The past four years have brought remarkable achievements in foreign policy. Joe Biden has invested in economic competitiveness at home. He’s boosted democratic alliances. He’s treated the People’s Republic of China as a long-term strategic competitor. His response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has been skillful. He’s worked to end the war and suffering in the Gaza Strip. He’s put the United States in a much stronger position today than it was in four years ago.
Ha, ha—fooled you! The sentences above are drawn from two defenses of Biden’s foreign policy that appeared in recent issues of Foreign Affairs. The articles in question—“What Was the Biden Doctrine?,” by scholar Jessica T. Matthews, and “America’s Strategy of Renewal,” by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken—are part of an effort to gloss over Biden’s legacy.
They fail to convince.
If there is a Biden Doctrine to be discerned, it has involved highfalutin rhetoric on democracy, lackluster efforts to deter and combat aggression, and foreign policy put at the service of domestic politics. The result is that Biden has presided over the most rapid deterioration of the international scene since the presidency of Jimmy Carter. His strategic missteps, flawed concepts, and ideological blind spots have made the world a more dangerous place. Whoever inherits the White House will have to pick up the pieces.
Biden apologists tout the president’s spending on infrastructure, technology, and green energy. “These investments don’t just benefit American workers and communities,” writes Blinken. “They also reduce the United States’ dependence on China and other revisionists and make the country a better partner to countries that want to reduce their dependencies, too.”
Our secretary of state provides no evidence that America is less dependent on China for strategic commodities. And he ignores the suffocating effects of a climate agenda motivated by regulatory zeal and anti–fossil fuel hysteria.
Nor does Blinken account for the true cost of Biden’s spending. Biden’s desire to be FDR Jr. has contributed to a national debt that stands at $35 trillion. His $1.5 trillion American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 brought about record-setting inflation that continues to erode purchasing power. Inflation also cuts into the U.S. defense budget.
Not that defense is a Biden priority. He sent budget proposals to Congress that reduced defense spending, only to be overridden by sober-minded committees of jurisdiction. Under Biden, the U.S. government spends more on debt service than on defense. The armed forces struggle to meet recruitment goals. Threats multiply.
Blinken says that after economics, the administration’s second “pillar of renewal” is strengthening U.S. alliances. Biden deserves credit for welcoming Sweden and Finland into NATO; bolstering the Indo-Pacific “quad” of America, Australia, India, and Japan; and creating AUKUS, a trilateral partnership among Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Skilled diplomacy was required to build out inherited institutions, he argues, and create new ones to balance China. For decades, presidents have said U.S. policy would turn toward East Asia. “The Biden administration,” writes Matthews, “made the pivot happen.”
Let’s not speak too soon. Biden’s diplomacy hasn’t lessened China’s belligerence. China’s intelligence and cyber warfare against the United States go on. The high-altitude surveillance balloon that transited north America in 2023 was a display of Chinese strength. China hasn’t relaxed its grip on Tibetans, Uighurs in Xinjiang, or Hongkongers. Its “no limits” partnership with Russia has deepened, providing Vladimir Putin an economic lifeline that sustains his war machine.
China’s own military buildup is extraordinary. Its harassment and encirclement of Taiwan are increasing. Its naval vessels assert primacy in the South China Sea by ramming Philippine ships. The Philippines is a treaty ally. The United States is pledged to the nation’s defense.
Security alliances are means, not ends in themselves. Effective alliances are purposeful. They prevent foes from crossing lines. We won’t know whether Biden’s exercises in multilateralism are successful until they have been tested. What happens if Russia targets NATO? If China moves on Taiwan?
The Biden record is not reassuring. Matthews and Blinken portray Biden’s 2021 decision to retreat from Afghanistan as an act of courageous statesmanship. “We learned hard lessons during the necessary but difficult U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan,” Blinken writes. The lessons came too late for the 13 U.S. servicemen killed in action at Kabul International Airport, and for 43 million Afghans, especially women and girls, consigned to a future under the Taliban—a future without rights, without schools, without hope.
The real lesson of Afghanistan is that America cannot deter its adversaries without a credible threat of force. The connection between Biden’s pullout and Putin’s war in Ukraine is plain. Deterrence failed. Six months after Kabul fell, Russian tanks rolled over the Ukrainian border. “On the whole,” says Jessica Matthews, “Biden’s handling of the war has been masterful.” Which war is she talking about?
True, Kiev remains independent. Recall, though, that Biden’s first instinct was to offer Volodymyr Zelensky safe passage to exile. Zelensky said no thanks, he needed ammunition instead. And while Biden has supplied Ukraine with weapons, aid carries a price. Biden slow-walked transfer of critical platforms such as Patriots, ATACMs, Abrams tanks, and F-16s. He continues to impose restrictions on long-range firings. Promising to stand by Ukraine as long as it takes, Biden has refused to do whatever it takes to help Ukraine stop and repel the invaders. The war grinds on, with no end in sight, draining the West’s political will to assist Ukraine’s righteous cause. Biden’s fear of Russian nukes grants Putin escalation dominance. No one is safer.
It’s the same in the Middle East. Biden entered office determined to revive the Iran nuclear deal. He projected weakness by lifting sanctions, offering diplomatic carrots, and turning a blind eye to Iran’s malign behavior. What happened next was predictable. Tehran accelerated its nuclear program. The mullahs used their new cash flow to suppress internal dissent and arm terrorist proxies. And they built a ring of fire around the Jewish State of Israel.
The ring of fire caught fire. On October 7, 2023, Hamas invaded Israel and committed the worst atrocity against Jews since the Holocaust. The next day, Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel’s north and forced the evacuation of Israeli civilians. The next month, Yemen’s Houthis attacked international shipping in the Red Sea, disrupting commercial traffic and provoking the longest sustained U.S. naval operation since World War II.
Biden has spent the past year proclaiming his support for Israel while trying to constrain Israel’s fight against Hamas and Hezbollah. Worried about gas prices and domestic political fallout, Biden has urged the parties to deescalate to avoid a regional war. No one listens. The regional war has been raging for a while.
As I write, some 100 captives, including seven Americans, remain in Hamas’s dungeons. Whereas Benjamin Netanyahu desires victory over Israel’s genocidal enemies, Biden wants a cease-fire and a Palestinian state that he believes will induce normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia. He’s out of it. A Palestinian state is a nonstarter after October 7. Only a strong Israel, backed by a strong America, will entice the Saudis to join the Abraham Accords.
“If America wants to protect its security and create opportunities for its people,” writes Antony Blinken, “it must stand with those who have a stake in a free, open, and prosperous world and stand up to those who threaten that world.” His language is revealing. Anyone can “take a stand.” What matters is how you act. Joe Biden’s foreign policy has taken plenty of stands, but his actions have not matched his ideals. His dislike of hard power has given autocrats and barbarians the advantage.
The more the president’s friends describe the world he’s made, the more they indict his tenure in office. Joe Biden didn’t bring about renewal. He ushered in decline. That will be his legacy.
Photo: AP Photo/Richard Drew
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