Tag Archive for: US Foreign Policy

Anticipating Trump’s foreign policy

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Prediction is always difficult, but doubly so in the case of the US president-elect. Donald Trump not only speaks loosely and changes his positions often; he also considers unpredictability to be a useful bargaining tool. Still, one can try to get a sense of what his foreign policy will look like from his campaign statements, his high-level appointments and his first term.

In Washington, it is often said that ‘personnel is policy’. But while we already know whom Trump wants for key positions, the problem is that their stated views sometimes conflict with each other. With Trump making every effort to avoid the traditional Republicans who hemmed him in during his first term, the common denominator among his choices this time is personal loyalty. But even this quality does not help us predict policy.

Consider the question of China. Trump’s choices for secretary of state and national security adviser—Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Michael Waltz, respectively—are well-known hawks who see China as a dominant threat that demands a strong response. We also know from his campaign that Trump is eager to introduce new tariffs on imports from allies, with even higher tariffs on goods from China.

With Trump already announcing plans to slap tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada and China, we should certainly expect some new levies to be imposed. But the tariffs’ rates, duration and exemptions remain uncertain and subject both to domestic political pressures and Trump’s personal whims. As his designee for treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, recently said, ‘I think a lot of what he’s doing is to escalate to de-escalate, and my goal for his administration would be to save international trade.’

Equally uncertain is how Trump might respond to retaliation by US trade partners. If tit-for-tat trade wars drive tariffs and prices higher, the return of inflation may trigger a domestic political backlash. Since Trump prides himself on his dealmaking prowess, he may seek compromises. Would he offer his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, weaker US support for Taiwan in exchange for a trade deal that he could hold up as a victory? Some of the US’s Asian allies worry about precisely this scenario.

Judging by Trump’s campaign statements and previous term in the White House, we should also expect him to devalue multilateralism and alliances. He has promised to withdraw again from the Paris climate agreement, and to increase domestic production and exports of oil and gas. While the price of renewable energy has been declining in the US, it remains to be seen whether his policies will cancel out that beneficial market effect by reducing these industries’ relative cost competitiveness.

In the Middle East, Trump’s campaign statements were unconditionally supportive of Israel, and he still takes pride in having negotiated the Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and four Arab countries. When the Biden administration tried to build on this breakthrough by enticing Saudi Arabia to recognise Israel, the Saudis set a precondition: Israel must take steps toward creating a Palestinian state. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition staunchly opposes a two-state solution, and since Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023, Israeli public support for such an outcome, already low, has fallen further. Trump undoubtedly wants to extend his prior success in the region, but it is anyone’s guess how he will go about it.

Turning to Europe and NATO, Trump said during the campaign that he would end the war in Ukraine ‘in one day.’ We know that will not happen, but there is deep uncertainty about how he will try to negotiate an armistice. One possibility is to reduce assistance to Ukraine and weaken its bargaining position so that it must accept Russian terms. Or Trump could temporarily extend support for Ukraine while moving toward a Korean solution.

In the latter scenario, the current front line would become a demilitarised zone staffed by United Nations or European peacekeepers whom Russia would have to force out if it wants to restart the war. Ukraine could continue to assert sovereignty over areas like the Donbas, but it most likely would be unable to join NATO. Instead, perhaps some subset of countries could offer to come to its aid if Russia violated the demilitarised zone. It is unclear whether Trump will use his bargaining power vis-a-vis Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin to produce such a compromise. But securing a deal will certainly be attractive if he is thinking about his legacy.

Even if predictions based on campaign statements and personnel leave us uncertain, we can at least locate Trump in the historical traditions of US foreign policy. Recall his first inaugural address, when he proclaimed that ‘from this moment on, it’s going to be America first … we do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example.’ This view accords with the city-on-the-hill approach to US foreign policy, which has a long pedigree. It is not isolationism, but it eschews activism.

By contrast, in the 20th century, Woodrow Wilson sought a foreign policy that would make democracy safe in the world, and John F Kennedy urged Americans to consider what they could do for the rest of the world, establishing the Peace Corps in 1961. Jimmy Carter made human rights a core concern of US foreign policy, and George W. Bush’s international strategy rested on the twin pillars of leading a growing global community of democracies and promoting freedom, justice and human dignity.

The one prediction that seems safe is that Trump’s approach to the world will be more in keeping with the first of these traditions than the second.

