The first week of March, the Biden administration rolled out a speech by Antony Blinken and an interim national security strategy. Those documents overlap significantly with each other and with a report led by Jake Sullivan, now Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor, when he was at the Carnegie Endowment last year.
Any number of authors have shared the 35 things they want Biden to do in his first week and specific solutions to numerous foreign and domestic policy problems, including would-be George Kennans penning their own long telegrams. None seem to have read the administration’s documents. The Carnegie report has been available since last September.
Much of the commentary has leaned on the previous actions of Blinken and other Biden appointees to predict how they will perform in this administration. Many appointees were in the Obama administration, and Biden has known some for longer than that. The past is often a good guide to the future. A devastating pandemic and the destruction of much of the government by office-holding vandals, however, suggest that change is necessary.
The three documents not only acknowledge that change is necessary, they propose numerous changes to how things have been done. Their content overlaps significantly, into what might be called a Biden Doctrine. Here’s my attempt at that formulation.
…
We are living in a time of change. The pandemic has changed everything in our interactions, from friendly gatherings through how we shop to foreign policy. After the pandemic is over, the world will be different. We can choose some of the ways in which it will be different. But even before the pandemic, the world was changing. Climate change, extreme income inequalities, the forever wars, and other problems cannot be ignored. We must build back better.
Our primary national security threats cannot be addressed by military means. The pandemic has killed more than a half-million Americans and disabled others. Climate change threatens coastal cities with inundation and other parts of the country with severe storms. Income inequality and police brutality threaten American citizens. Poor immigration policies have led to a non-citizen population who can be brutalized and a crisis on the southern border. Rightwing terrorism is only now being recognized, after an assault on the US Capitol on January 6.
To engage the rest of the world, we must get our house in order.
For conventional military threats, diplomacy must be pursued before military might is used. Iraq has never recovered from the 2003 war. An attempt to withdraw the US military from Afghanistan is ongoing. US involvement in the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran presents a number of problems. Russia continues its involvement in eastern Ukraine and illegally occupies Crimea.
Nuclear weapons are a danger to all, which nuclear materials security and nonproliferation policies can help to damp down. North Korea’s nuclear arms are a danger to the United States. The United States must rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which helps to maintain Iran’s non-nuclear-weapons status.
China is in a category of its own. Trade between the US and China took a hit with the trade war, which damaged American farmers. China holds large amounts of American debt. As China’s economy enlarges, so does the Chinese military and China’s activity in its neighborhood. That activity can threaten American interests in the area.
Issues are often interrelated. For example, Japan, an American ally, is also threatened by North Korean nuclear missiles and Chinese military activity. Insecurity in Japan could lead to their proliferating a nuclear force of their own. At home, different groups may benefit or lose in foreign policy interactions. Every decision is a balance among contradictory factors that we will try to make in favor of the interests of the American people.
The wisdom and practical understanding necessary to execute these policies can come only with inclusion and diversity.
…
Biden’s transmittal letter for the interim national security strategy begins with change and continues to emphasize change throughout.
In my inaugural address, I committed to engage with the world once again, not to meet yesterday’s challenges, but today’s and tomorrow’s.
Our world is at an inflection point. Global dynamics have shifted. New crises demand our attention. And in this moment of accelerating global challenges — from the pandemic to the climate crisis to nuclear proliferation to the fourth industrial revolution — one thing is certain: we will only succeed in advancing American interests and upholding our universal values by working in common cause with our closest allies and partners, and by renewing our own enduring sources of national strength.
The pandemic is also mentioned early and throughout. Although we have tried through the past year to emulate normal life, the pandemic has changed everything we do – how we work, how children go to school, simply going to the store. It has changed how the government and military carry out their duties. Although the military has said little about its response to the pandemic, the early disabling of the USS Theodore Roosevelt due to crew illness surely led to precautionary measures.
The pandemic is worldwide, with differential national effects and responses. Both allies and adversaries are affected to different degrees. Predicting their political and military positions in a year is difficult to impossible.
