The chaos abroad that has marked Joe Biden’s presidency is accelerating.
Russia’s bloody war on Ukraine is rolling from winter into late spring; Iran
and its proxies are launching missiles into Iraq and Saudi Arabia; China is
menacing Taiwan and other Asian neighbours, and North Korea is preparing to
revive its nuclear programme. Meanwhile, long-time US friends like Saudi Arabia
and newer partners like India are starting to hedge their bets by cosying up to
these regimes.
Is the post-Cold War, US-led world order fracturing? It certainly looks like
it. America’s enemies no longer fear her — and her friends don’t wholly trust
her. Without a sea change in White House thinking, this is a recipe for a
return to the might-makes-right eras of the twentieth century, where the United
States was just one power among many, autocrats gained strength and the world
eventually descended into war.
This increasingly menacing outlook is jarring to many Americans, in large
part because the post-Cold War era felt so hopeful. With the Soviet threat
eliminated, the United States could shift its focus from war to development,
using its capital and goodwill to seed prosperity and peace around the world.
Who can forget Bill Clinton’s cheerleading of Communist China into the World
Trade Organisation? Or the western bankers who eagerly rushed into post-Soviet
Russia? Or George W. Bush’s hard work to secure free-trade agreements the world
over? Those were heady times.
The nature of US democracy has always been inherently optimistic — a great
strength that’s allowed for leadership and creativity in foreign policy, but
also a strategic weakness when it tips into naivete. Spreading capitalist
models in places like China and Russia, in hindsight, didn’t create the
groundswell for democratisation that Democratic and Republican administrations
alike anticipated. Instead, US corporations shipped jobs to Shenzhen and
Shanghai, taking advantage of lower labour costs to increase productivity
and profits. Meanwhile, the men in the Kremlin and Zhongnanhai enriched
themselves, enlarged their militaries and encouraged US politicians to keep the
funds flowing. Democracy creation, it turns out, required more than empowering
autocratic elites.
Not a single Biden political appointee was fired or resigned after the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle
These arrangements were bound to fail at some point as populist anger about
job offshoring bubbled up — and it did, with the election of Donald Trump in
2016. But America’s reckoning with authoritarian nations could have — should
have — come far sooner, had history taken a different turn. George W. Bush, for
instance, might have zeroed in on the growing Chinese menace after the People’s
Liberation Army downed a US spy plane near Hainan Island in April 2001, had the
subsequent September 11 attacks not subsumed his two-term presidency.
The War on Terror was a distraction to American global leadership on a scale
that is only now becoming clear. It is no coincidence that Vladimir Putin
occupied parts of Georgia while the Bush administration focused on the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq. The Pentagon, NGOs and defence contractors had stakes in
continuing those wars, even though multiple presidents concluded there was no
vital US interest in maintaining large footprints in either nation. After two
decades of fighting, the American public understandably soured on the use of
force abroad, given the cost in blood and treasure.
Is it any wonder that US voters elected presidents who reduced America’s
role leading the post-Cold War, liberal international order? Barack Obama
personified this trend by forging deals with dictators he liked and subjugating
American leadership to international organisations. Donald Trump halted the
American retreat from the world, bolstered US deterrence, and tried to get
allies to work together and shoulder more of the defence burden. But President
Biden is reviving the Obama trend, most recently in his abrupt order to abandon
Afghanistan to Taliban rule.
Biden’s aversion to the use or threat of military force cannot be
overestimated. As vice president, he reportedly opposed the operation to
kill Osama bin Laden. As a presidential candidate, he lamented the killing of
Iran’s top terrorist, Qasem Soleimani, arguing that his death would only
provoke Tehran. As president, he has indulged Iran in nuclear talks while the
regime launches attacks across the Middle East, declined to support Cuba’s
pro-democracy protesters for fear of angering Havana, and has taken a softer
line on Beijing, even as Xi Jinping threatens his neighbours. The world’s bad
actors have rapidly stepped up their aggression over the past year because they
are no longer afraid of suffering serious consequences.
Putin’s barbarous invasion of Ukraine is the key test of whether the Biden
administration has the will to reverse these worrying trends by restoring US
deterrence. So far, the signs are not encouraging. Even before the Russian
assault began, the president repeatedly stated that he wouldn’t deploy US
troops in Ukraine, which eliminated potentially helpful ambiguities and reduced
the cost to Russia of a potential invasion. The US intelligence community
released impressive, detailed information about Putin’s war plans, but
observing a problem doesn’t solve it. In vowing to defend Nato territory, the
president raised questions about whether he would send US troops to defend non-Nato
allies in Europe — or further afield.
Nor did the State Department corral European allies into exerting extreme,
unified financial pressure on Putin and his oligarchs to stop the war. The
United States acquiesced when Europeans lobbied to keep Russian oil and gas
imports flowing, providing Moscow with capital to pay for its predations. The
Treasury department included carveouts in Swift sanctions for banks which
continued to facilitate Russian energy flows. Secondary sanctions that would
have punished Putin’s enablers in places like China have been kept off the
table. If the United States doesn’t press its European allies to make hard
choices, they rarely do.
The United States, Britain and other European partners continue to send
weaponry and materiel to the Ukrainian armed forces, which is commendable. But
they have also slow-walked sending the specific military aid for which
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has begged, including MiG fighter jets,
S-300 air defence systems, and other heavy weaponry. The Biden White House
ruled out the prospect of establishing a humanitarian no-fly zone, for fear of
Putin’s reaction. The Ukrainian people won’t soon forget these decisions.
Biden’s advisors are part of the problem. Many served in the Obama
administration and share the president’s views, applying dovish Obama-era
tactics to the far more dangerous world of 2022. Not a single Biden political
appointee was fired or resigned after the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle.
President Biden’s weakness is creating alarm and unexpected policy shifts in
friendly foreign capitals. Germany’s declaration that it will reduce its
reliance on Russian energy is welcome, but its commitment to rearm has rarely
turned out well for Europe. Saudi Arabia wouldn’t be exploring the idea of
receiving payment for its oil exports in yuan — a move that, if enacted, would threaten
the US dollar’s reserve currency status — if Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
weren’t unsure about America’s commitment to deterring Tehran, the world’s
largest state sponsor of terrorism. India might not be buying Russian gas if it
had confidence in sustainable access to cheaper US alternatives.
President Biden doesn’t have much time to change tack. Russia’s war on
Ukraine is already flooding Eastern and Central Europe with millions of
refugees. If Putin manages to conquer Ukraine or even extract concessions out
of Kyiv, his track record suggests he’ll meddle in other nations. Rogue regimes
also routinely watch and work with each other. If the recent warm meeting
between Russia’s and China’s foreign ministers were any indication, their
relationship is growing warmer by the day. And if Russia can win, even
partially, in Ukraine, why wouldn’t a far more prosperous and militarily
competent China take Taiwan?
Encouragingly, an emerging, bipartisan congressional consensus seems to want
to get tougher with the Putins and Xis of the world — and isn’t starry-eyed
about it. There is no appetite to revive democratisation campaigns, but neither
is there a willingness to let America become just another big power among many.
Ten US senators recently visited
Poland and Germany to consult with allies, meet refugees and show solidarity
with Kyiv. This is a welcome development. If Capitol Hill is regaining its
appetite to back more muscular measures to defeat Vladimir Putin’s westward
march and Xi Jinping’s acquisitive ambitions, it’s very likely because the
politicians are sensing the public’s alarm. Voters might well be realising that
the only way to restore the US-led world order may be to elect a new president.
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