What killed US–China engagement?

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When Chinese President Xi Jinping met with US President Joe Biden last November, some interpreted it as a return to engagement. In fact, it heralded only a minor détente, not a major change in policy.

The United States’ engagement with the People’s Republic of China began with Richard Nixon in 1972 and was expanded by Bill Clinton. Since then, critics have described US policy as naive, owing to its failure to understand the Chinese Communist Party’s long-term objectives. Underpinning the policy was the prediction, from modernisation theory, that economic growth would propel China down the same liberalising path as other Confucian societies like South Korea and Taiwan. Xi, however, has made China more closed and autocratic.

Still, America’s engagement policy always had a realistic dimension. While Nixon wanted to engage China to balance the Soviet threat, Clinton made sure that engagement accompanied a reaffirmation of the US–Japan security treaty for the post–Cold War era. Those who accuse Clinton of naivety ignore that this hedge came first, and that the US–Japan alliance remains a robust and fundamental element of the balance of power in Asia today.

To be sure, there was some artlessness, such as when Clinton dismissed China’s efforts to control the internet by joking that it would be like ‘trying to nail jello to the wall’. In fact, China’s ‘great firewall’ of state censorship has worked quite well. Similarly, there’s now broad agreement that China should have been punished more for its failure to comply with World Trade Organization rules, especially considering that it owes its WTO accession to the US.

Nonetheless, there were signs that China’s rapid economic growth was producing some liberalisation, if not democratisation. Many experts argued that Chinese citizens were enjoying greater personal freedom than at any time in China’s history. Before taking office, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and White House Asia coordinator Kurt Campbell—the Biden administration’s two leading officials on Asian policy—noted that Washington’s ‘basic mistake of engagement was to assume that it could bring about fundamental changes to China’s political system, economy, and foreign policy’. On balance, they were correct about the inability to force fundamental changes in China. But that doesn’t mean no changes occurred.

On the contrary, Chinese foreign policy on key issues such as nuclear non-proliferation and UN sanctions against Iran and North Korea underwent notable revisions. Moreover, China watchers pointed to other signals such as greater freedom to travel, increases in foreign contacts, a broader range of published views, and the emergence of human-rights NGOs.

When I was serving in the Clinton administration, I told Congress that, if we treated China as an enemy, we were guaranteeing an enemy in the future; if we treated China as a friend, we could not guarantee friendship, but we could at least keep open the possibility of more benign outcomes. US Secretary of State Colin Powell echoed this point in 2001, telling Congress: ‘China is not an enemy, and our challenge is to keep it that way.’

Looking back now, I still think engagement was realistic, though I plead guilty to having had higher expectations for Chinese behaviour than what we have seen from Xi. While some Chinese blame Donald Trump for killing engagement, he was more like a boy who poured gasoline on a fire that China had lit.

This brings us to Xi, who came to power in late 2012 and immediately cracked down on political liberalisation, while trying to preserve market openness. In recent years, he has shifted to increasing support for state-owned enterprises and tightening controls on private firms, telling US officials that he wants a ‘new model for great-power relations’ that stresses equal partnership. Meanwhile, he has ordered top commanders of the People’s Liberation Army to prepare for conflict, because the West would never accept China’s peaceful rise.

While Trump and Xi each played important roles in the Sino-American rupture, the death of engagement has deeper roots. From the late 1970s, Deng Xiaoping used market reforms to lift China out of poverty, while maintaining a modest foreign policy based on the proverbial advice to ‘hide your strength and bide your time’. But under Hu Jintao, Chinese elites saw the 2008 global financial crisis (which started on Wall Street) as a sign of American decline, and thus discarded Deng’s foreign policy.

Although China had benefited from the liberal international economic order, its leaders now wanted more. They not only used state subsidies that distorted international trade, but also engaged in large-scale cyber theft of intellectual property. In the South China Sea, it went far beyond legal limits in creating artificial islands. In 2015, Xi told US President Barack Obama that he would not militarise the islands, but then went ahead and did so. In 2016, when an arbitral tribunal ruled against China’s claims in a case brought by the Philippines, China ignored the verdict.

China had begun to act like a great power, but its actions produced reactions, not least from America, where embitterment was reinforced by the loss of jobs to Chinese imports. Voters in the affected areas responded readily to Trump’s populism and protectionism in 2016.

