The Biden Agenda: Would He Stand Up to Dictators?

There is reason for skepticism.

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Good morning and welcome to the latest in our series, “The Biden Agenda.” We’ve invited some of the smartest thinkers and subject-matter experts we know to contribute to our series on what a Biden presidency might look like. Matthew Kroenig, national security adviser to several presidential campaigns and deputy director of the Scowcroft Center at the Atlantic Council, investigates how Biden would handle relations with geopolitical foes like Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China.

As we look to the November presidential elections, many in the United States and around the world are asking what a Joe Biden presidency would mean for the future of U.S. national security policy. Robert Gates, the widely respected former secretary of defense to both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, famously said that Biden has “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” 

That is not a ringing endorsement, but it was a backward looking statement. What would a Biden national security policy look like going forward? 

Last month’s Democratic National Convention gave us a sense of how the Biden campaign is thinking about its foreign policy agenda. The constant refrain from speakers was that Biden would be good to America’s friends and hard on its enemies. Indeed, in the only passage of Biden’s acceptance speech that touched on foreign policy, he declared:

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  1. Avatar photo
    Vlad M.

    I applaud the author for shedding light on this difficult topic. Of course he won't stand up to dictators. To this day liberals can't accept the fact that Obama strengthened Iran, emboldened Russia and let China become the arrogant authoritarian powerhouse that is today. Trump has failed on many fronts, including China and Russia, but the idea that Biden would be better is ridiculous.

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  2. C Winter

    PolitiFact -- Joe Biden says under Donald Trump, Iran’s uranium stockpile has grown tenfold. It has.

    The International Atomic Energy Agency reported in September that Iran now has a bit over 2,105 kilograms of enriched uranium. That’s more than 10 times the limit in the agreement.

    Not only does Iran have more uranium than it should under the agreement, the uranium is more concentrated than what was allowed. About 90% of the total uranium is enriched beyond the 3.67% limit to 4.5%

    https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/sep/17/joe-biden/joe-biden-says-under-donald-trump-irans-uranium-st/

    How is this in America's best interests?

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    1. Pedro Goulart

      Well, but, but, sanctions! But seriously, the only reason why hawks keep saying it's a bad or "failed" deal is because for them the military option is totally acceptable. They just forgot to ask the rest of the country, or the whole world for that matter, if they agree. Their view on the JCPOA doesn't hold if you don't share that premise, and I suspect if you press on that they would admit it.

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    Robert Knudson

    In all honesty, if Biden takes the Obama "pivot to Asia" defense strategy, reignites our ties with our allies through getting through some version of the TPP, goes back to the Obama prioritisation of the African theater where "belt and road" is in effect on the Chinese end and proves a reliable Nato ally to counter Russia I will take his blundering with Iran.

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  4. Frank Pepp

    Where does the notion come from that Obama was soft on Russia? The sanctions he coordinated perhaps gave us Trump.

    I'm a super hawk here who thinks we should have honored our treaty and gone, or been willing to war over Ukrainian territory. But I haven't heard anyone argue for that.

    I'd say Obama was naive, but ultimately fierce and punishing economically.

    We need some toughness, we also need allies. China, like Iran and Russia don't have the diplomatic boxes around them they should, the carrot and sticks to be part of the free world. Trump doesn't give a damn about a free world. Biden does. That's enough for me.

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    Pat Riot

    Conservative foreign policy pundits like Mr. Kroenig here will offer nothing relevant until they drop their purely partisan opposition to the original Iran deal. Doing so positions them as a partisan shill instead of dispassionate analyst of our best options.

    In walking away from the deal, Republicans demonstrated one of their many, "dog catches car" moments where they spiked the ball in the political end-zone but then didn't know what to do after that. Iran is as big a mess as ever, and they are working on nuclear weapons now with, at minimum more impunity than ever before, and less charitably, have rebooted their nuclear program from a standstill precisely because of Trump's politics-driven decision.

    Foreign policy pundits painted themselves into an intellectual corner with the Iran deal, that corner keeping them in the cramped square footage of a partisan shill, with limited ability to operate.

    A realistic foreign policy would start with the idea that there are often no "good" options for America in many situations because our country is not disposed to making war whereas the other side is. We cannot credibly threaten Iran with significant military action any more significant than assassinating one of their generals.

