Joe Biden chairs US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

Biden was also a long-time member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. In 1997, he became the ranking minority member and chaired the committee from June 2001 through 2003. When Democrats re-took control of the Senate following the 2006 elections, Biden again assumed the top spot on the committee in 2007. Biden was generally a liberal internationalist in foreign policy. He collaborated effectively with important Republican Senate figures such as Richard Lugar and Jesse Helms and sometimes went against elements of his own party. Biden was also co-chair of the NATO Observer Group in the Senate. A partial list covering this time showed Biden meeting with some 150 leaders from nearly 60 countries and international organizations. Biden held frequent hearings as chair of the committee, as well as holding many subcommittee hearings during the three times he chaired the Subcommittee on European Affairs.
During his first decade in the Senate, Biden focused on arms control issues. In response to the refusal of the U.S. Congress to ratify the SALT II Treaty signed in 1979 by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter, Biden took the initiative to meet the Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, educated him about American concerns and interests, and secured several changes to address objections of the Foreign Relations Committee. When the Reagan administration wanted to interpret the 1972 SALT I Treaty loosely in order to allow the Strategic Defense Initiative to proceed, Biden argued for strict adherence to the treaty's terms. Biden clashed again with the Reagan administration in 1986 over economic sanctions against South Africa, leading to a heated exchange between the senator and Secretary of State George P. Shultz.
Biden became interested in the Yugoslav Wars after hearing about Serbian abuses during the Croatian War of Independence in 1991. Once the Bosnian War broke out, Biden was among the first to call for the "lift and strike" policy o...

He chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and sits on the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security. Biden ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988. His campaign was tainted, however, when he was accused of plagiarizing a stump speech from a British Labour Party leader.

He returned to the Senate to become a prominent foreign policy voice in the 1990s, particularly on the Balkans conflicts. He has traveled to the region many times and was a proponent for U.S. intervention there. Biden has also been a strong advocate for nuclear nonproliferation efforts.
Biden's proposal for resolving the conflict in Iraq continued to generate discussion late into 2007. Biden, along with CFR President Emeritus Leslie H. Gelb, back creation of a federal state in Iraq with Kurdish, Sunni, and Shia autonomous regions. Biden was also one of the only candidates to support using U.S. ground forces to end the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region.
Before being selected as Obama’s running mate, Biden ran for the Democratic nomination, dropping out of the race in January 2008.