The Biden-Harris Foreign Policy Record is Strong and I Believe President Harris Will Do Even Better

And I Say That While Fully Aware of Some Serious Errors of the Past Four Years

To paraphrase the great foreign policy scholar Mel Brooks, foreign policy analysis is easy. Foreign policy is hard.

I’ve been a foreign policy analyst for most of my adult life and a practitioner for some of it. It’s a good living. As my Dad would say, it’s not like I’m working in a salt mine.

The great thing about being a foreign policy analyst is that there’s always something to criticize. Foreign policy is messy. Even the decisions of a great power like the U.S. only influence a few of the variables in any particular case. There are often conflicting national interests that make the kind of big, bold, black and white decisions that the media loves nearly impossible. Every decision is dogged by x-factors and unintended consequences. And then there are those darned black swans to deal with.

So, as a result, I could sit down at my desk at any point in the past thirty or so years and come up with something deep and critical and grounded in arcane historical references to say about whatever was going on. Further, I know that I would seldom be an outlier because foreign policy is not a science and on any given issue you can be certain that there are commentators taking every conceivable position on it. That’s why it’s also great to run foreign policy oriented media outlets as I have for many years (Foreign Policy Magazine and now the DSR Network) because it’s always possible to find noted experts on almost every side of almost every issue.

Having said that, I also recognize that underneath all the damned commentary there have to be some facts. And I do try to dig for those. Generally, they become clearer with the passage of time. Some of those from the past few decades include conclusions like the Iraq War was a disaster, staying in Afghanistan for 20 years was a grave mistake, and, well, you know…stay out of land wars in Asia.

It is difficult to draw conclusions about current events. This is largely because events tend to continue happening and next thing you know the unforeseeable future becomes the present and the present becomes the past and the whole thing gets pretty damned confusing.

Nonetheless, I feel confident in offering up a conclusion that may not, at the moment, win me much support from other experts but that I am confident with time will become widely accepted as fact, as an analytical baseline.

That is that the foreign policy record of the Biden-Harris Administration will rank up there with the very best ever conducted by the United States and that the Biden-Harris foreign policy team, led by the president with the active involvement of the vice president, is almost certainly the best of its kind that I have ever seen. (And I have written a couple of books and hundreds of articles assessing how our national security establishment works, has worked, should work and sometimes should not work.)

Now, before you start howling, that statement comes with a number of caveats. First, I think the administration’s policy with regard to the Israel-Gaza conflict has been deeply and sometimes disastrously flawed. Any U.S. president would have supported Israel in the wake of 10/7…although few would have gone as far as Biden did. Further, all U.S. administration’s would back Israel’s undoubted right to defend itself and all would have and should have condemned the terrorism of Hamas. But when it became apparent that the Netanyahu Administration was going to wage a brutal war of total destruction in Gaza—and it was apparent very early—the Biden Administration should have hit the brakes. It should have withheld arms and aid from Israel so long as those arms and that aid were being used to violate international law (as they were and continue to be). They should have done that because it is actually the law in the United States and because it is not in our interest in any way to aid in what was a horrific and ill-conceived Israeli campaign that would not and will not enhance their security, advance the cause of peace in the region, and at the same time, was causing such profound human suffering.

Again, I do understand why the US continues to support Israel’s defense to this day because of the threat posed by Iran and its proxies. But Netanyahu is a liar and a genuinely evil man surrounded by bad actors and we should not have in any way enabled him. It is a stain on the administration’s record that can never be removed.

I also am aware of other critiques that are reasonable. While I strongly believe the exit from Afghanistan was overdue and warranted, the mechanics of the exit were not well handled and in particular too much credence was given to a government in Afghanistan that was, like Netanyahu, virtually certain to screw us in the end. Should we have provided more weapons systems to Ukraine earlier? Probably, but I also understand the initial caution to avoid crossing perceived Russian red lines given the very real nuclear threat posed by the Kremlin. Further, I understand that some of the arguments about releasing some weapons systems are flawed. (Allowing the Ukrainians to use long-distance precision munitions like ATACMS to go after the threat posed by Russian glide bombs as is often suggested today does not take into consideration that the origin points of 99 percent of Russian glide bomb attacks are from beyond the range of even the most forward deployed ATACMS. At least that is the case made to me by senior administration officials and I feel its credible.)

Were we too hawkish with China sometimes? In my view yes. We should resist the chorus of new cold warriors who seemingly want to turn our competition with that country into a self-fulfilling prophecy of war. Do I think our trade policy leaned toward the protectionist too often? Yes. But I also reject the idea that unfettered free trade is always in our national interest. No one else plays the game that way. We should not either. I could go on.