Thus, we can date engagement’s last gasp to 2015, when China and the US cooperated in supporting the Paris climate agreement. While Xi and Obama also held a summit and agreed not to use cyber espionage for commercial purposes, that understanding became a dead letter when Trump took office in 2017.

In any case, disillusionment had already set in, and engagement was effectively dead by 2016. In today’s era of great-power competition, ‘managed competition’ and ‘competitive coexistence’ have replaced engagement. RIP.

Washington’s flawed Myanmar policy

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As the Israel–Hamas war rages, the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza is grabbing headlines—as well it should. But another armed conflict, in Myanmar, is also causing mass suffering, with more than two million people internally displaced and over a million more streaming into neighbouring Bangladesh, India and Thailand. And it’s attracting far less international attention.

This is not to say that outside forces aren’t engaged in the conflict in Myanmar. On the contrary, the United States seems to view supporting the rebel and pro-democracy groups attempting to overthrow the military junta—which returned to power in a February 2021 coup—as a kind of moral test. But its approach is doing Myanmar little good.

After the military overthrew Myanmar’s nascent civilian government—to which it had begun ceding power barely six years earlier—US President Joe Biden’s administration reimposed wide-ranging sanctions, which it has since ratcheted up. But, so far, the sanctions have left Myanmar’s military elites relatively unscathed, even as they have unravelled the economic progress made over the past decade and inflicted misery on ordinary citizens.

The Biden administration has also deepened engagement with the so-called National Unity Government that was formed as an alternative to the junta. Though the US, like the rest of the world, has refrained from formally recognising the shadow government, that hasn’t stopped the Biden administration from providing ‘non-lethal aid’ to its notional army, the People’s Defence Force, as well as to ethnic insurgent organisations and pro-democracy groups, under the BURMA Act. And the US has a history of interpreting ‘non-lethal’ rather loosely. Non-lethal support for Syrian rebels, for example, included enhancing their operational capabilities on the battlefield.

The groups the Biden administration supports in Myanmar don’t share a common cause, let alone a single political strategy. The shadow government has failed to win the support of all major ethnic groups, and its armed wing lacks a unified military command. The ethnic insurgent groups—some of which have records of brutality—are often more interested in securing autonomy for their communities than in building an inclusive federal democratic system, and some are willing to collaborate with the junta to get it. Complicating matters further, these groups’ territorial claims sometimes overlap.

It’s impossible to say for certain whether growing US aid flows have fuelled more violence in Myanmar. But there’s no doubt that rebel attacks have lately intensified, with serious consequences not only for civilians, who often are caught in the crossfire, but also for neighbouring states. Just last month, a major offensive—which enabled the rebels to gain control of several border towns and dozens of military outposts—drove at least 72 government soldiers to flee to India in just one week. The junta responded by intensifying its own lethal force, including punitive air strikes and artillery barrages.

Meanwhile, more than 32,000 ethnic Chin from Myanmar have taken refuge in India’s Chin-majority Mizoram state, where they live mostly in refugee camps. Thousands more have fled to another Indian border state, Manipur, fuelling an increasingly violent conflict between the local population’s two main ethnic groups.

US aid to armed groups around the world has often fuelled disorder and suffering, undercutting the quest for democracy. Judging by Myanmar’s deteriorating humanitarian situation, it seems that this may well be happening again. And Myanmar’s neighbours are being affected in much the same way the US would be affected if faraway powers sought to punish Mexico and aid rebel groups there. Yet, far from letting the neighbouring countries take the lead in setting policy towards Myanmar, the Biden administration has insisted they toe the US line.

America’s uncompromisingly punitive approach to Myanmar’s military junta has hopelessly divided the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations, preventing it from playing a constructive role in the conflict. Paradoxically, the US has sought to co-opt ASEAN to promote democracy in Myanmar, even though the majority of the group’s members remain under authoritarian rule.

India, the world’s most populous democracy, is increasingly concerned that the US approach is pushing resource-rich Myanmar into China’s arms. India not only shares long land and sea borders with Myanmar, but also views the country as a strategic corridor to Southeast Asia. Given the cross-border movement of people and guerrillas—some trained and armed by China—close counterinsurgency cooperation with Myanmar is vital for India’s security.

