IT’S safe to say that President Joe Biden entered office with as much experience in foreign policy as three famous White House occupants who were recognised for their expertise in world affairs: Dwight Eisenhower (the supreme commander of Allied forces in Western Europe during World War II who led the massive invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe); Richard Nixon (President Eisenhower’s vice president with a reputation for foreign policy expertise, having travelled to dozens of countries before becoming president); and George H W Bush, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and first head of the US liaison office to the People’s Republic of China).
After four decades of serving in Congress, including as a member and chair of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and later two terms as vice president, travelling to almost every corner of the world and negotiating with, among others, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian leader Vladimir Putin, President Biden’s knowledge of world affairs probably rivals that of a Harvard PhD in international relations.
So on some level, it may not be surprising that President Biden’s masterly response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and in particular, the mobilisation of a powerful coalition of diplomatic and military partners to confront President Putin’s aggression, recalls former President Bush I’s winning strategy to force Iraq’s Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait in 1991.
Although it’s too early to declare victory, there is no doubt that the massive economic sanctions against Russia and the diplomatic and military assistance to beleaguered Ukraine have halted the Russian attack and delivered major blows to President Putin.
The diplomatic achievements of President Bush I can be explained by his ability to recognise the limits operating on US power. Unlike President George W Bush, he decided not to invade Iraq and do a regime change in Baghdad. He also managed with great skills the end of the Cold War without humiliating the former Soviet Union and by taking steps to integrate it into the international community while safeguarding US diplomatic ties with Beijing, despite the anti-China backlash in Washington in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
The end result was that Washington’s policies at that time not only brought to an end an international crisis involving a dangerous Middle Eastern authoritarian leader. They also avoided providing incentives to the anxious leaders in Moscow and Beijing to bond together against a triumphant US (recall the “Unipolar Moment”) by forming a Sino-American anti-American axis.
From that perspective, President Biden׳s winning strategy should be based on the notion that the US goal isn’t to “defeat” Russia, nor is it in a position to achieve that. Notwithstanding its losses in Ukraine, Russia remains a major world power with nuclear weapons whose legitimate interests (as opposed to its current aggressive stand) need to be accommodated.
Indeed, as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who under President Nixon had laid the foundations for the détente with Moscow and the opening to China, suggested at the Davos conference in Switzerland this week, the West should not try to inflict a devastating defeat on the Russian military in Ukraine and instead encourage negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.
“Negotiations need to begin in the next two months before it (the war) creates upheavals and tensions that will not be easily overcome,” he told the political leaders and business executives gathered at the World Economic Forum (WEF). He also warned them against the risk of pushing Russia into a permanent alliance with China.
President Biden deserves cheers for his success in bolstering the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), persuading its members, and in particular, Germany, to increase their defence spending as part of an effort to contain the threat of a revanchist Russia.
That in theory could allow the US to continue its pivot to Asia and try to strengthen the strategic and economic ties with its partners in Asia as it attempts to respond to what, according to the bipartisan consensus in Washington, is the most serious challenge to US global interests today : China.
President Biden’s debut tour of Asia -- the visits to South Korea and Japan, the unveiling of his Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), the convening of the “Quad” grouping of the US, India, Australia and Japan -- and the earlier meeting with ASEAN representatives in Washington, were all meant to demonstrate to America’s allies in the region, and in the process send a message to Beijing: that while being forced by the Russo-Ukraine war to make a strategic detour across the Atlantic, the US intends to maintain and even expand its presence across the Pacific.
In that context, President Biden’s warning to China, saying that the US would be willing to respond militarily if it invades Taiwan, should not be seen as one of his “gaffes” or “senior moments”.
That the US refrained from deploying military troops in Ukraine in response to the Russian invasion could have been seen in Beijing and other world capitals as the shape of things to come if the Chinese would decide to invade Taiwan: that in the event, like in Ukraine, the US would avoid a direct military confrontation with the regional aggressor.
President Biden was therefore trying to highlight the difference between Ukraine and Taiwan when it comes to core US strategic interests: Ukraine isn’t a member of NATO and has no formal defence treaty with the US, which explains why the Americans are not sending troops to defend it.
Under the “One China” policy, the US acknowledges China’s position that Taiwan is part of China but has never officially recognised Beijing’s claim to the self-governing island of 23 million and certainly hasn’t accepted the idea that the Chinese would force it to (re)unite with them by using military power.
The US provides Taiwan defensive weapons but has remained intentionally ambiguous on whether it would intervene militarily in the event of a Chinese attack, aka “strategic ambiguity”.
But a nationalist China that has failed to keep its commitments to maintain an autonomous Hong Kong, needs to be warned that it should not learn the wrong lessons from Ukraine: The US would be ready to go to war with China if it decides to challenge the status-quo over Taiwan. Nothing is ambiguous about that now!
But like in the case of US policy over Ukraine, President Biden should recognise that a commitment to stand up to America’s two major global rivals, Russia and China, needs to take into consideration the strategic and economic interests of its partners in those two regions that aren’t always in line with those in Washington.
Hence in Europe, Germany, France and other European governments reject what seems to be an uncompromising US position vis-à-vis Russia. They would like to prevent a prolonged and costly war in the middle of Europe, reach a compromise deal between Moscow and Kyiv, and bring Russia back into the European fold.
Similarly, US partners in the Pacific, and in particular the ASEAN governments, have an interest in reducing the tensions between the two major trading partners. They certainly want to avert a military confrontation between the US and China. To contain China is one thing, to unnecessarily provoke it is quite another.
While activating the Quad has made a lot of sense and responds to its members’ interests, it’s unlikely that there would be support in the region for the idea of transforming the Quad into an “Asian NATO” directed against China.
Moreover, one member of the Quad, India, has refused to support the economic sanctions against Russia, suggesting that US partners in the region don’t necessarily share the entire American strategic agenda. The US should therefore avoid giving ultimatums, like “You are with us; or you are against us.”
Nor do these partners have interest in joining the US in a global ideological crusade that supposedly pits the world’s democratic nations led by the US against its authoritarian regimes.
Some of the governments in the region, including in other parts of the world, don’t adhere to the set of Western liberal-democratic values. But they do regard the US as a strategic ally and as an economic partner, and are willing to cooperate with Washington when it comes to their core interests.
In a way, the proposed IPEF demonstrates the problem with the current US approach towards the region. While most of America’s friends in the region are expected to join it, they aren’t in favour of turning the group into an American tool in its competition with China.
And some of them are likely to resist US pressure to change their labour and environmental rules, in particular, when the Americans aren’t willing to provide them with more access to their markets as the Chinese do. It’s national self-interests, plain and simple.