funakoshi, Lawson, and Deka 2022). This invasion had serious con-
sequences for Russia. Wilkie reported that “Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked
war on Ukraine and the resulting global response will set Russia’s economy
back by at least 30 years—close to old Soviet Union times—and lower its
standard of living for at least the next five years” (2022). A clear threat
to Vladimir Putin and Russia existed in May 2022.
On May 9, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin took the nation’s
annual “Victory Day” celebration—on which Russia commemorates the
surrender of Nazi Germany in World War II—as the occasion to give a
speech in which he addressed the invasion of Ukraine (2022). This chapter
investigates the image repair strategies Putin employed in this message.
 Presidential Image Repair on Starting and Ending Wars | 65

President Putin’s Image Repair in His Victory Day Speech

This text uses four image repair strategies: bolstering, attack accuser, dif-
ferentiation, and provocation. Each of these strategies will be examined
in turn in this section.
Bolstering. Numerous statements in this speech functioned to rein-
force Russia’s image. Extensive use of bolstering is reasonable given that
Victory Day is a celebratory occasion. Still, these utterances could bolster
Russia’s image. For example, Putin declared that “we proposed signing a
treaty on security guarantees. Russia urged the West to hold an honest
dialogue” (all quotations from this speech are from Putin 2022). This
statement declares that Russia’s motives are positive. He also insisted that
the current operation in Ukraine, like past military actions, were a defense
of the Motherland: “The defense of our Motherland when its destiny was
at stake has always been sacred. It was the feeling of true patriotism that
Minin and Pozharsky’s militia stood up for the Fatherland, soldiers went
on the offensive at the Borodino Field and fought the enemy outside
Moscow and Leningrad, Kiev and Minsk, Stalingrad and Kursk, Sevasto-
pol and Kharkov. Today, as in the past, you are fighting for our people in
Donbass, for the security of our Motherland, for Russia.” The invasion of
Ukraine is characterized as important for the security of Russia. He praised
his country’s people for having defeated Nazism in World War II: “It is
our duty to preserve the memory of those who defeated Nazism.” Nazi
Germany, which persecuted and executed Jews in concentration camps,
was a horrifying enemy, which means Russia’s past actions are laudable.
The Russian president also bolstered his country’s goals, explaining that
his country was expected to be vigilant against Nazism and to work to
“thwart the horror of another global war” like World War II. Putin also
touted Russians’ “faith and traditional values, our ancestors’ customs and
respect for all peoples and cultures.” These values are praiseworthy.
Putin also directed remarks to “our Armed Forces and Donbass
military.” He reiterated the claim that they were “fighting for our Moth-
erland, its future, so that nobody forgets the lessons of World War II, so
that there is no place in the world for torturers, death squads and Nazis.”
This self-praise implies that his troops were fighting Nazis, as well as
“torturers” and “death squads.” Surely these targets are worth fighting.
Attack Accuser. Putin contrasted Russia’s laudable desire for “honest
dialogue” with NATO’s intentions: “NATO countries did not want to heed
us.” He accused NATO of rejecting an “honest dialogue” with Russia. He
66 | Accounts, Excuses, and Apologies

criticized the United States for espousing “exceptionalism” and “denigrat-

ing . . . the entire world.” Putin declared that “the West seems to be set to
cancel these millennia-old values,” which Russia embraces. He criticized the
West for “escalating Russophobia, praising traitors, mocking their victims’
memory and crossing out the courage of those who won the Victory through
suffering.” These statements paint an unflattering picture of the West.
Differentiation. Having attacked NATO for hostile intent, Putin dis-
tinguished his “special miliary operation” in Ukraine from an invasion:
“Russia launched a pre-emptive strike at the aggression” of NATO. This
characterization indicates that Russia did not invade Ukraine; rather, it
attempted to preempt hostility toward Russia.
Provocation. Putin took this speech as an opportunity to argue that
Ukraine, NATO, and the United States had threatened Russia:

Another punitive operation in Donbass, an invasion of our

historic lands, including Crimea, was openly in the making.
Kiev declared that it could attain nuclear weapons. The NATO
bloc launched an active military build-up on the territories
adjacent to us. Thus, an absolutely unacceptable threat to us
was steadily being created right on our borders. There was
every indication that a clash with neo-Nazis and Banderites
backed by the United States and their minions was unavoidable.
Let me repeat, we saw the military infrastructure being built
up, hundreds of foreign advisors starting work, and regular
supplies of cutting-edge weaponry being delivered from NATO
countries. The threat grew every day.