On January 20, the disease was out of control in the US. It still is, although the government is beginning to look at strategies that depend on some control. A sharp decrease began before January 20 and continues. The economy is in tatters, with estimates of unemployment at 10% and more, and people quite reasonably unwilling to particpate in events that involve large groups or enclosed spaces, despite the rhetoric of some governors about “opening up.”
The illness, death, and economic damage must stop before life can get back to anything resembling normal. The American Recovery Plan will help get vaccines out and provide financial support to those out of work and others. By summer we are likely to be in a much better situation than we are now, but many effects, including the emotional, will last longer than that.
Although the United States established a disastrous record on deaths, the vaccine rollout looks good. Russia and China seem to be prioritizing sales of their vaccines over availability at home, and Europe has experienced a number of difficulties. Some countries are doing well: India is seeing far fewer infections and deaths than have been seen in the US and Europe.
Controlling the pandemic is Job One.
We don’t know how other countries will come out of the pandemic, which makes it hard to predict what foreign policy should be. Biden has inherited a number of crises in progress. Withdrawal of American and NATO troops was set for May 1, but it looks like that deadline will not be met. The US and Iran are trying to find a way to discuss the US’s re-entry into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which limited Iran’s nuclear activities in return for lifting of sanctions. North Korea continues to build nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them.
The actions of the past four years have damaged our relations with our allies, and we need those allies to deal with those ongoing crises. Relationships must be rebuilt and clarified. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are on their way to visit Japan and South Korea. They explain that visit in terms similar to those used in the interim national security strategy. Biden met with the “Quad,” the leaders of Japan, Australia, and India. Phonecalls continue with the governments of allies at all levels.
If the old adage is true – Friends come and go, but enemies remain – it makes sense to restore relations with allies before trying to deal with the more difficult situations. Additionally, the agencies are not fully staffed up because of the previous administration’s malicious handling of the transition and the Republican Senate’s slow-walking of confirmations.
Passing the American Recovery Act was a priority. Passing HR 1, on voting rights, is also a priority; it will require much more work because it cannot be passed under reconciliation.
By and large, the public agrees with the way Biden is handling foreign policy. I find it surprising that so few commentators have read or referred to the three documents. The uniformity of themes across agencies and strong personalities within the government is unusual. Austin and Blinken’s op-ed echoes those themes.
I have seen only one analysis that looks at the Biden policies as a whole, by Hal Brands at the American Enterprise Institute, and he does not explicitly reference the documents. It’s a good summary worth reading. Other analyses focus on particular interests, like the Sierra Club on environment, Dan Drezner on economics, or my many nuclear friends on the two paragraphs in the interim national security strategy on nuclear weapons.
That type of analysis worked for standard government documents, but the uniformity of these documents is the primary fact. It is the whole that is central, and the parts follow from that.
Foreign policy is likely to be aimed at the pandemic, reassuring allies, and not making things worse until the pandemic is under control. We will not see bold initiatives in, for example, declaratory nuclear policy, until much later in the year if then. The administration has said that North Korea and Iran policy are under review.
These statements, and their consistency across the administration, are a new way of governing. Ignoring them leads to faulty analysis, but that is what we see.
My overviews of the documents:
Interim national security strategy
Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner
Mike in NC
MSNBC reporting that the Russians were working to reelect Putin’s puppet in 2020.
Ya think?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Mike in NC: What does this have to do with Dr Seuss? Fox News asks.
Betty
Thanks, Cheryl. Very helpful.
citizen dave
@Mike in NC: Interesting…it was way closer than it should have been. I know Biden’s EC margin was good, and percentage vote margin was good, but still was closer than it should have been…
Sounds like something Putin would do
And thanks to Cheryl as always for these informative posts! I’m on a work call, so will circle back. Are you saying the Kissinger doctrine is over? “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests” You know he’s tanned, rested and ready.
MisterForkbeard
This is helpful, though I don’t have a good response to it yet. It’s interesting that Trump’s wholesale destruction of State and other departments is allowing us an opportunity to remake them in a modern, more effective way. Silver lining, I guess.
@Mike in NC: Neat. I think we knew that, but the question now is how were they doing this?
Ruckus
@Mike in NC:
What else isn’t new?
In my mind, the GQP decided who they wanted to sleep with, and it’s Putin. Likely figured there was more money to be made doing that, as money is by far their most important and only value. They obviously don’t care about political values, nor humanistic values, they only care about bank account values.
