At the start of the countdown to the last quarter of Biden's Presidency, it may seem early to assess the global legacy of his presidency. After all, the relentless momentum of his presidency is going to be unsparing till January 20, 2025. Yet, he has already been a lame-duck president for the past quarter after opting out of the re-run, and a vote on his successor has been scheduled for a fortnight. Today being exactly the midway point between his opt-out and eventual exit, the time is apt to assess the foreign policy of his presidency.
Inherited Mess
When Joe Biden became the 46th American President at 78, he brought to the job nearly half a century of political experience, including two stints as the Vice-President. The baggage made him more phlegmatic and deliberative, but also a hostage to his experience and past interpersonal interactions. He found the United States in an unusual condition: a pandemic had debilitated its society and economy. He also inherited a fractious legacy of his predecessor's whimsical foreign policy that had confounded allies and opponents alike. The diplomatic faux pas of Trump's presidency sent mixed signals to longstanding friends like Mexico, NATO, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Its 'blow hot, blow cold' style either confused or emboldened opponents such as the Afghan Taleban, China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.
To his credit, President Biden tried to stabilise the US foreign policy by making it more rational and predictable. He was able to re-establish normalcy within NATO, revive Pivot Asia and rejoin the multilateral mainstream. At the same time, he opted for continuity on issues such as the geo-economic tensions with China and Iran nuclear imbroglio.
The Ideals That Defined Biden Years
President Biden's foreign policy is not without its idiosyncrasies. It has ideological underpinnings in somewhat outdated mid-20th-century ideals of liberal internationalism, American exceptionalism (without his predecessor's "America First" dictum), and pragmatism. His reluctance for military engagements abroad bordered on isolationism. These proclivities often impelled in unintended directions, limiting their policy impact. For instance, his initial public reluctance to engage the leaderships in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the UAE narrowed his diplomatic manoeuvrability, created bilateral tensions and raised subsequent opportunity costs. These foibles allowed China and Russia to make inroads with these countries.
Ever since 9/11, tenures of successive US Presidents have been preoccupied with "forever wars", and President Biden was no exception. Although he was cautious to a fault about foreign military engagements, his term was dented by conflicts in Afghanistan, Ukraine and the Middle East. As these three military engagements have cast a long and dark shadow on his presidential legacy, their granular study is needed.
A Chaotic Withdrawal From Afghanistan
The US invaded Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, overthrowing the Taleban regime, evicting al-Qaeda and installing a friendly government. However, with Pakistani duplicity, Taleban was able to wage an effective insurgency against the US forces, tiring Washington of its longest (20 years) and most expensive ($2.3 trillion) foreign military engagement. After protracted talks in Doha, the Trump administration signed a deal in February 2020 providing for a progressive withdrawal of the US and NATO troops from Afghanistan by May 31 2021, against Taleban's solemn promise to have an interim national government and non-use of Afghan territory for al-Qaeda or other terrorists. Thus, when Biden's Presidency began in January 2021, there were nearly 2,500 US troops in Afghanistan helping President Ashraf Ghani's fairly well-equipped army. Against the advice of its working group, which warned that an early total withdrawal would lead to a Taleban takeover, the Biden administration decided exactly the opposite: to pull out all the troops by the end of July 2021. This decision demoralised the Afghan army, emboldened Taleban and caused a chaotic exodus. President Ghani escaped the country heralding a Taleban takeover of the country on August 15, 2021. While President Biden sought to justify the withdrawal, the fact remains that after the deaths of 6,337 Americans and 1,144 allied troops, the US handed the country back to Taleban with billions of dollars of military hardware as a parting gift! After the 1975 Saigon airlift, this was the most evocative and humiliating withdrawal by the global superpower against a ragtag army of Islamic zealots. This avoidable self-goal also sent a lasting message of the unreliability of the American staying power when faced with a stubborn enemy.
The Israel-Gaza War
With the benefit of hindsight, the ongoing Middle East crisis was apparently triggered by the need to counter the perceived attempt to short-shrift the Palestinian Cause by the US by corralling the moderate Arabs to normalise relations with Israel. While the means and methods used by Hamas on October 7 "Operation Toofan Al-Aqsa" were abominable and unjustifiable, the perpetrators sought to deliver a disruptive shock to prevent the Palestinian Cause from being buried under the incipient structure of the Abraham Accords. While the Trump administration blessed the Abraham Accords between Israel and four Arab countries, Biden's foreign policy sought to extend it further by bringing Saudi Arabia into the game and pushing for the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor. It led to the October 7 mayhem as the panic reaction. In retrospect, the unfolding Arab-Israel entente cordiale was too much to continence for the "rejectionist" Arab-Islamic regimes and non-state actors. President Biden's foreign policy minders failed to anticipate the political anticyclone gathering near the horizon leading to the biggest bloodletting the region has seen for two decades.
One year on, the threat of a wider regional war is still hanging over the Middle East. Biden administration's inconsistent mixed messaging in supporting Israel's war while mouthing platitudes about the ceasefire and humanitarian relief is partly to be blamed for the death and destruction. Once again, glitzy military successes in the short term are glossing over the need for a two-state political solution.
Prevaricating In Ukraine
Similar patterns of demurral and ambiguity have been evident in Biden's foreign policy towards the Russia-Ukraine conflict that began in February 2022. Even before the conflict began, President Biden seemed reluctant to lay down clear redlines for Russia. There was considerable jostling over the crucial decision about Ukraine joining NATO - a key Russian redline. The quantum and quality of military assistance to Ukraine and conditions on its offensive usage against targets deep inside Russia were often too little, too late. Similarly, though Biden imposed hundreds of economic sanctions against Russia, these were largely ineffective and Moscow was able to circumvent them with the help of its friends such as China. Biden's policy on the Ukraine conflict seems to lack firmness, clarity and consistency being constantly buffeted by pressures from Congress, the domestic military-industrial complex and "deep state", NATO allies, Ukrainian desperation and manipulation, as well as an overarching concern to avoid a direct conflict between NATO and Russia. These factors resulted in constant prevarication, causing the American assistance of over $176 billion (larger than Ukraine's GDP) to yield a sub-optimal impact on the complex and evolving geo-strategic situation.
To be kind to President Biden's legacy, one can concede that it did not cause any of these three conflicts but allowed his administration to be sucked into them. However, as Yogi Berra would have put it, the "path to hell is often paved with inconsistent intentions".
(Mahesh Sachdev is a former Indian Ambassador. He currently heads Eco-Diplomacy and Strategies, a Delhi-based consultancy)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author