He argued that Ukraine was preparing for an offensive in Donbass and

Crimea. He pointed to the buildup of forces near Russia. Notice that Putin
suggests that neo-Nazis were part of the threat against Russia. This idea
reinforces his attempt to bolster Russia’s reputation based on its defeat
of Nazism in World War II. He also argued that NATO members were
sending military advisors and weapons to be used against Russia.
Evaluation. Putin’s use of bolstering was unlikely to persuade those
who were not already on his side. His use of attack accuser probably
would not sway the undecided either. His use of differentiation is weak;
calling the invasion a “special military operation” cannot disguise it as
anything other than it was. Finally, the argument that Russia responded
to provocation did not comport with the facts. Lawler (2022) reported
 Presidential Image Repair on Starting and Ending Wars | 67

that Putin “claimed Ukrainian forces provoked the conflict, despite the
fact that Russia has built up a force of over 150,000 troops on Ukraine’s
borders over several months. He argued on Monday that Ukraine has
no right to exist as an independent country.” In contrast, NATO did not
move any troops until after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Forty thousand
troops in Europe are under NATO’s direct command” (Foy 2022). NATO
activated “a rapid response force, formed of up to 10,000 troops . . . for
the first time in the alliance’s history” after Russia invaded Ukraine (Foy
2022). This image repair discourse was unlikely to succeed at persuading
those who criticized Putin for invading a sovereign nation.

President Joe Biden’s Speech on Afghanistan

After the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States and
coalition forces invaded Afghanistan to expel the Taliban in Operation
Enduring Freedom. The Taliban’s Islamic Emirate was replaced with the
US-backed Islamic Republic (“War in Afghanistan” 2022). In February 2020
President Donald Trump reached an agreement with the Taliban that US
forces would be withdrawn from Afghanistan in exchange for cessation
of attacks on US troops. In accordance with this agreement, President
Joe Biden ordered withdrawal of American troops from this country, an
operation completed by August 30, 2021 (“Withdrawal” 2022).
This military operation did not go smoothly. The Taliban overcame
the Afghanistan government’s Islamic Republic on August 15 and rees-
tablished the Islamic Emirate. Although some people supported Biden’s
withdrawal, bipartisan criticism of his planning for withdrawal erupted
(“Withdrawal” 2022). For example, Collinson observed,

The debacle of the U.S. defeat and chaotic retreat in Afghanistan

is a political disaster for Joe Biden, whose failure to orchestrate
an urgent and orderly exit will further rock a presidency plagued
by crises and stain his legacy. . . . The true magnitude of the
crisis can only be judged in the human tragedy of a people
again subject to Taliban persecution. And a failure to fulfill
the now apparently near-impossible tasks of evacuating all
the Afghan translators, workers and fixers on whom the U.S.
relied and who now face Taliban retribution would besmirch
America’s conscience and global reputation. (2021)
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These events affected public opinion of the president. Page, Brown, and
Quarshie (2021) reported that only 26 percent of Americans approved
of Biden’s handling of the withdrawal of American troops from Afghan-
istan; his overall approval rating dropped to 41 percent. The disaster of
America’s withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan clearly threatened Joe
Biden’s reputation. This situation prompted image repair from President
Biden. This chapter analyzes Biden’s image repair effort in these messages.

President Joe Biden’s Image Repair

on the Afghanistan Troop Withdrawal

President Biden gave a speech on his troop withdrawal on July 8, 2021.

Biden answered questions after his statement. Days later, on August 15,
the Taliban recaptured the Afghan government and military. The president
then gave a televised interview on ABC on August 19, 2021. Each image
repair message will be analyzed separately.

President Biden’s July 8 Speech on Afghanistan Withdrawal

The president deployed five image repair strategies in this speech (and the
interview that followed it): simple denial, bolstering, shift blame, deflect
attention, and corrective action. Each of these strategies will be analyzed
in this section.
Simple Denial. After the speech (all quotations can be found in
Biden 2021), one of the questions assumed that the mission to withdraw
troops had failed. Biden disputed this assumption: “The mission hasn’t
failed yet.” This declaration is a clear and direct denial of this criticism.
Bolstering. The president asserted that America had accomplished two
important goals in the military action in this country: “The United States
did what we went to do in Afghanistan: to get the terrorists who attacked
us on 9/11 and to deliver justice to Osama Bin Laden, and to degrade the
terrorist threat to keep Afghanistan from becoming a base from which
attacks could be continued against the United States. We achieved those
objectives.” Killing Osama Bin Laden and fighting terrorism were goals
that surely appeared desirable to his audience, making this an instance
of bolstering. He also explained, “Together, with our NATO Allies and
partners, we have trained and equipped nearly 300,000 current serving
members of the Afghan National Security Force, and many beyond that
 Presidential Image Repair on Starting and Ending Wars | 69

