The rhetorical dimension of the justification for the absence of direct military support for Ukraine in Joe Biden’s statements
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29107//rr2026.1.4Słowa kluczowe:
retoryka, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., motywacja, działania niemilitarne, UkrainaAbstrakt
W artykule analizuję motywację leżącą u podstaw wypowiedzi prezydenta Josepha R. Bidena, Jr., dotyczących braku bezpośredniej interwencji militarnej Stanów Zjednoczonych w odpowiedzi na rosyjską agresję na Ukrainę. W badaniu wykorzystuję pentadę Kennetha Burke’a jako kluczowe narzędzie do analizy, w jaki sposób prezydent celowo kształtował percepcję publiczną poprzez strategiczny dobór słownictwa i selektywną interpretację wydarzeń. W konkluzjach stwierdzam, że wypowiedzi Bidena, uzasadniające niemilitarną reakcję USA na konflikt, są głęboko osadzone w paradygmacie realizmu politycznego. Ponadto, w analizie potwierdzam tezę, że stanowisko Stanów Zjednoczonych wobec Ukrainy stanowi przemyślaną i aktywną politykę działania, a nie bierność. Wyniki te przyczyniają się do pogłębienia zrozumienia mechanizmów retoryki braku użycia siły w kontekście ewoluującego porządku geopolitycznego po zakończeniu zimnej wojny.
Pobrania
Bibliografia
“President Biden Job Approval – Foreign Policy.” RealClear Polling. Accessed August 14, 2025. https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/joe-biden/issues/foreign-policy.
“Presidential Job Approval Center.” Gallup. Accessed August 14, 2025. https://news.gallup.com/interactives/507569/presidential-job-approval-center.aspx.
Abdulla, Saza Ahmed Fakhry. 2024. “A Stylistic Analysis of Joe Biden's Inaugural Political Speech.” International Journal of Linguistics, Literature & Translation 7 (7): 1–7.
Ahmed, Mervat M. 2023. “De-Legitimating the Russian War in Ukraine in US President Biden’s Speeches: A Critical Discourse Analysis.” Journal of English and Comparative Studies 5 (1): 133–149.
Al-Khawaldeh, Nisreen N., Luqman M. Rababah, Ali F. Khawaldeh, and Alaeddin A. Banikalef. 2023. “The Art of Rhetoric: Persuasive Strategies in Biden’s Inauguration Speech: A Critical Discourse Analysis.” Humanities and Social Sciences Communication 10 (936). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02450-y.
Altamimi, Sadiq. 2024. “The Coalition of the Willing and Pro-Natoism: Russia–Ukraine Anti-War Discourse.” Cognitive Studies 24. https://doi.org/10.11649/cs.3037.
Aluya, Isaiah, and Bagaiya Zidyeb N. 2025. “Language in Conflict Situation: Investigating Discursive Strategies in President Joe Biden’s Speech on the Russian-Ukraine War.” Language in India 25 (2): 104–119.
Amaireh, Hanan A., and Luqman M. Rababah. 2022. “Rhetorical Discourse Analysis of Biden’s Address to the Nation on Afghanistan: Positive Us and Negative Them.” Journal of Positive School Psychology 6 (8): 908–918.
Anikyan, Tamara. 2021. “Expressive Potential of Prosody in the Inaugural Rhetoric on the Material of 2021 Joe Biden Speech.” Litera 8: 70–80.
Asif, Nimra. 2023. The Role of Symbolic Politics in Shaping Political Attitudes: A Study of Trump and Biden’s Campaign Speeches. Akron: Williams Honors College.
Bell, Samuel J. M. 2022. Vaccine Hesitancy and Biden’s Rhetoric. Lynchburg: Liberty University.
Ben-Porath, Eran N. 2007. “Rhetoric of Atrocities: The Place of Horrific Human Rights Abuses in Presidential Persuasion Efforts.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 37 (2): 181–202.
Bentley, Michelle. 2014. “Strategic Taboos: Chemical Weapons and US Foreign Policy.” International Affairs 90 (5): 1033–1048.
Bentley, Michelle. 2015. “The Problem with the Chemical Weapons Taboo.” Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice 27: 228–236.
Bentley, Michelle. 2016. Syria and the Chemical Weapons Taboo: Exploiting the Forbidden. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Bentley, Michelle. 2017. “The Intervention Taboo(S): Strategy and Normative Invalidation.” Review of International Studies 43 (3): 557–580.
Bhaskar, Roy. 2008. A Realist Theory of Science. London: Routledge.
Bhusal, Purna C. 2024. “Rhetoric of Repairs: Pathos Analysis of Joe Biden’s Victory Speech.” The Spectrum 2 (1): 18–35.