    Trump underscored this when Iran retaliated for their general by bombing and American base causing a dozen casualties. Trump's reaction to the retaliation was to *lie about the attack* and say Iran completely missed our people when they didn't. Trump lied because he didn't want to escalate the situation further, which makes sense politically as probably 90% of Americans don't want any such escalation.

    Fighting our battles across the world with one and a half hands tied behind our backs will be frustrating, will have setbacks, and will produce suboptimal outcomes that will make for easy political fodder. The alternative, as Americans have judged it, is foreign wars. Whether our adversity to war is the right or wrong long-term decision is immaterial: the simple fact of the matter is that they aren't going to happen.

    The only chance we have for a rational foreign policy is for experts and pundits and think tanks to rise *above* politics and judge each of our movements one episode at a time.

    Instead we get utter partisan garbage like, "President Trump deserves credit for standing up to Beijing." or, "Trump, who has shown a **puzzling refusal** to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin...". Those are things you could only say if you were shilling for a political victory, not trying to figure out what, as a nation, we should do in order to keep Americans safe and prosperous.

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  6. Pedro Goulart

    The article talks about "standing up to dictators", then in practice talks about standing up to America's foes. Standing up for democratic values and standing up to one's foes are certainly good goals, but they are different ones, and the Venn diagram for "America's foes" and "dictatorships" don't really overlap completely. By making those things interchangeable, hawks in the US really make themselves vulnerable to accusations of hypocrisy (where's talk about standing up to Saudi Arabia, one of the most brutal regimes in the world?). You're putting a noble spin to a reasonable but less romantic strategic interest, and it doesn't fool a lot of people.

    This article has one of the best criticisms of the JCPOA I've seen, which is not surprising since Dr. Kroenig is a fine scholar of nuclear proliferation. But it frames the issue of uranium enrichment by Iran rather strangely. Sure it would be best if an autocratic country didn't have access to that, but what was the realistic alternative? The only way I see is through American military intervention, and that comes with huge costs to America and the region. Moreover, not allowing Iran to enrich uranium would not eliminate all inconsistencies on US nonproliferation goals, since it still allows India and Israel to have nuclear weapons.

    I have a really hard time understanding based on what exactly hawks insist that sanctions can achieve what they claim to achieve. What we have of empirical evidence so far is that sanctions don't really work by themselves, but rather only combined within a broader bargaining framework. Sanctions can work combined with threats of military action (and Trump is super transparent that he doesn't want that) and as bargaining chips (what Obama did). They can be a bargaining tool because they sure inflict pain, but the idea that they will work for more stuff because they will weaken the regime in a substantial and timely manner is just blind faith. The theory has some logic, but you can say the same about alternative theories that would predict the opposite, that sanctions might unite the country and embolden hardliners!

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    1. Avatar photo
      Paul Reichardt

      Pedro, do you care to elaborate why you think "article has one of the best criticisms of the JCPOA I've seen"? The writer doesn't actually spend much time on it in the article, though he has articulated his policy views and preferred approaches in detail elsewhere. (https://www.amazon.com/Time-Attack-Looming-Iranian-Nuclear/dp/1137279532)

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      1. Pedro Goulart

        Well, he argues that just allowing uranium enrichment is bad, and that's certainly not ideal. Of course, counterpoint would be what is a realistic alternative.

        He also mentions the fact that the deal antagonized Israel and the Gulf states, which I agree was a blindspot, and probably the Obama admin should have made more in reassuring them. I don't particularly care a lot about what the Gulf autocrats think, though I understand you cannot just ignore them. Israeli opposition deserves more consideration, that was a big opposition in public opinion, that went beyond Netanyahu's base.

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      Pat Riot

      Like all Republican pundits, he criticizes the JCPOA for not being perfect and then later goes on to reiterate the obvious truth that there are *no* perfect solutions for this situation. The net-net is that this is just partisan shillery, not learned policy punditry.

      Somebody trying to help America win abroad would offer the next president, of whatever party, a realistic *solution* and then judge which president has the *character* to carry out that solution.

      Biden has shown he will fight for America and Trump has shown he only fights for Trump. Biden would *listen* to somebody with real-world solutions and Trump would disregard them.

      Kroenig is a Republican party operative. His goal is to get Republicans elected, not protect the country.

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      1. Pedro Goulart

        I agree with you on the issues, but you really don't have to assume people are arguing in bad faith. Dr. Kroenig is a respected scholar, who produced good research on nuclear issues.

