Joe Biden was elected president in 2020 for one main reason: he was not Donald Trump. No one in the Democratic Party was particularly wild about his candidacy. It does not galvanize a specific base. The campaign he ran was flat and lacked excitement. The only idea was that he was an unexciting figure who could slide through the campaign without incident, get into office, and ensure that the Republic would not be led by Trump.
It works, of course. But while not being Trump might be a virtue for a campaign, it turns out that it’s not enough to be a successful president.
This week, after days spent denying that America was technically in recession, Biden had a rare foreign policy success to announce. After barely a quarter of a century of searching, US intelligence agencies had finally caught up with Ayman al-Zawahiri, the head of al-Qaeda.
Biden’s announcement of Zawahiri’s death by drone strike was given with the same solemnity and significance with which Barack Obama announced the killing of Osama bin Laden 11 years ago. But Biden’s announcement did not have the same effect as Obama’s. Perhaps because Zawahiri was Al Qaeda’s number two and a lesser known name. Perhaps because Zawahiri’s ability to operate has been so limited in recent years. Or maybe it’s because the message didn’t point to this great American success.
After all, it was one year ago this summer that America pulled out of Afghanistan. During those messy, bloody, humiliating days, Biden tried to explain that the mission of the two-decade-long operation in the country had been accomplished. Mainly because Al Qaeda was no longer in Afghanistan.
Although no one cared about another two decades of trying to turn Afghanistan into a Jeffersonian democracy, Americans remember the shame of that withdrawal. There were some basic things that were still pending. Like Al Qaeda not being there. Then, a year later, it emerged that the al-Qaeda chief was visiting his family in a house in Kabul just around the corner from the US embassy.
The dreams of Afghanistan that existed in the 2000s are definitely in the dust. But what dreams or even visions have taken their place? What are the ambitions of American foreign policy in the Biden era? There must be some, surely?
Trump had a clear and very understandable policy. He wanted to show American power. He wanted deterrence by force. And he didn’t mind pushing the tactics of the “madman” into foreign affairs. It’s the tactic of presenting yourself as so potentially vindictive and unpredictable when provoked that no one knows what you might do, and therefore you shouldn’t do anything.
It’s not a tactic that finds much favor among the many think tanks and foreign affairs professionals in Washington. But it’s a tactic that has something to be said for.
The Taliban were clearly scared of what Trump might do if they continued to kill American soldiers on his watch. Vladimir Putin was apparently dissuaded from absorbing more from Ukraine while Trump was president. And most importantly, the Chinese Communist Party did see that in Trump they had a counterpart who was ready to call them out on both illegal espionage and trade activities.
So what is the Biden doctrine? To date, absolutely no one knows, including him. His secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, is said to be frustrated by the difficulty of making any decisions and probably has less visibility than anyone who has held the post in recent decades. There doesn’t seem to be a concrete idea. It is true that Biden has joined the international coalition against Putin, but he appears to have gone back and forth on what America’s strategic goals in Ukraine might be.
As a result, it was oddly left to the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, to make perhaps the most notable foreign policy intervention of this presidency so far. During her trip to the Far East this week, there was much speculation about whether or not she should visit Taiwan: a visit that will be seen in Taiwan, Beijing and the rest of the region as a show of support for the island’s independence.
For several days and then a few crucial hours, the entire American press seemed to follow the flight path of Speaker Pelosi’s plane. Would the Chinese do the unthinkable (voiced by some of their more bellicose riders) and actually shoot down a plane carrying the Speaker of the House?
That didn’t happen. But the White House also didn’t seem on board with the travel plans of one of the Democratic Party’s most senior leaders. In the weeks leading up to the visit, the White House seemed to reject the idea. The CCP and the White House strangely began to echo each other in the suggestion that such a trip might be “provocative.”
Of course, allowing the Chinese Communists to dictate the travel plans of an American official should be intolerable. But the White House sometimes seems to tolerate it, even acquiesce. It was a position that Beijing used with considerable aplomb.
It brought to mind the affair with the Dalai Lama during the coalition years, in 2012, when David Cameron and Nick Clegg met the Tibetan leader while he was in London. Then it seems that the prime minister and his deputy do not know what they are getting into. But the response was swift. Beijing immediately suspended its trade mission to the UK. Frightened, the UK government was forced to issue a humiliating apology, with officials effectively vowing never to meet the Dalai Lama again.
While the CCP is adept at such diplomacy, Cameron and Clegg turned out to be absolute novices at it. But it is one thing if Britain is forced to bow to Beijing, and a whole other level of seriousness if America is forced. And that’s what the Pelosi scandal was about this week.
Ten years ago the question was whether Britain was allowed to have a Tibet policy. The answer turned out to be no. Fast forward to 2022 and the question is whether America is allowed to have a Taiwan policy. The answer to that must surely be yes. Anyway.
For decades, the US has pursued a policy of creative ambiguity on the Taiwan issue. In reality, this means that the attitude changes with each administration. There is a significant difference of opinion even within the parties in the US. There are people on both sides of the aisle who believe the US should be belligerent in pledging to defend Taiwan, others believe Taiwan cannot be the central issue in China-US relations. There is something to be said for all these attitudes.
Still, while a degree of ambiguity may be desirable, a perception of malleability is not. The upshot of this week’s events was that the Biden administration appeared pliable on Taiwan, and therefore on other issues. He seemed capable of being pressured, intimidated, and even bullied by the CCP, which pushed smaller fish, but did not dare to confront America in such a way.
We’ll see what the consequences are this week. But the biggest fear in the US is not that the American side is being pushed in the wrong direction, but that it is not being pushed at all. Biden, not for the first time in his presidency, appears uncertain and unclear in his own thinking.
It’s a change from Donald Trump, for sure. But not necessarily the change America or the world needs.
Douglas Murray’s latest book is War in the West
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