"It's natural to feel as if nothing like this has ever happened", says Pulitzer-winning historian John Meacham of the Coronavirus, "but our country has been through tough times before." You suspect he may be onto something. From the Declaration of independence to the fight against fascism, civil war to civil rights, isolation and the great depression to global leadership, the history of the United States of America reads as a series of severe trials, each one leading to the creation of something new once surpassed. Such is the nature of the challenge currently faced by the most powerful country on Earth. The number of Americans who have died as a result of Covid-19 is now greater than those killed in the entirety of the Vietnam War, itself a cataclysmic blow to the United States' faith in both its military preponderance and sense of mission. Yet there exists another, more recent trauma whose impact continues to define America's role on the global stage almost two decades later.
"Every day is September 12th", reads a plaque in the CIA's headquarters, a statement that offers a much-valued insight into the mindset and priorities of America's national security establishment. Following "the day that shook the world" and the onset of the War on Terror, the incumbent Bush administration and their Republican allies enjoyed the unprecedented power to reorient the country's national security strategy in the face of the Al Qaeda threat. In his book War on Peace, Ronan Farrow documents the subsequent decline in American diplomatic influence, specifically how "Diplomats slipped to the bottom of the policy process" following 9/11 and the Bush administration's willingness "to cut the State Department out of explicitly diplomatic decisions." In contrast, defence-spending skyrocketed, whilst the US military took on an unprecedented role in democracy-promotion and nation-building activities following the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, formerly the domain of State and the US Association for International Development. According to Trevor Thrall and Erik Goepner of the Gato Institute, this unilateral and militaristic turn in US foreign policy demonstrated "the widespread belief among Washington D.C. elites in the indispensable nature of American power and the utility of military force in international politics", before concluding that this misguided faith in the capacity of military hard power to shape events abroad "produced an American strategy that was both ineffective and counterproductive."
Even as the Bush administration's strategy failed to yield results and played a major role in Barack Obama's election as president, Democrats continually struggled to develop a clear, alternative foreign policy agenda to Republicans in the post-9/11 era. In the view of Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor to Obama, "Republicans made a multi-decade investment in national security one of their core planks, and Democrats never really developed a clear alternative that voters understood. Instead of being confident and strong and saying that we will be safer and more respected around the world if we lead with our values and pursue diplomacy and strong alliances, a lot of Democrats felt like they just needed to sound tough [on terrorism] and tough is a version of what Republicans were saying with some of the rougher edges sanded down." Obama, despite his opposition to the Iraq War and subsequent efforts to realign America's global priorities away from the War on Terror during his presidency, also struggled to move entirely beyond the rhetoric and policies that characterised the Bush years. The 2010 Afghanistan troop surge, the acceleration of the drone assassination programme in Pakistan and the failure to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay all attest to the scale of that challenge. Even when the 44th president attempted to use methods outside of military force to solve problems, the scale of resistance led by the hawkish foreign policy establishment and Republicans (and indeed even some Democrats) in Congress demonstrated how many had come to view America's position in international politics. Writing in The Atlantic, Rhodes argues "The fact that it was easier for George W. Bush to take the United States into an unnecessary war in Iraq than it was for Barack Obama to secure a nuclear deal to avoid one with Iran says something deeply strange and alarming about our country and its politics."
In this context, one would be forgiven for believing foreign policy to be a hotly contested issue in every election cycle. But in reality, when American voters are asked to identify the issues about which they care the most, one can frequently count on one hand the number of times foreign affairs are mentioned. When an Ipsos poll taken late last year asked voters to name the issues most influencing their choice of Democratic candidate, "Ability to beat Trump" was the leader by a considerable distance, followed by "Health care", "The economy" and "Wealth and income inequality." "Foreign affairs" failed to even make the top ten. Yet despite this apathy toward events outside America, there exist two notable excpetions, in Rhodes' view: "Those issues which get at the security of people- am I going to be less safe, or is somebody in my neighbourhood going to be sent into a war- tend to be the issues that hit home the most." As a result of the Republican's aforementioned emphasis on defence policy throughout the post-9/11 era, according to Obama administration speech-writer John Favreau, "Voters have generally trusted Democrats over Republicans on almost every issue, except for national security." More recently however, as the Trump administration's failure to respond effectively to the Coronavirus outbreak garners mounting criticism, evidence suggests that a window of opportunity may be opening for Democrats.