Biden’s misguided Myanmar policy seems to align with his public rhetoric about a ‘global battle between democracy and autocracy’. But elsewhere, his administration has adopted a more pragmatic foreign-policy approach, deepening strategic relations with non-democracies in order to counter China’s growing influence. For example, during the G20 summit in New Delhi in September, Biden sought to mend ties with Saudi Arabia. He then visited Vietnam, calling it a ‘critical Indo-Pacific partner’.

Such realism should be welcomed: if the promotion of democracy and human rights overrode all other considerations, US diplomacy would have very few partners outside the West. But this approach needs to be extended to Myanmar. The US would stand a better chance of helping to end direct military rule there by opening up lines of communication with the junta and offering it incentives to reverse course.

It was the abandonment of a failed sanctions policy in favour of calibrated US engagement that helped bring about the formal end of Myanmar’s military dictatorship in 2015. If Myanmar is to avoid becoming a failed state, the Biden administration must adopt a similar strategy today.

Is America reverting to isolationism?

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The first debate between the Republican Party’s candidates for next year’s US presidential election revealed major schisms over foreign policy. While former US Vice President Mike Pence and former US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley defended America’s support for Ukraine in Russia’s war of aggression, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy expressed scepticism. Former president Donald Trump—the unquestioned frontrunner—skipped the event, but he, too, has objected to US involvement in that conflict.

Polls show that rank-and-file Republicans are as divided as the candidates. That raises concerns that if an isolationist Republican wins in 2024, it could mark a turning point for the US-dominated international order established at the end of World War II.

Historically, American public opinion has oscillated between extroversion and retrenchment. Having witnessed the tragic consequences of the isolationism of the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt launched the process that culminated in the creation of the Bretton Woods institutions in 1944 and the United Nations in 1945. President Harry Truman’s post-war decisions then led to permanent alliances and a continual US military presence abroad. The United States invested heavily in European reconstruction through the Marshall Plan in 1948, created NATO in 1949 and led the UN coalition that fought in Korea in 1950.

These actions were part of a realist strategy to contain Soviet power. But containment was interpreted in various ways, and Americans later had bitter, often partisan debates over interventions in developing countries like Vietnam and Iraq. Still, while the ethics of intervention were called into question, the value of sustaining a liberal institutional order was much less controversial. As the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr once observed, the ‘fortunate vagueness’ of liberal internationalism had saved it from succumbing to ideological rigidity.

The liberal international order thus enjoyed broad support in US foreign-policy circles for decades after World War II. But in the 2016 presidential election, Trump’s argument that the post-1945 alliances and institutions had benefited others at America’s expense resonated strongly with many voters. To be sure, his populist appeal rested on more than an attack on US foreign policy. He also tapped into widespread anger over the economic dislocations caused by globalisation and the post-2008 recession, and exploited polarising cultural changes related to race, the role of women and gender identity. But by blaming economic problems on ‘bad trade deals with countries like Mexico and China and on immigrants competing for jobs’, Trump successfully linked nativist resentment to US foreign policy.

Of course, Trump wasn’t the first to apply this formula. The populist response had antecedents in the 1920s and 1930s. More than 15 million immigrants had come to the US during the first two decades of the century, sowing fears among many white Americans that they were being overwhelmed. In the early 1920s, a resurgent Ku Klux Klan helped pushed through the National Origins Act to ‘prevent the Nordic race from being swamped’ and to preserve the older, more homogeneous America. Similarly, Trump’s election in 2016 reflected, rather than caused, the deep racial, ideological and cultural rifts that had been developing since the 1960s.

While many analysts worry that American retrenchment could result in the kind of international disorder that plagued the 1930s, Trump supporters argue that his administration’s less generous and tougher stance produced greater stability abroad and support at home. Whatever the case, Trump’s election represented a clear shift away from the liberal tradition.

Some believe that Trump’s rise was caused by the failure of liberal elites to reflect the underlying preferences of the American people. But that is facile. Of course, there are many strands of American public opinion, and elite groups are generally more interested in foreign policy than the public at large. Nonetheless, we do have a good sense of where the public has stood over time.

Since 1974, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs has surveyed Americans on whether it is better to play an active global role or to stay out of world affairs. Over that period, roughly one-third of the public, hearkening back to the 19th-century tradition, has been consistently isolationist. That number reached 41% in 2014; but, contrary to popular myth, 2016 was not a high point of post-1945 isolationism. At the time of the election, 64% of Americans said they favoured active involvement in world affairs, and that number rose to 70% in 2018—the highest recorded level since 2002.

