Few successful candidates have ever entered the White House with quite so much experience as Joe Biden or with so many challenges to deal with. Sworn into office only a couple of weeks after the assault on Congress in a city where over 25,000 troops had been drafted in to maintain order, the circumstances of his inauguration were extraordinary by any measure. Faced by an outgoing president who refused to accept defeat in a deeply polarized nation where the COVID-19 pandemic still continued to kill Americans in great numbers – on the day when Biden officially became president the virus had already claimed over 400,000 lives – Biden faced an uphill struggle even to restore some degree of normality into American political life, let alone successfully tackle the many problems the US was facing both at home and abroad. As one newspaper of a decidedly liberal bent commented at the time, the passing of power from what it called a ‘dangerous man’ to one set on healing his country was a relief. Even so, American democracy still remained at peril. Biden, however, was clear in his own mind that if America was to regain its equilibrium it had to end what he termed ‘this uncivil war’ that was pitting red state against blue state, ‘rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal’. He was equally clear that the foreign policy he would be pursuing would be very different from that of his predecessor, and that once elected he would repair America's ‘alliances and engage with the world once again’. Biden did at least attempt to make good on this promise, much to the relief of US allies around the world. Yet, one suspects that his foreign policy will be increasingly viewed through the prism of Afghanistan and his controversial decision to pull US forces out by a specific date. Meanwhile, he faces a whole range of other problems, one of which of course is the increasingly deep divide within America itself. The United States may indeed remain the most powerful country in the world, but one suspects that until it can heal itself, then there is every chance it will remain what one American called many years ago a ‘crippled giant’ with more power at its disposal than any other nation in the world, but so polarized at home that it will be unable to use it wisely or well.