Can Our Allies Trust Us Anymore?
If Biden wants to deliver on his foreign policy promises, he needs to lead public opinion.
President Biden has been on a charm offensive to convince U.S. allies that āAmerica is back.ā Itās a message Americaās friends and partners are eager to hear, but they remain unconvinced. Biden is implying that the previous four years were a fluke, but Americaās allies are tying the Obama and Trump years together as the new normal. To them, Biden is the fluke.
The Trump administration cozied up to enemies and abused, aggravated, and antagonized allies in spectacular fashion, like a four-year explosion that threatened to collapse the American-led international order. But the Obama administration, while less flamboyant, also did its share of damage to Americaās key relationships, like a slow rot.
Obama had come to power as a transformational president, campaigning on ānation-building at home.ā In 2010, he snubbed the Europeans by becoming the first U.S. president in history to skip the annual U.S.-E.U. summit, rendering the meeting a diplomatic nullity. Thomas Wright, an expert on Euro-American relations, observed that he āhad an āunromanticā view of the transatlantic relationship and was focused elsewhere.ā He saw Americaās allies as āfree riders,ā going so far to say that they āaggravateā him. Poland and the Czech Republic had broken with France and Germany to support the U.S.-led Iraq War. In return, Obama canceled an agreement negotiated by the Bush administration with them for a missile defense shield. That was a slap in the face.
Obama also complained about the āWashington foreign-policy establishmentā and its āfetish of ācredibility.āā Thanks to Obamaās rejection of that āfetish,ā the United States faces a ādeepening crisis of credibility in global affairs,ā according to a report from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
One of Obamaās closest advisers, Ben Rhodes, who allegedly shared a āmind meldā with the president, coined the derisive term āthe Blobā for the foreign policy establishment. When he spoke dismissively of āthe Blobāsā support of American global order, it wasnāt difficult to think that he was reflecting the presidentās view. Other administration officials, like Secretary of State John Kerry, also spoke of toppling the pillars of American foreign policy, including the Monroe Doctrine.
According to Wright, āthe prism through which President Obama looked at Europe was shaped by the principle that everyone ought to tend their own garden.ā For Obama, Latin America was the business of Latin Americans, Europe the concern of Europeans, and only the United States the purview of Americans. The cost of focusing on domestic policy was offending the countries to which America was bound by mutual security guarantees, common values, trade, cooperation, and friendship.
Obama didnāt mind paying it. Negotiating with Iran, the Obama administration was dismissive, even derisive, of the concerns of Americaās traditional alliesāeven the French worried that the American negotiating position was too soft. He didnāt care much about European worries of the continent remilitarizing. Dozens of allies who had joined the war in Iraq at high costs were barely consulted before the precipitous withdrawal in 2011. (Obama partisans have argued that the State of Forces Agreement that led to the withdrawal had been negotiated by the Bush administration. But that agreement was a placeholder for the next administrationās preferred policy. Obama never showed any interest in renewal, nor did he ever consult with coalition allies on what their preferred policy was.)
What really shook the faith of U.S. allies, however, was Syria. The civil war there led to a refugee crisis that ignited nationalism and terrorist attacks in Europe, changed the dynamics in the Middle East for the worse, empowered Russia, and diminished U.S. credibility after Obama refused to enforce his self-imposed and mindless red line. Jim Mattis, then a retired General, was one of many who received phone calls from allies around the world asking whether they were on their own.
In Libya, the administration had to be convinced to intervene by the Europeans, who have a vested interest in the country due to geographic proximity. That created the āleading from behindā debacle. As soon as Muammar Gaddafiās regime collapsed, however, Obama withdrew from the country, foolishly thinking that the Europeans, who lacked the necessary resources and domestic political capital, would take care of the problem. The civil war that followed created an outflow of refugees into Europe and an inflow of Russian mercenaries.
In Asia, China contested, claimed, and trespassed on the maritime domain of U.S. allies. In the only instance in which the United States intervened, the Scarborough Shoal crisis, it brokered a diplomatic resolution between the Philippines and China for both sides to withdraw. The Filipinos withdrew, but, in the words of Ely Ratner, an official in the administrations of Obama and Biden, āChina, on the other hand, failed to comply with the agreed-upon deadline and retained its maritime vessels at the shoal, where they remain today on near-constant patrol.ā The administrationās support in fishing disputes between China and Vietnam and Japan didnāt fare much better.
