Anthony Blinken‘s term as US Secretary of State will be ending, although not soon enough. He had the misfortune of working for a president who pursues an aggressive and cynical foreign policy that is bound to end in failure.
In around three months’ time, the Biden administration will be out of office. Exits typically prompt reflection. For an outgoing administration, the chief task is to shape the narrative. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent legacy-molding foray grounds the Biden administration’s legacy in the “fierce competition” with the “revisionist powers”—Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China—who want to bring down America and dominate the international order at the US government’s expense. On Blinken’s telling, the Biden administration’s strategy of domestic industrial spending and improved international partnerships were the one-two punch that “has put the United States in a much stronger geopolitical position today than it was four years ago.” Unfortunately for Blinken, nothing can sugarcoat the bitter pill of four years of Biden administration failures.
Start with the Biden administration’s “historic investments in competitiveness at home.” Blinken touts the Inflation Reduction Act, which has been appropriately mocked and pilloried. A colossal spending bill purporting to reduce inflation? Really? Are we to be spared nothing? Most charitably understood, the Inflation Reduction Act is, among other things, supposed to incentivize domestic manufacturing of things like electric vehicle batteries, components, and minerals through features like tariffs and tax credits. For EV batteries and minerals, we overwhelmingly depend on China, despite China being foreign policy hawks’ chief rival. This was awkward indeed.
But this “problem” is the Biden and Obama administrations’ own creation. Under their dictates, the EPA and other federal agencies have relentlessly forced a transition to electric vehicles. They accomplished this through EPA’s approval of California’s “Advanced Clean Cars” programs—a unique federal program under which California alone, with EPA’s approval, can set vehicle emission standards—and setting stringent light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicle emissions standards that only “zero emission” EVs can meet.
It is the ultimate Washington con game: obscure that the government caused the problem, while taking credit for the “solution.” The Biden administration claims to be acting from concern about dependence on China and offshoring domestic manufacturing, while at one and the same time continuing to ratchet up EV mandates to alarming levels. All the while, presidential candidate Kamala Harris claims, “I will never tell you what kind of car you have to drive.” Sure, the Biden-Harris EPA may not tell you, “Thou shalt drive an electric vehicle,” but rest assured these regulations will price most Americans out of gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles, while EVs are artificially underpriced due to government fiat.
If the Biden administration’s domestic industrial policy is seriously flawed, the foreign policy picture is in shambles. Secretary Blinken touts the Biden administration’s “intensive diplomatic campaign to revitalize partnerships abroad.” The problem is US leaders conceive of international relations as parenting, with the US as the perpetual parent of its “partner” nation-state children. And the Biden administration acts as a parent of the worst sort. They spoil nations around the globe with foreign aid like it is a trust fund, while refusing to impose conditions so other nations will like them. The result, unsurprisingly, is that those nations act like entitled brats, never satisfied with what they have. Worse still, because “Power tends to corrupt,” our foreign aid recipients are far worse than mere children. The US government’s model is more akin to giving your heroin-addicted son an irrevocable, unconditional trust fund, while imploring them not to spend it on drugs. What did they expect would happen?
True, the US government occasionally conditions its aid, but with enough whining and complaining, those conditions evaporate. Aid and weapons to Israel have proceeded apace, despite concerns that Israel used them in ways that violated international law. The Biden administration repeatedly set red lines that Ukraine could not cross, such as carrying out strikes inside Russia, and refused to provide Ukraine certain weapons to avoid escalation. They have repeatedly waived away those red lines, with the result that Russian President Vladimir Putin has long viewed the US as a direct participant in the war with Ukraine. It remains to be seen whether the Biden administration will continue to refuse to allow long range missile strikes into Russia. Given the pattern of US appeasement, I have little confidence. But, for the sake of humanity, one hopes so, as Russia has repeatedly offered clear warnings regarding further escalation.
Far from strengthening our global reputation, alliances and partnerships frequently undermine our moral leadership. Blinken seeks, “A world where international law, including the core principles of the UN Charter, is upheld, and universal human rights are respected.” A laudable goal. But it is easy to hold our enemies to these standards, like Hamas and Putin, but much harder is holding our allies, like Israel or Ukraine, to these standards. The US government has never stomached this, any more than it has held itself accountable, with the result that the US often is viewed as upholding these values opportunistically. This is a significant cost of Washington’s entangling alliances.
On the Biden administration’s record itself, Blinken writes as though it had the Midas touch, when it is far closer to the kiss of death. Far from improving our “geopolitical position” or—what really matters—improving American safety at home, the Biden administration’s record is a long chain of disasters.
First, Russia invaded Ukraine on the Biden administration’s watch. Indeed, on the hawks’ telling, the Biden administration effectively signaled a “green light” to Putin on the eve of Russia’s invasion. Although it is more greenback than gold, deterring aggression around the world is, nonetheless, Washington’s foreign policy currency. By its own measure, then, the Biden administration failed. And, despite unconscionable levels of US foreign aid to Ukraine that continue to increase, Ukraine has no prospect of victory.
Second, on October 7, 2023, Hamas murdered scores of Israeli civilians and military personnel in a significant escalation in the decades of tit-for-tat attacks between Israel and Palestine. This, too, occurred on the Biden administration’s watch. Since then, the human toll has been tragic. And, if Middle East stability means anything to the Biden administration, this is surely no success. The most recent Israeli escalations suggest that what remains of regional stability is foundering, as Netanyahu appears to be banking on creating for Israel a truly existential crisis to draw the US into the conflict.
Third, all of Washington has been in a state of suspended panic for months because Iran is supposedly on the verge of a nuclear bomb. Iran hawks, including the Biden administration itself, have for months claimed Iran is a “week or two” away from a bomb. As is typical, they really mean Iran is close to having enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb, but they count on the Boobus Americanus screeching past these little details thanks to their propensity toward hysteria. Blinken points the finger at President Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, pointing out nothing was put in its place. True enough. But what deal has the Biden administration reached during the last four years? What has the Biden administration done to engage Iran, who recently indicated their openness to negotiate?
This is a record that would make George W. Bush blush. But even this does not exhaust the panoply of Biden administration failures. The crown jewel in the Biden administration’s ineffectual foreign policy was the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. Every sane person understood years ago we needed to withdraw from Afghanistan. But nothing required handing over $8 billion in military equipment to the Taliban and deaths of thirteen soldiers and many others injured. Taliban takeover was probably inevitable, and Biden was not the President for the two previous decades of failure, but it was a colossally inept blunder nonetheless. And, for all the bipartisan bluster about the China “threat,” one would think the establishment would avoid like the plague funding wars in Ukraine and Israel and drawing down military stockpiles. One would be wrong.
Administrations padding their legacy comes with the territory: layering some varnish here, papering over a few cracks there, and trumpeting their successes while shrouding their failures. Occasionally, a leader has the candor to admit their failures to the American people, as John F. Kennedy did in the wake of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. (This, despite one of the most alarmingly bellicose foreign policies, in which the US government would be willing to—and force the American people to—“pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship” to fight the forces of Communism.) But we should not be surprised to find that President Biden is not such a leader. Biden has few years left, so he will not live to shoulder the burden of his administration’s failed legacy. That albatross is reserved for the rest of us.