The Central Folly of Biden’s Foreign Policy

By Shay Khatiri & Michael Mazza

Wednesday, July 19, 2023

 

Two and a half years into the administration of President Joe Biden, there is enough evidence to discern a coherent pattern in its foreign policy. China, Russia, and Iran constitute the United States’ top three antagonists. In their own — and sometimes similar — ways, the three have challenged the world order, undermined U.S. interests, even killed Americans, and escalated conflicts they had previously started. The administration’s reactions to these events, while differing in their specifics, betray a common political objective: preventing escalation.

 

The earliest indicator of this inclination came in the spring of 2021. During a summit between the U.S. and the Russian presidents, the two sides committed to maintaining “strategic stability.” Unsurprisingly, Vladimir Putin didn’t keep his word. Since Putin’s escalation of his war on Ukraine, the administration has made Ukrainian victory secondary to avoiding an implausible war between Russia and NATO. “The calculus of wanting to contain the conflict inside Ukraine’s borders and avoid nuclear escalation,” as the Washington Post put it after the recent NATO summit, “imbues every action the administration takes.” It shows. Repeatedly, the administration has made it clear to the Ukrainians that it would not support attacks on Russian territory (Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a statement to the contrary before Congress, which he never repeated). It has refused to provide Kyiv with longer-range weapons and has remained hesitant to supply the Ukrainians with more powerful and advanced capabilities over vague fears of Russian escalation, despite ample evidence that such fears are unfounded.

 

The administration’s fears of escalating tensions in U.S.–China relations have likewise been manifest since the president’s first year in office. In his first meeting with Xi Jinping, held virtually in November 2021, Biden called for “common-sense guardrails to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict.” Meeting Xi in person a year later, the president emphasized avoidance of conflict, responsible management of competition, and cooperation on shared interests. Amid these calls for “guardrails,” China has continued a significant quantitative and qualitative nuclear-weapons buildup, assumed an ever more threatening posture toward Taiwan, and dangerously confronted U.S. ships and aircraft in international seas and skies. In response, Biden has gone all in on pursuing a “thaw,” with summertime visits from Antony Blinken, Janet Yellen, John Kerry, and Gina Raimondo all aimed at making nice rather than gaining an edge. Just as he has prioritized containing the Ukraine war over pursuing Ukrainian victory, he has prioritized containing the competition over winning it.

 

Since Biden took office, Iran has been advancing its nuclear-weapons program and escalating attacks on U.S. forces, along with attacks on U.S. partners in the Middle East. Last year, Iran’s missile strikes against Iraqi Kurdistan killed a U.S. citizen. Most recently, Iran-backed forces killed a U.S. contractor in Syria. In response, the administration hit back at Iran’s proxies, which the Islamic Republic considers expendable, but was careful not to impose direct costs on Iran. Since January 2021, Tehran’s nuclear program has reached new heights, with Iran now increasing uranium enrichment from 4.5 percent to 83.7 percent (90 percent is considered weapons-grade for advanced weapons, but early weapons used 80 percent enriched uranium), while installing advanced centrifuges. Separately, it has supplied military drones to Russia for use in Ukraine.

 

The three U.S. adversaries have been probing the administration, and the timid responses at each turn have allowed them to incrementally escalate where they can. In other words, the administration’s escalation phobia has not prevented escalation, but only left the adversaries to choose the time and manner of the escalation.

 

The Biden administration’s own National Security Strategy frames the current age as an era of competition between the United States and its rivals. For contestants, the purpose of competition is victory. Contrary to what the Biden team may believe, there are no participation trophies in geopolitics. If this administration were interested in securing an advantageous position in its competition with China, it would be putting Beijing on the defensive in the Taiwan Strait, challenging its diplomatic and economic offensive across the Global South, and selling the American people on the need to confront this rising threat. If it were interested in a resolute victory for Ukraine, and thus a defeat for one of America’s primary challengers, it would speed to Ukraine the weapons Ukrainians require as rapidly as possible. If it were interested in halting Iranian depredations in the Middle East, it would use force to decisively punish the Islamic Republic, instead of bribing it with cash or imposing sanctions — or both at once.

 

This is not to say that an explicit threat of escalation is always the best tactic. De-escalation is at times advisable. But escalation should always be an option. Unfortunately, considering escalation seems to be contrary to the president’s instincts.

 

Escalation management is a strategic objective that should serve a political end, but the United States is ceding ground because Biden has made escalation management his administration’s most supreme political end. He is deeply uncomfortable with international political friction, and he fears that punishing adversaries, employing the military tool kit he has at his disposal, or threatening the use of force will inevitably lead to spiraling tensions. He is also deeply uncomfortable with what Thomas Schelling, a pioneer scholar of strategic studies in the United States, called “the threat that leaves something to chance.” Adversaries know it and thus have the United States at a disadvantage. Until they see that Washington is willing to risk escalation, whether in diplomacy or in war, they will remain on the offensive, confident that the administration will respond to further advances with fear and accommodation rather than resolve and daring.