Although full-scale 1930s-style isolationism is highly unlikely, many analysts still worry that a failure to support Ukraine could signal a return to American retrenchment, auguring a serious weakening of the international order. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion was a blatant violation of the UN charter. If Russia prevails in occupying Ukrainian territory, it will have undercut the liberal principle prohibiting the use of force to alter a country’s borders. The solidarity among NATO countries in applying sanctions and supplying military equipment to Ukraine thus is not only moral, but also practical and realistic.

The outcome in Ukraine will have serious implications for the future of Europe and the wider world. Although Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping entered a ‘no limits’ partnership just before the invasion, China has been cautious, so far, in offering material support to Russia. Chinese leaders are doubtless concerned about Putin’s risk-taking, and worried that the alliance is proving too costly to Chinese soft power. If Putin prevails, however, China may conclude that taking such risks pays off—a lesson that will not have been lost on the rest of the world, either.

Those arguing that America doesn’t have an important national interest in helping Ukraine are wearing historical blinders. Their naivety (if not bad faith) should disqualify them from seeking the presidency.

America’s diminishing influence in charting a new world order

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The US and allied retreat from Afghanistan two years ago has left a seemingly indelible question mark over America’s ability to influence international events. This point is not lost on either those states that upheld the US as a security provider or those that looked up to it as a democratic model to emulate. America’s adversaries—most importantly China, Russia, Iran and North Korea—could not be more pleased to see the US on the back foot in the conduct of global affairs.

US President Joe Biden’s administration has sought to contain and repair the damage resulting from the Afghanistan and Iraq fiascos and the corrosive persistence of Trumpism that has polarised the American public to such an extent that the very fabric of America’s democratic institutions and values are under threat.

On the foreign policy front, Washington has made a concerted effort to ensure the unity and strength of NATO in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to subject Russia to a regime of maximum sanctions and to provide Ukraine some US$43 billion worth of military and humanitarian assistance to help defeat Russia. It has also sought to forge an alliance of democracies against autocracies and theocracies and to beef up such measures as the Quad and AUKUS to contain China’s assertive regional and global ambitions.

Domestically, the administration has focused on economic recovery, the renewal of America’s ageing infrastructure, innovative measures in such areas as climate change, and welfare services and race relations. The aim is to restore America’s status as a world power, erode the appeal of the legally besieged Donald Trump and boost Biden’s re-election chances next year.

Yet none of these foreign and domestic policy steps have so far produced the desirable results. While NATO has held together despite occasional cracks threatening its unity and its support for Ukraine in the long run, Vladimir Putin’s Russia has survived the sanctions with an ability to continue the Ukraine war for much longer than was expected.

Many countries have either stood behind Russia or precariously found it expedient to continue and in some cases strengthen their relations with Moscow. Whereas China, North Korea, Iran and Syria have openly thrown their lot in with Russia, India and many of the Middle Eastern, South and Southeast Asian, African and Latin American states have chosen not to take sides in the Ukraine conflict. Moscow’s resource diplomacy, involving delivery of cheap oil and grain, along with disillusionment with or doubt about US power, has been effective in this respect.

The Biden administration’s policies of containing China haven’t been productive either. They have done little to diminish President Xi Jinping’s autocratic and nationalist ambitions to make China a world power or reduce his resolve to unite Taiwan with the mainland in one way or another. Despite the ups and downs in China’s rate of economic growth and dependence for prosperity on the import of raw materials and export of goods, the country’s march towards economic and military parity with the US now looks unstoppable, unless there’s a catastrophic internal implosion.

China’s footprint through its Belt and Road Initiative, financial prowess, and bilateral and multilateral trade and economic deals has been rapidly expanding on all continents, entailing political and diplomatic influence. This is especially the case in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, but also even in Australasia, where Beijing has poured financial and development aid into some small Pacific island states.

Meanwhile, Washington’s attempts to make America and its global interests, as well as the world, safer from the threat of terrorism haven’t paid off. Although there has been no repeat of 9/11, what is transpiring in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Levant and Africa is a revival of violent extremist groups. The Taliban’s resumption of their ultra-extremist and gender-apartheid rule in Afghanistan has emboldened other groups, most importantly al-Qaeda, Islamic State, Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram and their associates and splinters, to believe that they can triumph too. US intelligence services and UN reports inform us of the rising danger of terrorism from the Taliban and these other groups.

