The Trump administration has pursued a policy of dual confrontation against Moscow and Beijing
How Biden will deal with the 2021 superpower competitions
American soldiers in the air attack school.
Reuters
A Chinese fighter in a Chinese military exercise.
Reuters
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American presidents (Democrats and Republicans) believe that one of the keys to success in dealing with adversaries abroad is to act from positions of strength, not weakness. This was evident during President Donald Trump’s tenure, as the 2017 National Security Strategy stated: “Experience indicates that competitors’ readiness To abandon the aggression depends on their perception of the strength of the United States and the vitality of our alliances.
In this context, George Bibb argues in his article entitled “Balancing Great Power Policies in 2021 and Beyond,” published in the National Interest magazine;
That the gap between the aspirations of the United States to deal with its competitors from the great powers and its ability to achieve its goals at the present time, is still small compared to any time before, especially with the continued ability of the United States to innovate and innovate.
Great Power Competition
Both Republican and Democratic leaders agree that the world has entered an extended period of great-power competition, and that China and Russia have become major competitors of the United States, yet their differences over the optimal combination of tools must be recognized as to the best combination of tools for mobilizing the national strength of the United States to engage with competitors.
It is likely that Trump's supporters will emphasize relying on a strong army and are more willing to adopt unilateral measures, while the Democrats will tend to talk more about revitalizing diplomacy and expanding the use of all forms of collective action, but in any case, both sides will realize that the era of US unchallenged world domination has passed. is over.
Yet there also appears to be a consensus among foreign policy experts in both political camps that despite the growing recognition of the need to pull the country out of "endless wars" in remote areas;
The United States must attack its main rivals, as evidenced by President-elect Joe Biden's criticism of Western democracies that have always been on the defensive against Russian aggression without any offensive stance mentioned.
The article notes that the Trump administration had pursued a policy of dual confrontation against Moscow and Beijing, promoting a set of unprecedented stringent sanctions and military measures, while showing little concern that this approach would contribute to Sino-Russian cooperation against American interests.
For this reason, Democrats like Trump admit that the US strategy to integrate China into the international system has failed to turn Beijing into a responsible country, and they assert that Washington should take a tougher stance against Beijing, and they demand a strong response against Moscow, while acknowledging that the Russian aggression and Chinese violations They were, to a large extent, a result of American leniency in dealing with its competitors, and then the main challenge looming for the next team of foreign policy officials is not how to use American power to subjugate China and Russia to the American will, but rather to obtain a respite abroad that will allow the country to focus on Internal challenges. The more the United States continues its two-front attack against its great-power competitors abroad, the more complex its internal problems are.
Internal crises
In contrast to what the United States is promoting that it is still the most powerful military power and the largest economy in the world, the author stresses that it suffers from many internal crises that may reduce its ability to deal with its competitors.
Among those crises is the size of the national debt of the United States, which will soon exceed the gross domestic product, and this will be the first time since it was deeply immersed in debt to finance World War II, not to mention its reliance on credit to pay the costs of military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and beyond, as well as massive stimulus spending to ease The repercussions of the financial crisis of 2008, and finally the repercussions of the Corona virus, which will create great pressure towards lower defense budgets.
In addition to the above, the absence of national power is much more than a military or economic phenomenon, as it is rooted in intangible factors such as social cohesion, dynamism and self-confidence, which played a major role in the United States' success in dealing with the Soviet challenge.
This absence has real implications for the state's ability to formulate and implement a coherent foreign policy. It will make Washington more vulnerable to an unwise attack on foreign adversaries, and it is more likely to view its own citizens who disagree over politics as enemies to be defeated.
Thus the open war between the White House and the institutional bureaucracy entrusted with managing foreign affairs and its allies in the media was not only a result of the Trump team’s lack of experience and mismanagement, but also a reflection of the growing disconnect between the elite (which includes highly-educated experts who run the National Security Agency) and America. Central which lasted long and eventually spawned Trump's presidency.
He adds that internal US divisions will have important implications for how Russia and China will respond to excessive US military, economic and diplomatic pressures. It is unlikely that either country will address US threat measures through equivalent attacks on US strengths. Instead, they are certain. They will target its weak points, and nothing greater than its internal divisions will be in sight.
The most prominent example of this is the phishing operations through social media in Russia and the hacking process during the 2016 presidential elections, as the combination of societal polarization along with the large numbers of unemployed people after the Corona virus, will be sufficient to destabilize the United States.
Search for a solution
If an attack against Russia and China is meaningless under these circumstances, how should we deal with our great-power opponents?
The author tried to answer this question by monitoring the most important experiences and historical experiences in this regard.
In 1968, Richard Nixon faced a situation similar to the current circumstances, as America was divided sharply on a number of issues, the most important of which were: the war in Vietnam and civil rights, and accordingly, a wave of protests and assassinations spread throughout the country.
Although the Nixon campaign promised to return to law and order at home and end the Vietnam War abroad, the opportunities for US maneuver were severely restricted, not to mention the Soviet Union’s efforts to parity with the United States in nuclear weapons.
Accordingly, the main question is: How can the United States remove itself from Vietnam and focus on internal recovery, while preventing the Soviet Union from intimidating Western Europe and spreading communism around the world?
Here Nixon's answer, formulated with National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, is a masterful piece of defense realism.
Nixon reached out to Maoist China, despite being one of the most hateful regimes in history, and sought to initiate formal diplomatic relations with it, which helped counterbalance Soviet power and complicate the Kremlin's foreign policy expectations.
In parallel, the United States sought a breakthrough with Moscow, which produced a set of agreements on trade, arms control, human rights, and confidence building that helped constrain the Soviet military buildup.
But when Ronald Reagan came, he criticized this approach during his campaign in 1976 for being too lenient with Moscow, but in fact he made a mistake due to the success of this approach in providing time for the United States, which it desperately needed to mend local wounds in the country, and rebuild the power Reagan has served in post well.
In conclusion, will the United States be able to take a similar approach today compared to 1968, given that the country's domestic casualties appear more serious, its middle class more resentful, and its ability to produce a more limited coherent foreign policy?
So the United States will have to realize that it is no longer in a position to dictate outcomes in many external areas, and that some degree of compromise will be necessary to manage the risks posed by its competitors.
Accordingly, the first vital step in the United States' recovery is recognition that it has a problem.
• American presidents believe that one of the keys to success with opponents abroad is to work from positions of strength, not weakness.
• America knows that Russia and China have become competitors in military power.
• It seems that there is also a consensus among foreign policy experts in both political camps that despite the growing recognition of the need to pull the country out of "endless wars" in remote areas; The United States must attack its main rivals, as evidenced by President-elect Joe Biden's criticism of Western democracies that have always been on the defensive against Russian aggression without any offensive stance mentioned. Accordingly, a spokesperson for Biden's election campaign pledged that Biden's team would face Russian aggression from a position of strength, along with working to preserve the country's strategic stability.
• In contrast to what the United States is promoting that it is still the strongest military power and the largest economy in the world, it suffers from numerous internal crises that may reduce its ability to deal with its competitors.
• Among those crises is the size of the national debt of the United States, which will soon exceed the gross domestic product, and this will be the first time since it was deeply immersed in debt to finance World War II.
George Pep - Vice President and Director of Studies at the National Interest Center
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