Birdsell, David S. 1987. “Ronald Reagan on Lebanon and Grenada: Flexibility and Interpretation in the Application of Kenneth Burke’s Pentad.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 73: 267–279.
Bostdorff, Denise M. 1994. The Presidency and the Rhetoric of Foreign Crisis. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.
Boutgoumas, Nazim, and Kahina Boualam. 2024. Contrasting J. Biden’s and V. Putin’s Selected Speeches about the Ukraine Conflict (2022-2024) from a Dialogic Perspective. Tizi Ouzou: Mouloud Mammeri University of Tizi-Ouzou.
Brock, Bernard L. 1989. “Rhetorical Criticism. A Burkean Approach Revisited.” In Methods of Rhetorical Criticism: A Twentieth-century Perspective, ed. Bernard L. Brock, Robert L. Scott, and James W. Chesebro, 183–195. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
Brockriede, Wayne, and Douglas Ehninger. 1960. “Toulmin on Argument: An Interpretation and Application.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 46: 44–53.
Burke, Kenneth. 1969. A Grammar of Motives. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Burke, Kenneth. 1970. Permanence and Change: An Anatomy of Purpose. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Burns, Rebecca. 2007. “Race, Religion, and Rhetoric: The Challenges of Depicting Genocide in Rwanda and Sudan.” Undergraduate Journal of International Studies 1 (1): 34–40.
Domínguez-García, Ricardo, Sandra Méndez-Muros, Concha Pérez Curiel, and Mónica Hinojosa-Becerra. 2023. “Political Polarization and Emotion Rhetoric in the US Presidential Transition: A Comparative Study of Trump and Biden on Twitter and the Post-Election Impact on the Public.” Profesional de la información 32 (6). https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2023.nov.06.
Eissler, Rebecca, Annelise Russell, and Sean Theriault. 2025. “Comparing Traditional Presidential Rhetoric: Trump Versus Biden.” American Politics Research 53 (1): 80–85.
Fajri, Bagas Al, Zanuwar Hakim Atmantika, and Galant Nanta Adhitya. 2022. “An Appraisal Analysis on Joe Biden’s Rhetoric of Gun Control.” Rubikon: Journal of Transnational American Studies 9 (2): 244–253.
Fisher, Walter R. 1970. “A Motive View of Communication.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 56: 131–139.
Foss, Sonja K. 1996. Rhetorical Criticism. Exploration and Practice. Long Grove: Waveland Press.
Gruley, Joel, and Chris S. Duvall. 2012. “The Evolving Narrative of the Darfur Conflict as Represented in ‘The New York Times’ And ‘The Washington Post,’ 2003-2009.” GeoJournal 77 (1): 29–46.
Heidt, Stephen J. 2021. Resowing the Seeds of War: Presidential Peace Rhetoric since 1945. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.
Heinze, Eric A. 2007. “The Rhetoric of Genocide in U.S. Foreign Policy: Rwanda and Darfur Compared.” Political Science Quarterly 122 (3): 359–383.
Imran, Said, Saqib Raza, and Zafran Saeed. 2024. “Critical Discourse Analysis of Discursive Strategies Utilized in President Joe Biden’s Inaugural Speech.” International Journal of Social Science Archives 7 (3): 560–573.
Ivie, Robert L. 1974. “Presidential Motives for War.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 60 (3): 337–345.
Jasinski, James. 2001. Sourcebook on Rhetoric: Key Concepts in Contemporary Rhetorical Studies. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Jiménez-Preciado, Ana, José Álvarez-García, Salvador Cruz-Aké, and Francisco Venegas-Martínez. 2025. “The Power of Words from the 2024 United States Presidential Debates: A Natural Language Processing Approach.” Information 16 (2). https://doi.org/10.3390/info16010002.
Jones, Jeffrey M. 2025. “Biden Job Approval Second Lowest Among Post-WWII Presidents.” Gallup. Accessed August 14, 2025. https://news.gallup.com/poll/655298/biden-job-approval-second-lowest-among-post-wwii-presidents.aspx.
Kellner, Douglas. 2007. “Bushspeak and the Politics of Lying: Presidential Rhetoric in the ‘War on Terror.’” Presidential Studies Quarterly 37 (4): 622–645.
Khan, Mamona Yasmin, and Anab Fatima. 2022. “Power and Ideologies in Discourse: A Political Discourse Analysis of Biden’s Selected Speeches.” City University Research Journal of Literature and Linguistics 5 (2). http://cusitjournals.com/index.php/CURJLL.
