As President Joe Biden exits the American political scene, he hands off his foreign policy legacy to Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. The campaign, and the current administration, clearly believe the foreign policy championed by the Biden-Harris ticket is a winning message, and Harris has been sure to associate herself with even such controversial moments as Biden’s .
In Biden’s speech explaining his decision not to seek a second term he also tried to cement a narrative. “I’m the first president in this century to report that the United States is not at war anywhere in the world,” he said. As if anticipating the president’s audacious claim that his policies have brought about peace—and mocking it—China and Russia made history by conducting a joint bomber mission close to U.S. shores. Russian Tu-95 and Chinese H-6 warplanes flew off the coast of Alaska signaling their deepening and militarily significant ties.
At the same time, Iranian proxies are setting the Middle East ablaze while the United States lobs what amounts to minor counterstrikes against Houthis who confidently launch attacks at U.S. and allied forces. Iranian militants even claimed the lives of U.S. forces in Jordan just six months ago. Out of fear of an escalatory response from Tehran, Biden has handcuffed the U.S. Navy and only allowed it to tepidly respond defensively to the militants, permitting the Red Sea to be ruled by Iran and its patrons, China and Russia. The pretext for the Iranian campaign against Israel and the U.S.-led coalition is its solidarity with the militant Islamist terror group Hamas and its sadistic attack on Israeli citizens on Oct. 7, 2023.
Harris only announced her choice of Walz as her running mate on Tuesday, so we are only beginning to learn about his foreign policy views. But we do know that he supported the Iran nuclear deal, which has flushed the Iranian regime with cash and enabled it to fund its terrorist proxies throughout the Middle East. Although initially supportive of Israel right after the Oct. 7 attacks, he has been willing to appease a loud and dangerous anti-Semitic faction of the base. He has with the pro-Palestinian protesters who have at times been violent and destructive and have sympathized with and outright defended Hamas terrorists and their continued efforts to maximize the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza to harm and weaken Israel.
As for China, Walz has a long history of traveling to and working in and with the Chinese. While he expresses concern about the Chinese Communist Party’s oppression of religious minorities and political dissidents, he supports “continuing our constructive economic relationship with China while expanding military-to-military contacts”—even though critical U.S. manufacturing and national security–related supply chains are inside China, where civilian and military use is so blurred as to be effectively the same. And, the reason the Chinese and the U.S. militaries don’t have a more productive communication line is because a defining characteristic of the Chinese military is secrecy and deception—it sees openness, honesty, and mutual benefit as undermining China’s goal to replace the United States as the world’s most powerful and influential nation. In 2016, Walz distanced himself from those who correctly see the Chinese Communist Party as an adversary and instead expressed hope for cooperation.
In his new book, Countering China’s Great Game, Michael Sobolik skillfully weaves three threads: One meticulously demonstrates China’s intent to replace the United States as the top superpower, another shows a way to counter China, and the third carefully explains that the United States has not decided to do it. Biden’s feeble attempt at taking credit for peace right after the historic Russia-China bomber patrol seemed to scream Sobolik’s thesis.
“Codifying China’s greatness in the twenty-first century cannot be done apart from subverting America’s historically dominant position across the Eurasian landmass,” Sobolik writes. “Ever since 1945, Washington’s overriding strategic objective has been preventing the emergence of a regional power in Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. The leading candidates for regional hegemony in those respective regions are Russia, Iran, and China. It is no coincidence that the CCP has embraced the Kremlin as a ‘partnership without limits,’ while promising hundreds of billions in financing to the mullahs in Tehran.”
Although these partnerships with adversaries began before the Biden administration, the Biden-Harris pattern of trying to appease them and pressure and restrict partners and allies has had the unintended effect of driving our adversaries closer together.
The Biden-Harris team dismantled the Trump administration’s pressure campaign against Iran while putting pressure on Israel—one of our greatest and most significant allies—and partner with Saudi Arabia. The administration also attempted a second Russia reset, exemplified by its decision to waive sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 energy pipeline from Russia to Germany. These moves failed to deter Iran and Russia from aggression in their respective regions. Indeed, the Biden-led effort to appease these two countries correlates with their conclusions that now is the time to attack.
Biden-Harris officials talk about its defense of “democracies” and the “rules-based international order.” But Sobolik shows that the failure of the United States to implement a grand strategy to deter and weaken this axis begins with a failed policy toward the leader of this axis: Xi Jinping and the CCP. Sobolik issues this judgment: “The United States is not behaving like a confident superpower in its reckoning with Beijing’s imperialism. For its part, the Biden administration is seeking ‘coexistence’ with the PRC by attempting to split the difference between cooperation and competition.”
Harris and Walz might try to market their foreign policy to the American people as the way to “peace,” but U.S. adversaries are countering that message. China and Russia are cementing their ties and military collaboration with the shared aim of weakening U.S. alliances. Iran is ratcheting up its violence and supplying weapons to Russia, and its terror proxies shoot at Western ships while making way for Chinese and Russian boats. Russia, China, and Iran recently practiced a maritime operation . And North Korea has become a preferred and provocateur in service to this new axis.
To regain stability and increase the security of the United States and its allies, the next administration must offer a clear break from the current Biden-Harris approach. Instead, the Harris-Walz ticket is promising more of the same.
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