In the current issue of Foreign Affairs, Jessica Mathews from the Carnegie Endowment examines Joe Biden’s legacy as mostly positive for having restored diplomacy as a tool of U.S. power. She is persuasive in showing how the administration has been successful in elevating diplomacy. The problem is that there is no good outcome to show.
According to Mathews, Biden’s foreign policy has been successful because he’s engaged with Russia, China, and Iran diplomatically. But this engagement has produced no result that furthers U.S. interests.
In the spring of 2021, Biden met with Vladimir Putin. The two reached an agreement on “strategic stability.” This counts as a diplomatic success if you entirely ignore that Russia invaded Ukraine again months later. Mathews also mentions the extension of New START, a nuclear arms control agreement, as Biden’s success, even though Russia has suspended participation in it, and Biden hasn’t done anything about it.
With Iran, Biden desperately tried to reach an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program. It failed because, according to Mathews, Biden’s people were too aggressive in their rhetoric. But in reality, the person leading the negotiations was Robert Malley, a diplomat entirely deferential to Iran’s demands. Despite the rhetoric, Biden has also been enriching Iran by sending it cash and not enforcing sanctions, so it is difficult to believe that the words were the problem, but rather that Iran simply thinks it can get more out of Biden without giving up anything.
In Asia, Mathews praises Biden for elevating the Quad, a forum involving the United States, Japan, India, and Australia, while dissing Donald Trump for being anti-diplomatic. But she overlooks the fact that the Trump administration revived the Quad so Biden could build upon it. She also praises Biden for the rapprochement between Japan and South Korea. This is a monumental change in Asian politics, but it has to do with the election of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. Yoon is a pro-U.S., anti-North Korea, and anti-China politician, as opposed to his predecessor, who hated America and liked China and North Korea.
Most absurdly, Mathews praises Biden for withdrawing from Afghanistan. This is so ridiculous on its face that it doesn’t require explanation.
Mathews fails to understand something about diplomacy: its outcome is determined by power. She hails Biden’s achievement of getting Finland and Sweden to drop their neutrality and join NATO. Biden had nothing to do with this. It was the Russian invasion of Ukraine—i.e., the fear of Russian power—that convinced them. Likewise, Biden’s diplomatic failures, including the two wars in Europe and the Middle East on his watch, have occurred because those enemies don’t fear America.
Biden has failed for two reasons. First, because American military power has been declining for decades, and he showed that he is not interested in restoring it. Second, because he promised to do less in Europe and the Middle East, and enemies in those regions realized that they could get away with a lot. Their bets have proven true.
The United States doesn’t have the military to deter our enemies everywhere, and Biden doesn’t want to build that military. So he has been trying to prevent Ukraine and Israel from winning their wars out of the fear that these would require more investment in the military. Understanding that America will eventually give up, both Russia and Iran and their proxies are refusing to give in.
Talking with your enemies is nice, but it can only be successful when you are holding a really big gun to scare them. Mathews and Biden think that they are doing a good job because they are talking, but those talks have been a waste of time because the enemies don’t fear America.
There is one place in the world where U.S. diplomacy could go a long way without having to invest in the military: Latin America. That’s the region most neglected by Biden.
Early into Biden’s administration, Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso received a big development offer from the Chinese. He was very pro-U.S. and didn’t want to take it, but his country needed the money. He tried asking the Biden administration to get a similar offer not to take the Chinese money, and nobody was even picking up his calls. Eventually, America did nothing, and Lasso, a very good partner, lost his job.
This is just one anecdote. Biden has been ignoring the region. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has taken only a handful of trips in our own neighborhood. Contrast this with Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state, George Shultz. Shultz said that the Americas were the most important part of the world for Americans—Duh! They are our backyard—and his first trips were a tour of the Americas. U.S. aid and investment policy in the Americas hasn’t changed. Rather, the State Department’s emphasis on promoting LGBT rights in very Catholic societies is turning them off to U.S. influence. Meanwhile, China continues to grow its ties there.
Biden’s foreign policy has been an abject failure, and it takes a special kind of fool to defend it as the world is on fire. Democrats are that kind of fool, people who think that you can get your way with evil dictators like Russia, China, and Iran if you just ask nicely.
Note: the opinions expressed herein are those of Chuck Warren only and not his co-host Sam Stone or Breaking Battlegrounds’ staff.
