The nomination by US President-elect Joe Biden of Antony Blinken as Secretary of State indicates that his foreign policy will be an Obama replay. Its difference from the Trump policy will be its emphasis on human rights. Thus, the ball is in the Philippine court. Will President Duterte rail at Biden as he did at Obama when pressed on human rights? Or will he learn how to accept criticism of his failed drug war policies?
The foreign policy of the outgoing Trump administration has a historical precedent. After World War I, there was a tug of war between interventionists led by President Woodrow Wilson and isolationists in the US Congress. The isolationists used the same slogan, “America First,” that Trump would use. They wanted the US not to get entangled in European affairs. Wilson aimed otherwise and proposed the creation of the League of Nations, with the US as its main supporter. But the isolationists won the argument; the US retreated from European affairs. Had the US remained active in European affairs, Hitler’s aggressive policies would have been checked and World War II would have been averted.
Using the lessons learned after World War I, US policy after World War II became interventionist in world affairs. At the end of WW II, the US economy represented 70 percent of world output. The US became the major proponent of free trade. In world politics, the US formed what was termed the Western Alliance to contain the spread of communism. The political and economic system that was established under US leadership won the Cold War with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
When Donald Trump assumed office in 2016, he challenged the world order established by the US after World War II. He moved away from globalization and downsized American participation in NATO. Trump’s approach is actually realistic and jibes with the declining power of the US. By 2050, the US will only be the third largest economy in the world, with China and India both overtaking America.
Thus, the major task of the Biden administration is: Will it continue the Trump policy of downsizing US involvement in world affairs, or will Biden restore the status quo ante? Actually, a lot of countries will welcome a less intrusive US presence in world affairs as envisioned by Trump.
The COVID-19 pandemic intruded as the major issue in the last US presidential elections. The true sentiment of the American voters are not reflected in the outcome of the US polls. The Democrats won the presidency, but the Republicans won the congressional elections by increasing their members in the House.
During the Cold War, NATO had exaggerated the disparity in size between its armed forces and that of the Warsaw Pact countries. The NATO standing army was composed of 60 divisions, the Warsaw Pact 180 divisions. This disparity was exposed as a hoax during Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost. It was revealed then that each NATO division was composed of 18,000 men, while a Warsaw Pact division had only 8,000 men. In addition, 50 of the Warsaw Pact divisions were in the Far East facing China. Thus, the two contending forces facing each other in Europe were at parity, with about one million troops on each side.
The major cost of maintaining the NATO forces was borne by American taxpayers. Biden will face a major problem if he reverses the Trump initiative of downsizing US forces in Europe. At the height of the Cold War, the East/West front line was Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin. Now the front line is one thousand kilometers away between the Baltic States and Russia. It will not be an easy task for Biden to reverse the Trump initiative on this issue.
The same problem will be faced by Biden on the issue of globalization. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the danger of allowing the supply chain of a key industry like medicine to remain in China. Thus, the free trade policies pursued under Obama may be difficult to revive.
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Hermenegildo C. Cruz is a retired career ambassador who served in this capacity in Chile, the Soviet Union, and the United Nations.