Ruckus
@MisterForkbeard:
Might as well at least attempt better, especially when starting over at ground zero
MisterForkbeard
@Ruckus: Pretty much. So long as they already bulldozed it down to the foundations and you’ve got to rebuild, you can do it to the modern fire code and with electronics cabling and so on.
Except, you know, with diplomats.
trollhattan
Vaccines are fine, I suppose, but what about mah press conference, huh?
Meanwhile, in Idaho:
Bundys just can’t catch a break from The Man.
Cermet
Speaking of vaccines – got my first (Pfizer) at the M&T mass vaccination site in Baltimore. All I can say is I’ve never seen so well run and fast a place doing hundreds of people. In and out in 45 min (incl. 15 wait) and their system for signing up the second dose is great and super fast. Really a pleasure (but they did put the needle in too high – I tried to tell them … oh, well.)
Zelma
Thanks for this. I follow foreign affairs more than most Americans and I don’t think I’ve seen a clearer, more concise description of where the Biden Administration wants to go with foreign policy. I see complaints that Biden is trying to turn back the clock, or that his view of the world and America’s place in it is unrealistic, but I don’t think that is the case. I think Jake Sullivan is his most interesting appointment. He is young and untethered to the world before Bush and Trump. That is a good thing.
trollhattan
@Ruckus:
Read that Bolsonaro wants to save Brazil by giving a gun to anybody who asks for one. I’ll file that one under What could possibly go wrong?
https://www.startribune.com/brazils-bolsonaro-moves-to-arm-base-alarming-gun-experts/600034588/
I’ll bet he and Duterte really miss having Trump in charge. Somebody in the US gummint might notice how pro-democracy these “allies” are acting.
Cheryl Rofer
@Zelma: Thanks for reading!
I don’t understand why those complaining that Biden is trying to go back to a previous time haven’t bothered to read what he and his people say in these documents.
Maybe most of the other comments in this thread so far are a clue!
Cameron
@trollhattan: I hear ya. Ammon, Ted, Al….
geg6
@MisterForkbeard:
That was pretty much my reaction. Not a bad thing to take advantage of a catastrophe to make things better. Kind of like the Shock Doctrine for Public Good.
piratedan
@Cheryl Rofer: Cheryl, with EVERYTHING else going on domestically and abroad, I get the feeling that you are experiencing an Inigo moment after he’s revived Wesley. :-) There’s a lot to process at the moment and for many of us, only so much attention to spread around. I would welcome a break from what was, where we supported dictators in the name of Democracy, and hope that we do a better job of not letting the economics of the wealthy and the racist ghosts of our past drive our friendships abroad.
waysel
Thanks, Cheryl. So much sanity is heartening.
waysel
@Cheryl Rofer: Lazy career content creators?
MisterForkbeard
@trollhattan: They should have some pink masks with penises printed on them for public use by right-wing assholes who didn’t bring one.
“Oh man. You didn’t bring a mask? Well, we’ve got these remaindered Bachelorette Party masks you can use. Lowest bidder, you know.”
Starboard Tack
Our primary national security threats cannot be addressed by military means.
Everything starts from this point. It’s been true since at least the end of the Cold War. The collapse of the Soviet system left a power vacuum during Clinton’s terms that allowed some pivot towards these other issues, but the aftermath of 9/11 left the US entangled in militarism, even under Obama. I’m cautiously optimistic that the Biden-Harris team will make significant progress in setting up the structures and procedures to deal with those threats
ETA: I’m pleased that the statement completely excludes any nod towards military actions. Today’s problems can’t be solved by yesterday’s solutions.
Geminid
@MisterForkbeard: Russians probably helped trump this time the way they did last time: through microtargeted social media. It is known that trump campaign manager Manafort passed on campaign polling information to the Russians for exploitation by their Leningrad troll farm. And Roger Stone left the campaign in the summer of 2016. No reason was given at the time for Stone’s departure, but later the Muellar investigation found him to be at the center of the collusion web. Muellar’s team could not prove trump’s involvement because they could not break Stone.* This time, the Russians already had a template for action based on their 2016 experience, and wouldn’t need to coordinate anything. They may have accounted for some of the intense social media microtargeting of Latinos in Florida, as well as other efforts.