King, Andrew. 2009. “Pentadic Criticism. The Wheels of Creation.” In Rhetorical Criticism. Perspectives in Action, ed. Jim A. Kuypers, 165-179. Lanham: Lexington Books.
Ma’arif, Hilman Mahmud Akmal. 2023. “Critical Discourse Analysis of President Joe Biden’s Russophobia Rhetorical Remarks Prior to the 77th United Nations General Assembly.” Islamic World and Politics 7 (1): 46–63.
Mahfoud, Nassim, and Roukaya Khaldaoui. 2022. “A Critical Discourse Analysis of Biden’s First Speech on the War in Ukraine from the Perspective of Ideological Square Model.” International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation 6 (3): 132–143.
McClelland, David C. 1987. Human motivation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mearsheimer, John. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York: W. W. Norton.
Morgenthau, Hans J. 1967. Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Mustafa, Shaimaa. 2023. “A Fairclough-based Analysis of Persuasive Strategies in Trump and Biden's Speeches.” Brazilian English Language Teaching Journal 14 (1): 1–20.
Nurkhamidah, Neni, Raihana Ziani Fahira, and Ayu Ratna Ningtyas. 2021. “Rhetorical Analysis of Joe Biden’s Inauguration Address.” Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching 7 (2): 73–82.
Oleinik, Anton. 2025. “Assessing Wartime Leaders’ Motives: A Comparative Study of the Russo- Ukrainian War and the World War II.” Conflict Resolution Quarterly 43 (1): 61–77. https://doi. org/10.1002/crq.21479.
Price, Richard. 2019. “Syria and the Chemical Weapons Taboo.” Journal of Global Security Studies 4 (1): 37–52.
Reeves, Joshua, and Matthew S. May. 2014. “The Peace Rhetoric of a War President: Barack Obama and the Just War Legacy.” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 16: 623–650.
Rheem, Diya Salim, and Tawfiq Majid Ahmad. 2022. “A Pragmatic Study of Irony in Trump’s and Biden’s Speeches.” Al-Bahith Journal 98.
Rouabhia, Ridha. 2024. “Discourse and Power in Presidential Rhetoric: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Biden’s State of the Union Address.” SSRN. Accessed August 14, 2025. https://ssrn. com/abstract=4957521.
Salek, Thomas A. 2022. “’This Is a Great Nation, and We are a Good People’: President Joe Biden’s Inaugural Address and Attitude of Empathy.” Southern Communication Journal 87 (2): 138–150.
Smeltz, Dina, and Lama El Baz. 2024. “Americans See High Stakes for Western Security in Russia- Ukraine War.” The Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Accessed August 14, 2025. https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/americans-see-high-stakes-western-security-russia-ukraine-war#footnoteref2_k62gaGg1I8SwhoMh8rvWwooDthsexUmDDZSo5C76k_ dsxSXOmmAJ1B.
Smeltz, Dina, Karl Friedhoff, Craig Kafura, Lama El Baz, and Libby Berry. 2024. “America’s Foreign Policy Future: Public Opinion and the 2024 Election.” The Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Accessed August 14, 2025. https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/americas-foreign-policy-future-public-opinion-and-2024-election.
Tymoshchuk, Nataliia. 2023. “Euphemisms in Modern Political Discourse: Joseph Biden’s Speeches in the War in Ukraine.” Alfred Nobel University Journal of Philology 26 (2): 210–224.
van Middelaar, Luuk. 2024. “The Return of History in the Present.” Council of Europe History. Accessed August 14, 2025. https://x.com/CoE_History/status/1874003810877936078.
Walter, Otis M. 1955. “Toward an analysis of motivation.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 41 (3): 271–278. https://doi.org/10.1080/00335635509382081.
Waltz, Kenneth. 1979. Theory of International Politics. Reading: Addison-Wesley.
Xiang, Qiujian. 2022. “Transitivity analysis of Joe Biden’s inaugural address from the perspective of systemic functional grammar.” Theory and Practice in Language Studies 12 (1): 165–169. https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1201.20.
Pobrania
Opublikowane
Numer
Dział
Licencja
Prawa autorskie (c) 2026 "Res Rhetorica"

Utwór dostępny jest na licencji Creative Commons Uznanie autorstwa 4.0 Międzynarodowe.
Artykuły publikowane są na lincencji CC BY 4.0. Treść licencji jest dostępna tutaj: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Artykuły opublikowane na licencji CC-BY (wersje postprint) mogą być udostępniane przez autorów każdemu, na dowolnej platformie lub za pośrednictwem dowolnego kanału komunikacyjnego pod warunkiem, że zostały przypisane do Res Rhetorica jako pierwotnego wydawcy.