Biden is entitled to hint that the Taliban have controlled the deadly Khorasan branch of Islamic State in Afghanistan, but all reports indicate otherwise. There’s also a view in Washington that it could use its erstwhile Sunni Islamic terrorist enemy as a counter to the Shia Islamic regime in Iran and to stir up trouble for Russia in its Central Asian backyard in response to the Ukraine invasion. However, that would constitute a betrayal of the very cause that drove the US and its allies to fight the Taliban as the mortal enemy for two decades at high human and financial cost.

When all this is put together with the fact that Biden’s internal policies have had little success in making a dent in Trump’s popularity among his vast sea of supporters, despite his indictments, the US is no longer the global power that it used to be. By the same token, one wonders whether it has the vitality to play a central role in forging a new world order in which accommodation and cooperation, rather than confrontation, will prevail, and whether America’s democracy at home and world-power status abroad will return to anything like what they were during the Cold War era.

The US and India’s non-aligned alliance

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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is riding high. His triumphant visit to Washington in June, which featured a state dinner at the White House and a rare second address to a joint session of Congress, appears to mark a new chapter in the relationship between the United States and India following a quarter-century of ups and downs.

Modi’s visit was preceded by several major breakthroughs, including the recent US–India initiative on critical and emerging technology, which seeks to foster bilateral collaboration in areas such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, quantum computing, 5G and cybersecurity. US semiconductor manufacturer Micron Technology recently announced that it plans to invest US$825 million in a new chip assembly and testing facility in India.

The US and India have also unveiled several defence agreements, including a deal for India to acquire 30 MQ-9B Predator armed drones from the US and a separate plan to produce F414 fighter jet engines for the Indian Air Force jointly with General Electric. These deals, which the US has never extended to a country that isn’t formally an ally, highlight the intensifying bilateral defence partnership.

The transformation is striking. Throughout the Cold War, the world’s oldest democracy and its largest remained essentially estranged. America’s initial indifference towards India was evident in President Harry Truman’s reaction when Chester Bowles asked to be the US ambassador. ‘I thought India was pretty jammed with poor people and cows wandering around the streets, witch doctors and people sitting on hot coals and bathing in the Ganges,’ Truman said, ‘but I did not realize that anybody thought it was important.’

America’s preference for alliances with anti-communist regimes led the US to establish relationships with a series of increasingly Islamist dictatorships in Pakistan. Meanwhile, India’s non-aligned democracy gravitated towards the secular Soviet Union. Non-alignment wasn’t well received in the US, where John Foster Dulles, President Dwight Eisenhower’s secretary of state, famously declared that ‘neutrality between good and evil is itself evil’.

The end of the Cold War, together with the reorientation of India’s foreign policy and its integration into the global economy, led to an improvement in US–India relations, but India’s detonation of a nuclear device in 1998 triggered US-led economic sanctions. President Bill Clinton’s visit to India in 2000, his final year in office, marked a major turning point, and George W. Bush’s administration built on the momentum by signing a defence agreement with India in 2005 and a landmark accord on civil nuclear cooperation in 2008. The positive trend persisted under both Barack Obama and Donald Trump and now appears to have reached a zenith under President Joe Biden.

Today, the US seems much more willing to accommodate India’s post-colonial obsession with strategic autonomy. Whereas the Hindu nationalist Modi stands in stark contrast to his secular predecessor, Manmohan Singh, there has been remarkable bipartisan support for deepening ties by five successive US presidents and three Indian prime ministers.

This shift has been partly driven by China’s geopolitical assertiveness under President Xi Jinping, which represents a radical departure from his predecessors’ adherence to the doctrine of China’s ‘peaceful rise’. The US clearly views China as its primary adversary and has been actively pursuing regional alliances to counter its growing influence.

India has traditionally been reluctant to pick sides, but China’s repeated encroachments on its territory across the disputed Himalayan border, and its killing of 20 Indian soldiers in June 2020, have rendered neutrality untenable. While India maintains its independent posture, the recent G7 summit in Hiroshima notably included the second-ever in-person Quad summit between Biden, Modi, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. During the meeting, the four leaders reaffirmed their commitment to a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific.