To many of Americaās allies, the major difference between Obama and Trump wasnāt policy but style. In this century, Americans have voted for a president five times, and only twice, in 2004 and 2020, did they choose the more internationalist nominee. Even then, Bidenās internationalism, greater than Trumpās, pales in comparison with Cold War-era standards. Watching from London or Brussels or Jerusalem or Tokyo, itās reasonable to suspect that Bidenās lyricism about alliances is the outlier amid the larger inward-looking trend.
It also appears that Bidenās rhetoric may not match his actions. His first major foreign policy decision, the forthcoming withdrawal from Afghanistan, came with little regard for and less consultation with the countries that have vested interests there, including the NATO members of the U.S.-led coalition, Indiaāa key partner in the long-term competition with Chinaāand, most importantly, the allied government of Afghanistan. The administrationās ongoing negotiations with Iran, while satisfying many Europeans, has regional partners worried. So far, Biden has been excellent in tone but come short in his deeds.
Whatever Bidenās personal preferences may be, heās somewhat constrained by his party and general public opinion, both of which favor spending fewer resources abroad and more at home. There hasnāt been a president since George W. Bush who has made the case for doing more overseas (and even Bush didnāt do much of it during his second term), and even longer since a president has articulated a clear role for America in the world.
Americans prioritize domestic policy over foreign policy, and have historically deferred to the presidentās judgment on foreign affairsāat least until major blunders. Biden needs to use his platform to revive the spirit of internationalism inside the United States. He needs, in other words, to lead. His rhetoric so far is a necessary but not sufficient step. Harry Truman, in his Truman Doctrine address to Congress, rallied the country to accept the reality of the Cold Warāincluding the deadly and demoralizing Korean Warājust after World War II. Ronald Reagan, using his unparalleled communications skills, led the country from the nadir of Vietnam Syndrome and malaise to victory over the Soviet Union by restoring national confidence. Biden canāand mustādo the same.
Biden also needs, if he wants his style of foreign policy to survive his presidency, to revive bipartisan Congressional purchase of his policies. Obamaās signature international agreements, only New START has proven durable. Thatās no coincidence: Unlike the Iran Deal and the Paris Climate Accords, the administration coordinated the negotiations for New START with Congress, which ratified the agreement as a treaty.
Of course, reassuring allies also has a military component. The American military is still the most powerful fighting force on the planetābut not by the margin it once enjoyed. In most regions of the world, the combined strength of the American and allied militaries is less than that of the shared adversary. The Japanese and South Koreans know this about the East China Sea. The Philipinos and Thais know this about the South China Sea. The Poles and the Baltic States could not be more wary of Russian conventional military superiority in Europeāespecially as they watch the ongoing war in Ukraine. When America is weak, its allies are sometimes forced to accommodate their threatening, hostile neighbors, a la āFinlandization.ā In this case, beefing up Americaās foreign deployments in allied countries helps maintain the alliancesāand for relatively cheap.
Russophiles are more influential in Europe than a decade ago, and some have even won power in former Soviet satellites like Hungary and Moldova. In Asia, South Koreaās president has been defiant of U.S. interests to contain China and North Korea, and the alliance is facing some of its greatest obstacles since the Korean War armistice in 1953. More urgently, Japanese-Korean relations, which the United States has traditionally facilitated and soothed, are becoming inflamed. In the Middle East, dismayed by Americaās diffidence, Arab partners have taken it upon themselves to contain Iran, creating a moral catastrophe in Yemen that is making the American people question whether they should keep supporting Arab partners.
Former Secretary of State George Shultz compared alliance management with gardening. It takes time, it takes expertise, it takes investment, and it takes toolsānot just memoranda and speeches and handshakes at photo ops, but tanks, ships, and aircraft. When done properly, just like a garden, there is harmony. Left to its own devices, it becomes an anarchic jungle.
If Biden wants Americaās allies to believe that āAmerica is back,ā first he has to convince the American people to want to be back.