who are no longer serving. Add to that, hundreds of thousands more

Afghan National Defense and Security Forces trained over the last two
decades. We provided our Afghan partners with all the tools—let me
emphasize: all the tools, training, and equipment of any modern military.
We provided advanced weaponry.” Biden touted training and equipping
the Afghanistan military in this speech. This is another example of bol-
stering in this address.
One concern in the withdrawal from Afghanistan was the specter
of retribution by the Taliban against translators and other Afghans who
had worked with the United States during its operations in the country.
Addressing this concern, the president declared, “We’ve already dramatically
accelerated the procedure time for Special Immigrant Visas to bring them
to the United States. Since I was inaugurated on January 20th, we’ve already
approved 2,500 Special Immigrant Visas to come to the United States.” Not
only did he acclaim his work on speeding up the Special Immigrant Visa
(SIV) process; he also bragged about how many people had already left
Afghanistan for the United States and who received their visas: “There’s
already about a thousand people have gotten on aircraft and come to the
United States already on commercial aircraft. So, as I said, there’s over
2,500 people that from January to now, have gotten those visas.” So Biden
praised his work to help those who worked with the United States in
Afghanistan and who were at risk for retaliation from the Taliban.
Shift Blame. The president argued that he had “inherited” this crisis
from the previous president, Donald Trump: “The United States, in the
last administration, made an agreement with the Taliban to remove all
our forces by May 1 of this year. That’s what I inherited.” The argument
suggests that because Trump agreed to the troop withdrawal, Biden should
not be blamed for it, a clear example of shifting blame.
Deflect Attention. Biden worked to refocus his audience’s attention
away from Afghanistan. He observed, “Today, the terrorist threat has
metastasized beyond Afghanistan. So, we are repositioning our resources
and adapting our counterterrorism posture to meet the threats where
they are now significantly higher: in South Asia, the Middle East, and
Africa.” In addition to trying to redirect attention to other hot spots for
terrorism, the president also attempted to shift his audience’s attention
to other issues: “We have to defeat COVID-19 at home and around the
world, make sure we’re better prepared for the next pandemic or biological
threat. We need to establish international norms for cyberspace and the
use of emerging technologies. We need to take concerted action to fight
70 | Accounts, Excuses, and Apologies

existential threats of climate change.” Biden pointed to other problems,

such as COVID-19, other potential pandemics, cyberspace, new technol-
ogies, and climate change. He offered a variety of other topics to think
about instead of the Afghanistan troop withdrawal. Notice that unlike
many Republican attempts to deflect attention (e.g., Trump’s efforts to shift
attention to his opponents, noted in chapter 2), Democrat Biden does not
attack Republicans in his efforts at deflecting attention.
Corrective Action. President Biden also utilized the strategy of cor-
rective action. He noted, “We’re working closely with Congress to change
the authorization legislation so that we can streamline the process of
approving those [SIV] visas.” This move was designed to address concern
about retaliation against Afghans who helped the United States.

President Biden’s August 19 Interview with

George Stephanopoulos on Afghanistan Withdrawal

Biden’s image repair in this interview was instantiated with five primary
strategies: shift blame, defeasibility, bolstering, deflect attention, and
corrective action. Each of these ideas will be examined separately. The
president’s remarks can be found in the transcript of his interview (ABC
News 2021).
Shift Blame. President Biden’s discourse attempted to shift the blame
for these problems. He shifted the blame to President Trump for the deci-
sion to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and to the Afghan government
and troops for the collapse of the government.
The president observed, “The last president [Donald Trump] negoti-
ated a year earlier that he’d be out by May 1st and that in return there’d be
no attack on American forces.” Biden reinforced this idea when he noted
that “the last president said, ‘We’re leaving. And here’s the deal I wanna
make with you. We’re leaving if you agree not to attack us between now
and the time we leave on May the 1st.’ ” When Joe Biden came into the
presidency, his predecessor had already made a deal to withdraw American
forces from Afghanistan. So the current president shifted blame to the
last president for this decision.
The president explained, “I don’t think anybody anticipated . . . that
somehow, the 300,000 troops we had trained and equipped was gonna
just collapse.” He also pointed to problems with the withdrawal of troops
from Afghanistan that had occurred: “When you had the government of
Afghanistan, the leader of that government [President Ashraf Ghani] get
 Presidential Image Repair on Starting and Ending Wars | 71