        My issue with hawks on JCPOA (and most similar issues) is not so much the end disagreement, which is fine, but not being forthcoming about the whole strategic context of what is realistic and what are the costs and benefits of the options you defend. They seem to accept a bigger cost than the majority of public opinion would, and to have some hidden assumptions that do not make a lot of sense.
        Hawks seem to assume that the increased likelihood of war is just fine, that public opinion on a new war doesn't matter, and that there are no costs in alienating NATO allies, or backing out on America's word. My position is actually pretty close to Jim Mattis, who is not really a dove, exactly because he takes all of this stuff into consideration!

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          Pat Riot

          I get that's he's probably a good analyst, but he sabotages his own credibility with clearly partisan pronouncements which are placed at the foundations of his thesis.

          And yes I agree: like John Bolton, he's simply living in another country that isn't the modern USA. It's not just a "majority" who don't want war, it's virtually every American at this point: short of a direct attack on our people within the borders of our country, support for a war wouldn't break 10%--and or enemies know that, and know precisely how to play this game (and oh look, under the guidance of folks like this gentleman, *we* actually do *not* know how to play this game).

          As such, his analysis is irrelevant, and this article boils down to a veiled endorsement for Trump in November and nothing else.

          And totally with you on Gen. Mattis. Make him president.

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          1. Pedro Goulart

            The irony is that hawks usually worship Mattis, but they would certainly criticize a President Mattis' foreign policy.

            Another irony is that the namesake for the center where Dr. Kroenig is Deputy DIrector, Brent Scowcroft, was enthusiastic about the JCPOA. I think 5 years later this op-ed still holds well:
            https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-iran-deal-an-epochal-moment/2015/08/21/c9c870b4-480f-11e5-8e7d-9c033e6745d8_story.html

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  7. C Winter

    “Trump is a businessman. We can just pay him money and the problems will be solved. As long as we have money, we can buy him. That’s the reason why we prefer him to Democrats.”

    "Trump’s unfiltered tweets help China in negotiations because he is 'easy to read,' said Long Yongtu, a former vice minister of foreign trade and China’s point man during its accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001, at a conference in Shenzhen this month. 'We want Trump to be reelected; we would be glad to see that happen.'"

    "Another influential voice in Beijing, Tsinghua University international relations professor Yan Xuetong, wrote recently that, thanks to Trump, China was facing 'the best strategic opportunity' since the Cold War. 'Trump has undermined the U.S.-led alliance system, which has improved China's international environment,' Yan said in Southern Review."

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/china-hopes-trump-will-be-reelected-hes-easy-to-read/2019/11/26/70538d98-00ca-11ea-8341-cc3dce52e7de_story.html

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  8. C Winter

    "Microsoft’s finding that it is Mr. Biden — not Mr. Trump — whom Chinese hackers are targeting also complicates a narrative pushed by the White House that China is interfering in the 2020 election to help the former vice president’s campaign."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/10/us/politics/russian-hacking-microsoft-biden-trump.html

    Why do both China and Russia prefer another Trump term if he is so tough on them? Why do they fear a Biden presidency?

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  9. Joe1776

    Great article.

    Trump is very odd when it comes to Russia. If he were bought off you would think he would say all sorts of anti-russian stuff and then actually have a policy that goes easy on them. But instead we have the opposite. A policy that is considerably tougher on them then prior governments, but weird and completely unnecessary flattery. Maybe flattery works on Putin like it does on Trump?

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    DougAz

    This American has said before and says again.. to hell with the Middle East. I want every US dollar, Soldier and Contractor out of this malignant corrupt area.
    Enough WASTED American blood and money

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    1. David R

      But building nuclear power plants to run electric cars is going to annoy both progressives and Trumpbots (a feature not a bug in my book, but problematic in present-day American politics) ...

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        DougAz

        I don't agree David. I'm an environmentalist Liberal Progress - Physicist and businessman. The ONLY thing the US needs to do, is get over the egoism of "Free-Marketism" for Nuclear Energy. Follow France's Nuclear Industrial Policy.

        In France, the do not allow "competition of designs" for new nuclear plants. France standardized designs, with continual improvement, on the boiling water reactor. Repetitive design in any domain moves you down the experience curve. This lowers cost, lowers risk and improves safety.

        We must need politicians to adapt what we in business do: Learn and take Best Practices.

        Oh - The United States Navy does this already.. they standardize nuclear power plants (Zumwalt) on boiling water designs, and they have this Best Practice thing called "Lessons Learned". It is not hard... well political .. but truly not hard.

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