A recent poll by National Security Action showed that 56% of swing state voters believe Trump's actions have made America less safe, whilst a plurality of those same voters also stated their belief that electing a Democrat as president would be better for America's security than re-electing Trump. Even before the pandemic hit, Democrats running in the party's presidential primary had previously demonstrated an increasing confidence in splitting from conventional Republican-lite national security positions. The New York Magazine's Edward Kilgore noted in December last year that "Democrats no longer think in terms of basing much of US foreign policy in anti-terrorist alliances with Israel or conservative regimes like Saudi Arabia at the expense of every other principle." Likewise, Peter Beinart asserted at the same time that Democrats and their supporters "want not merely to expand oversight of the Pentagon's sprawling counter-terrorism operations, but to reorient American foreign policy away from terrorism altogether" instead focusing on issues like climate change and global inequality. The question for Democrats and their presumptive nominee Joe Biden, therefore, is how best to capitalise on this growing demand, both within and outside the party, for a re-examination of America's role on the global stage, and the form this ambitious new agenda might take should the former Delaware senator prevail against Trump in November.
At first glance, a nominee for president whose record includes supporting the Iraq War would seem an odd choice given the direction the Democrats are moving on foreign policy. But, following that misguided vote, there now exists ample evidence of Biden's scepticism of America's capacity to shape events abroad through military force alone. The former vice-president opposed the 2011 intervention in Libya, whilst Rhodes, in his 2018 memoir of the Obama White House The World As It Is, recalls Biden's Situation Room clashes with the joint chiefs of staff and central command during the administration's review of the Afghan war, noting how "Biden would go on long discourses about why it was foolish to think that we could do anything more than kill terrorists in Afghanistan." In a recent endorsement of Biden's candidacy, The Council on Foreign Relations reiterated his commitment to American leadership and international cooperation on new issues such as climate change, global inequality and the coronavirus, "coordinated by USAID" and carried out through "closer cooperation with the World Health Organisation, the United Nations and other major world players", a clear rebuke to the muscular unilateralism of the previous twenty years. Although not mentioned by name, it is clear that the relationship a possible Biden administration aims to pursue with China, America's closest political and economic rival, will be the crucial factor in shaping any new chapter in American foreign policy.
At the best of times, relations between the world's two superpowers have been rocky. But the belligerent rhetoric of the Trump administration following the outbreak of the Coronavirus, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's rebranding of Covid-19 as "the Wuhan Virus" and reports that the administration has ordered the US intelligence community to collect evidence proving that the virus was man-made and escaped from a virology institute in Wuhan, serves only to perpetuate the spiral of hostility, and hinder the efforts of the international community to create a vaccine. In the view of former White House Asia expert Danny Russell, "There's a difference between holding China accountable and punishing China...If it's about accountability, it's a matter of deciding what we want to accomplish- the urgent things would be getting the information from China that scientists need to combat the virus, shutting down the animal markets and getting the facts out. The Chinese won't agree to that unless there's an international push." If a Biden administration is serious about a pivot to diplomacy, once the threat of the virus is suppressed, it's next step must be to realign America's international objectives with those of the rest of the world, adopting a position of leadership which has been abandoned for almost two decades. America could yet emerge from its latest crucible with a renewed commitment to its role as "the indispensable nation", as Bill Clinton once put it. It must do so urgently, if the international community is to rally against subsequent existential threats.
Written by Ben Seymour
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