in a plane and taking off and going to another country, when you saw the
significant collapse of the Afghan troops we had trained—up to 300,000
of them just leaving their equipment and taking off . . . that’s what hap-
pened.” Biden, in other words, could hardly be blamed for this disaster
if the Afghan president and the Afghan troops gave up.
Defeasibility. Biden argued that the basic situation in Afghanistan
was fraught with danger. He declared, “There was no good time to leave
Afghanistan” and that “getting out would be messy no matter when it
occurred.” These assertions can best be understood as instances of defea-
sibility. Criticism of his withdrawal was moot because it would not matter
if the action had been taken earlier or later than he took it; removal of
US troops, he implied, could not have been accomplished better.
Bolstering. This image repair discourse included the assertion that
the United States was in Afghanistan “for two reasons. . . . One, to get Bin
Laden, and two, to wipe out as best we could, and we did, the Al Qaeda
in Afghanistan. We did it.” This statement lays claim to two successes:
killing Osama Bin Laden and eliminating Al Qaeda.
Deflect Attention. The president pointed to several other problems
happening in other places: “Look what’s happened to the Uighurs in western
China. Look what’s happening in other parts of the world. Look what’s
happenin’ in, you know, the Congo. I mean, there are a lotta places where
women are being subjugated.” This utterance could be meant to encourage
his audience to think about other problems rather than Afghanistan. Biden
also suggested that people should focus on “what’s going on in the Middle
East and North Africa . . . and Western Africa. The idea that we can so
that [focus on Afghanistan] and ignore those looming problems, growing
problems is not rational.” Again, the president clearly wanted people to
think about other problems instead of Afghanistan.
Corrective Action. Biden also worked to bolster his image by stressing
several actions he had taken to help resolve this crisis: “We had already
issued several thousand passports to the SIVs, the people—the translators
when I came into office before we had negotiated getting out at the end
of August. Secondly, we’re in a position where what we did was took pre-
cautions. That’s why I authorized that there be 6,000 American troops to
flow in to accommodate this exit, number one. And number two, provided
all that aircraft in the Gulf to get people out.” The president touted his
provision of thousands of special passports to translators, his authorization
of troops to help the exit, and his authorization of aircraft to support the
evacuation from the Kabul airport. Biden wanted it known that he had
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taken steps to deal with this situation. He also declared, “We’re gonna do
everything in our power to get all Americans out and our allies out.” This
promise was rather vague.

Conclusion and Implications

The withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan clearly was a

debacle; the US-backed government had collapsed, as had the troops we
had trained and equipped. President Joe Biden was widely blamed for the
disaster—he was the commander-in-chief—and his approval rating on his
handling of Afghanistan and in general dropped sharply. His reputation
had been damaged, so he gave a televised speech (and took questions at
the end) and then sat for an interview with George Stephanopoulos on
ABC in an attempt to stem the hemorrhaging of his reputation.
The collapse of the Afghanistan government and military on August
15, 2021, gave the lie to Biden’s attempt at simple denial (“The mission
hasn’t failed”) and also undermined part of his attempt at bolstering (“we
have trained and equipped nearly 300,000” Afghan security forces). It is
not surprising that he dropped these defenses in the second message.
Arguably, the fact that he felt compelled to give an interview to Steph-
anopoulos implied that Biden felt his first image repair was inadequate.
Biden’s use of defeasibility in the interview (“There was no good
time to leave Afghanistan”) undermined his attempt to shift blame to
Trump for agreeing to the withdrawal. If there was no good time to leave,
why was Trump’s agreement blameworthy? Furthermore, Biden (and his
military advisors) devised and implemented the withdrawal, not Trump.
How could Trump reasonably be blamed for the calamity in Afghanistan?
The president’s use of corrective action was ineffectual as well. He
proposed no action to help the withdrawal (although July was late in
the process) and some of his corrective action was too vague to be very
persuasive. Deflect attention was not very impressive: listing some of the
many problems in the world does little to counteract this debacle.
Relying on the strategy of defeasibility can be risky. Realistically, some
problems are beyond the power of a president to solve. However, ultimately
this is essentially a strategy of weakness: “Defeasibility, if accepted by the
audience, exonerates the accused from blame, but it does not portray him
or her as in charge of the situation” (Benoit 2006, 299). It might well be
the case that there was no good time to withdraw troops from Afghani-
 Presidential Image Repair on Starting and Ending Wars | 73

stan, that the problems plaguing the withdrawal were inevitable. However,
President Biden may have weakened his image to some extent by his
attempt to shift the blame for the debacle to the government and military
of Afghanistan; he as much as admitted that he was not really in control
of the situation. His use of Bin Laden and the fight against terrorism as
support for bolstering likely helped his image to some extent—but not
enough to turn the tide of public opinion in his favor.
At best, Biden’s image repair effort stabilized his approval rating at
around 50 percent; it was unable to stem the fall to 36 percent in July
2022 (Reuters 2022). Obviously other problems (such as the rise of gas
prices, which passed five dollars per gallon for regular gas in June [AAA,
2022]) arose, but Biden was unable to raise his lowered approval rating
even in the short term. Overall, as one would expect, Republicans had
a higher disapproval rating (and lower approval rating) of Biden than
Democrats. Nevertheless, declines in net approval rating occurred among
members of both parties.
This chapter examines presidential image repair from two quite
different presidents: Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President
Joe Biden. It also looks at discourse from the beginning of one set of mil-
itary operations (in Ukraine) and the end of another set (in Afghanistan).
Neither image repair effort was very effective.