*I still think Stone may have coordinated the January 6 insurrection. He’s a fanatic, well connected to the Proud Boys, Three Percenters and other militia types. Stone has trump’s confidence, and is reckless enough to try to pull the insurrection off. It would have been ultimate dirty trick.
mrmoshpotato
@Cameron: Civen.
Geminid
@Geminid: My Atlanta friend, who really hates trump, warned me that social media microtargeting would be used by the trump campaign to good effect. I was not as concerned, but that’s because I did not take the power of social media very seriously. But since the election, I’ve read about the effectiveness of microtargeting by the trump campaign in Florida and elsewhere.
schrodingers_cat
@Geminid: Our national political media lacks diversity. Lumping people into buckets that are overly broad like Latino, POC etc makes for poor analysis. It is GIGO (Garbage in, Garbage Out).
For example, not all Latinos are immigrants, but our prestige media continues to assume that they are and that immigration is the most important thing for them.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Cermet: Yay!
geg6
@Geminid:
Agreed. Stone was right in the thick of all the planning. This is right up his alley.
geg6
@Cermet:
Yay! My first one is set for Friday. I can’t wait!
Steve in the ATL
@piratedan:
Exactly–we are focused on the success of our Wildcats in March Madness! BEAR DOWN!!!
Wait, ineligible? Seriously?
Major Major Major Major
@Geminid: micro targeting ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Sort of a racket, frankly. Source: have worked in adtech on and off for years
Corruption of VOA and other non-English news sources was probably much more effective.
However, we’re whistling past the graveyard if we keep blaming slipping minority support on Russia or other exogenous factors. These voters literally tell us why they voted the way they did—for many, they liked his name on the checks, they like cops, they don’t like illegal immigration.
Villago Delenda Est
Bottom line: Donald Trump’s utter incompetence damaged the US standing in the world, and we’re going to have to work like crazy to repair it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@schrodingers_cat: In California, for some Latinos, they didn’t come to the United States, the US came to them.
Starboard Tack
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Also New Mexico.
Geminid
@schrodingers_cat: I am aware of the diversity among the Spanish speaking people of Florida and elsewhere, and at other times have used “Spanish speaking people” as a descriptor. “Latinos” is shorthand. But even though the media and many other observers lump them into one group as “Latinos,” I bet the people running trump’s social media campaign took a shrewder, more nuanced approach to targeting these folks.
Mike in NC
We’ve been told that the Russians were doing everything they could to hack US government and private sector computer systems since 2016, all with Trump’s blessing and pledge of non-interference. Stone and Manafort and Rudy and Don Jr. all were working with their Russian handlers. Waiting for more specific information to come out as Democrats launch investigations in the coming weeks and months.
piratedan
@Steve in the ATL: and I’m sure that you’re passionately involved with the Ga Tech ‘Ramblin Wreck, right?
and its okay to enjoy the tourney just because its the tourney…
Cermet
@geg6: It is releaving to say the leaset; yes, 7 to 10 days before its highly effective but nice to start the process!
mrmoshpotato
@Steve in the ATL: ?CHICAGO BEARS!?
debbie
@Zelma:
After staring at a computer screen for 10 hours, my eyes hurt too much to read everything, but this leapt out at me:
I’ve believed this since the 1960s!
Ken
I’m missing how we profit from this. Are we not charging other countries for the privilege of stationing our troops on their soil? Or renting out use of our military?
L85NJGT
@trollhattan:
If he doesn’t press conference, the press won’t know what paint scheme the new AF1 is getting.
The relationships between an administration and its press pool have always been performative, but the media is insisting on a historic reenactment, and that’s not useful for anyone, especially their audience.
Ohio Mom
I admit my attention is usually focused on domestic issues so seeing this all laid out was helpful. And knowing Biden is orchestrating the rebuilding of our foreign policy gives me confidence and hope.
But if I was the rest of the world, after watching the U.S. careen from Bush to Obama to Trump to Biden — I think I’d be skeptical about the long term.
schrodingers_cat
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Indeed. In my neck of the woods the biggest Latino group is Puerto Rican.