But while I think all of these are serious issues that deserve to be rethought when we enter into the Harris Administration, they sometimes overshadow what I consider to be the singular triumph of the Biden-Harris Administration. That is that while many administrations talk a big game about strategy or even grand strategy (which is a term that makes think tankers and professors weak at the knees), this administration has overseen several strategic shifts that were of truly great importance, big and necessary changes that have eluded past administrations and that will benefit the U.S. for many years and even decades to come.

Briefly, these include the following:

• The withdrawal from Afghanistan was not only the right thing to do, bringing to an end the era of endless wars in the Southwest Asia, but it was essential if we were to actually reshift our strategic focus to the Indo-Pacific region. As it happens pulling out also freed up vital bandwidth to deal with the Ukraine crisis. It was a strategic reset that presidents had avoided for twenty years but that Biden had rightly argued for. He and Harris and their team deserve credit for it.

• The major shift to the Indo-Pacific region is perhaps the most consequential constructive adjustment in US foreign policy since the end of the Cold War…you could argue that the post 9/11 War on Terror was just as big but of course, it had the disadvantage of being a catastrophic misstep. The shift was not just idle talk either. A rich array of major policy and programmatic adjustments have been part of this move. The elevation of the QUAD. The creation of AUKUS. The creation of a new tripartite collaboration with Japan and South Korea. Deepening ties with countries like the Philippines. Shifting resources to our military in the region. Engaging our European partners in many of these planning steps.

• A vital part of seeking to address the rise of China—the central driver of the shift to the Indo-Pacific—was another major strategic initiative that is underestimated by many on the foreign policy side. That is the huge investment in U.S. competitiveness made by the Biden Administration. From infrastructure to the CHIPS and Science Act, the U.S. has said we want to be prepared for the new era in global competition—to make advanced chips here, to develop other advanced technologies here, to work hard to maintain our competitive advantages in critical emerging tech areas like AI, quantum computing, new energy technologies and more. No U.S. administration in decades had made the kind of investment on the home front Biden and Harris did. It was an essential step.

• The administration also undertook a global effort to counterbalance Chinese competition in every region of the world. Regional investment and outreach initiatives were a critical part of this. Among others, the VP played a leading role here in Southeast Asia (just a days after the Afghan pullout), in Africa, in the Middle East, in Europe, in Mexico and Central America. The geopolitical playing field was being remade and this team rightly prioritized that and was proactive in its efforts.

• Needless to say, another major initiative of profound strategic importance came in response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine in 2022. Without hesitating the Biden-Harris Administration led the effort not only to support Ukraine but also to re-energize, re-focus, strengthen and ultimately expand NATO. When Biden took office in 2020, few thought NATO would become stronger or more relevant but that is precisely what happened with the addition of Finland and Sweden to its ranks, new commitments from partners in NATO to support Ukraine and to fund our common defense.

There have been other vital initiatives that could be added to this mix. A major effort, linked to the above mentioned green tech investments, to prioritize combatting climate change. Helping to lead the response to the COVID pandemic and to put in place economic recovery plans that have led the world’s industrialized countries in the wake of that global disaster. Prioritizing efforts to help develop the legal and policy frameworks for the introduction and proliferation of new technologies, like AI, that could be global game changers in economics, governance, warfare, and more.

Past administrations have sometimes tried but none have achieved the kind of significant serial strategic resets of the past four years. Our alliances are stronger. We are better prepared at home. Our rivals and enemies see us as a more credible counterbalance to their efforts. (Indeed, as was the case with Putin in Ukraine, they have made devastating miscalculations because he thought that the Biden Administration might make some of the same errors of which prior U.S. administrations were guilty.)

A Harris Administration must do better when it comes to issues like Israel and Gaza. It must resist the growing pressures to engage in a new Cold War while increasing our strength and readiness so that no competitor dares test our resolve.

But here’s the thing: I have been covering the VP’s foreign policy for the past three and a half years. I have huge confidence in her judgement and leadership on these issues. I believe her inner circle of advisors is first rate. Her training as a lawyer and her commitment to a rules-based international order can be a great positive factor in the next administration.

In fact, in contradistinction to the disastrous consequences that would surely come from electing a foreign policy arsonist like Trump, I am confident that electing Kamala Harris as president would directly and usefully build on the strategic successes of the past four years and help improve our policies where improvements are needed.

This can be a turning point for American leadership in the world, one that is better for us here at home and for our neighbors on the planet. What is more, judging by the daily strides made by the Harris-Walz campaign, I am confident that it will be just that.