Steve in the ATL
@piratedan: two words for you, my former friend: PIE. FILTER!
Do I accuse you of loving Arizona State?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@L85NJGT: The White House Press Corps is looking for a Rather-Nixon moment.
piratedan
@Steve in the ATL: Steve, I had to go there since GaTech is coached by Josh Pastner, who played on Zona’s national championship team.
I have to say I do miss the opportunities that madness allowed, with travel to casino’s that were not top echelon, drinking cheap beer and cheap eats and watching games non-stop hoping that the four team parley would come right….
Steve in the ATL
@piratedan: ah—missed that detail! Yeah, a lot of things aren’t as fun as they were last year but better safe than republican.
Major Major Major Major
@Mike in NC: Didn’t they just declassify a report that found no successful breaches?
Geminid
@Major Major Major Major: You clearly know more about advertising than me, and almost anybody knows more about social media.
I think you are correct about the whistling past the graveyard part. As far as the Electoral College goes, this was a close election, and we will have to work hard to win the next one. We’ll need to do better with non-European people, and immigrants and their kids who have become adults.
But it is not like Democrats have figure how to pick some ethnic lock, or several different ones. Immigrants I’ve worked alongside and live among might have concerns particular to their community, but I think that generally they want what everyone wants: good jobs, decent health care, and a chance for education and upward mobility for themselves and their children. So far, I think the Biden administration is delivering on these scores. As to how to sell this,you would know better than I.
mali muso
@Cermet:
Hooray! I also got my first Pfizer vaccine today. I can tell my arm is gonna be stiff but that’s a side effect I will happily accept.
To the topic, one of the career options that I had considered in the past was the foreign service. When I finished Peace Corps, some of the embassy people came to talk to our group about the option, but most of us felt like it would be selling out to work for “the man”. Particularly as it was the Bush II era and none of us were particularly interested in being the face of that administration. Nowadays, I don’t think I would want to run the risk of being stuck under a hostile administration like the one we just escaped.
Roger Moore
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Not a lot. California had a population of about 160,000 at the time it was annexed, and the vast majority of them were Native Americans. That’s not to say that there aren’t a lot of Latinos in California whose families have been here for a long time, but they mostly came here between the Gold Rush and the immigration restrictions of the 1920s.
KrackenJack
Thank you for the on-going analysis Cheryl. I haven’t had a chance to read the original docs. Drezner’s complaints seem rather shallow. One can value free trade as foundational, but see the actual agreements as trading market access in return for accepting America’s intellectual property regime. Ignoring labor and environment concerns makes our trade policy look even more more beholden to corporate interests.
I hope money laundering and organized crime get some attention as national security issues, too. We can walk and chew gum and juggle and be a one person band and solve differential equations at the same time, right?
persistentillusion
@Starboard Tack: Also Colorado. There are families (Hi, Ken Salazar, former Senator and Secretary of the Interior) whose presence in the San Luis Valley goes back 400 years.
J R in WV
@Villago Delenda Est:
Actually, was he really incompetent, or was he working toward a different goal? If he was working for Putin, he did a great job for his boss. If he was working for the American people, he was totally incompetent from day one.
I think he did a great job, looking at who he was actually working for. Hint: He was not working for US at all~!!~ He did a great job for his employer, V. Putin. Follow the money. Sure he stole from us, all he could steal.
But the big money came from Russia, didn’t it?
Sure, it did, and we all know that!
Steve Crickmore
I suppose we are looking at a Biden/ Blinden doctrine of soft, real politik, or mild sycophancy, instead of Trump’s more enthusiastic rationalizing of endorsing authoritarian leaders. For example, in response March 3rd, to PBS Judy Woodruff ‘s, “The administration has imposed sanctions, but not on the crown prince (Prince Bonesaw) himself.” Blinden, “Whether we like it or not, we don’t choose Saudi Arabia’s leaders. They (the Saudis) do.”….. They do?
Geminid
@J R in WV: Aside from two of his wives, trump’s main experience in foreign affairs was laundering Russian money in his real estate ventures. That is one of many areas I’m hoping one or more federal grand juries will look into.
J R in WV
@Steve in the ATL:
Is AZ State actually a university? Or just sportsball teams?
U of AZ on the other hand is a real school, that happens to have sportsball teams.
J R in WV
@Geminid:
Of course. And the loans from Deutch Bank, and the purchases of “Swank” home condos for amazing prices by Russian oligarchs, and so many more ways of paying Trump to do what Putin needed him to do.
Not least, declining to throw him down concrete stairs again… priceless at any cost~!!~
WhatsMyNym
@J R in WV:
buggrit
@Steve Crickmore: Cherry. Although I’ve had some magnificent berry ones. Then there’s chess, custard, cream…
What can I say? I just love pie.
Geminid
The return of the U.S. to the JCPOA will take a while. AP reported today on an appearence by IAEA Executive Director Raphael Grossi before three EU committees, where he noted that the US was unwilling to drop sanctions without preconditions, as Iran demands. Grossi implied that Iran has to sit down and talk, and itself agree to move back into compliance with the treaty. “It takes two to tango,” he said.
Grossi is concerned that the last minute concession Iran made to the IAEA, whereby it would still withhold surveillance video of it’s facilities, but would preserve the video until three months elapsed without sanction relief, might lapse, complicating the situation further. That is one element of time pressure. Grossi emphasized that the US wanted in principle to return to the JCPOA, and he hopes the the two countries will find a way to begin negotiation.
Another time factor is the upcoming June Iranian election. I’m guessing Grossi would like to see a good start towards restoring the JCPOA before then.
Steve in the ATL
@J R in WV:
@WhatsMyNym:
My understanding is that ASU is just an embarrassment to the concept of universities, but I may be a U of A snob courtesy of my daughter.
Who went to U of A out of state, as compared to her cousin who went to ASU in state [shutters, as a sun devil would no doubt say!]
Bear down!
Cheryl Rofer
@KrackenJack: Money laundering and organized crime get a mention in the longer documents. And one of last year’s omnibus bills removed some of the possibilities for money laundering.
The Moar You Know
@Major Major Major Major: Ask one of our local Hispanics – most of who are from families that have been in this country longer than my mother’s side of the family at least – how they felt about Trump’s border policies and the whole kids in cages thing. Most Dem voters won’t like the answer but we’d better pay attention to it.
StringOnAStick
@The Moar You Know: Weren’t there stories of misinformation targeting Hispanic voters before the last election too?
The fundamental racism of the US isn’t just against blacks, it’s against whoever is the out group in a community. I grew up in a western CO town that had zero black kids in any of the schools I attended, but plenty of Hispanic kids. My mom was born and raised in the same place and had a lifelong antipathy for “Mexicans”, she refused to let us play with nonwhite kids. There had been one black girl in her high school class and she talked about how “the kids were mean to her”; I guess a single black girl was exotic to her, but the 20% of fellow kids who were Hispanic were a threat because there were “too many of them” in her eyes. Her later, increasingly demented years and 8 hrs/day of FOX resulted in her letting her racist flag fly higher and higher.
Pappenheimer
@mali muso:
You aren’t wrong. I knew a Reagan-era US Embassy staffer who described his workday as assiduously compiling reports to be ignored by ignorant political appointees.
Geminid
@Cheryl Rofer: The Corporate Transparency Act, pushed by Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) among others, was attached to the NDAA late last year, and passed in the lame duck session. trump’s veto was then overridden. The Act requires disclosure of the actual ownership of shell companies to the Treasury Department. These disclosures are not public records, but can be a accessed by federal, state and tribal law enforcement and regulatory agencies. All new companies must submit the information; existing companies will have two years to comply.
The CTA did not get too much attention at the time, but a writer for Forbes Magazine called it the most sweeping financial reform legislation in decades. This could hit trump where it hurts. It could be that the CTA was not added to the NDAA until early December so as not to attract attention and pushback by trump and other wealthy crooks. I think the Treasury Secretary must have known what was up, but Steve Mnuchin never seemed especially loyal to trump, and might have helped slip the CTA past him.
Cheryl Rofer
@Geminid: Thanks! Yes, that’s what I was thinking of.