The message to China is clear. While India maintains that it is not a US ally but a partner, it has increasingly aligned itself with the democratic West in its escalating rivalry with communist China.

But it would be a mistake to view India–US relations solely through a China lens. America and India have far more in common than is generally acknowledged: democracy, a common language and a dedication to fostering innovation and entrepreneurship. As Henry Kissinger once observed, the two countries have ‘no conflict of interest in the traditional and fundamental sense’.

The most important factor contributing to the deepening ties between the US and India is the growing number of Indian Americans, which exceeds four million. Indian Americans are disproportionately affluent, with the highest median income of any US ethnic group, including whites. They are also becoming an increasingly influential voting bloc, and their prominent roles in political fundraising, on congressional staffs and in government offices have given rise to a so-called Samosa Caucus. The US has had two governors and seven members of Congress of Indian heritage. US Vice President Kamala Harris’s mother is Indian, and former US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley—currently running for president—is the daughter of Punjabi Sikh parents.

While their political views vary, many Indian Americans have been increasingly outspoken on issues related to India. The continuous influx of more than 150,000 Indian students to the US every year contributes to this dynamic. In addition to injecting nearly US$8 billion into the US education system and related services, these migrants ensure a constant infusion of fresh ideas and perspectives. In the long run, Indian Americans may help shape US policy on India in the same way that Jewish Americans play a role in shaping US policy on Israel.

In the past, it was often said that Pakistan was a US ally but not a friend, while India was a friend but not an ally. With the US out of Afghanistan, Pakistan has become a less significant ally. But, while India still isn’t one, owing to its insistence on strategic autonomy, even US sceptics who say the two countries’ interests are more aligned than their values concede that those interests warrant closer cooperation. Modi’s visit was one more indication of how close that cooperation has become.

From the bookshelf: ‘The ghost at the feast’

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America’s record as an ambivalent and erratic liberal hegemon has deep roots, as analysed by Robert Kagan in The ghost at the feast: America and the collapse of world order, 1900–1941. The book, published in January, is the second in a planned three-volume series on the history of US foreign policy. The first, released in 2006, was titled Dangerous nation and covered America’s founding and first century on the world stage. Kagan is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, and during his career reportedly influenced the thinking of both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.

Kagan begins his narrative with America’s 1898 victory in its war with Spain, and continues to its belated decision to enter World War I and subsequent retreat from international affairs. The volume ends with the US decision to intervene in World War II following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. The central theme, which is still relevant today, is how America grappled with the challenges of becoming a world power. Kagan lets readers appreciate events as they were unfolding, rather than just look back with the wisdom of hindsight, thanks to his meticulous presentation of material on the complex discussions and politics behind US foreign policy decisions.

One case is that of Democratic President Woodrow Wilson, who is often depicted as a failure due to his inability to secure Senate approval for the proposed League of Nations. Although Wilson spent some six months in France for the post–World War I Paris Peace Conference at Versailles, and the American public opinion was overwhelmingly in favour of joining the League of Nations, congressional politics stood in the way. Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge led an assault that ultimately culminated in the Senate’s rejection of the Treaty of Versailles. Lodge was more interested in pushing the Democrats out of the White House at the next presidential election (which he did) than in sensibly crafting America’s foreign policy.

Kagan argues that global leadership was thrust on America from the beginning of the 20th century by the collapse of the British world order, the rise of Germany and Japan, and ultimately World War I. The US had become the world’s leading economic power and dominated the world economy even more than it would following World War II. The new reality was that the US held the balance of power in world politics and was seen as the only country capable of ensuring a peaceful and democratic liberal world order.

And yet then, like now, Americans were ambivalent about their country’s power. Many believed that their country was too big, too far away and too powerful to be vulnerable to foreign invasion. They didn’t want to worry about the rest of the world and were constantly running away from their power, but then being dragged back by the world—going from indifference to panic, with nothing in between, as seen in the US attitude towards China over the past 25 years. Thus, in 1919, the British diplomat Harold Nicolson called the inward-looking America ‘the ghost at all our feasts’.

Perhaps shockingly for many Americans, Kagan argues that the US missed an opportunity at that time to save Europe from Adolf Hitler and World War II. The problem was that the Europeans had massive World War I debts to the US ($10 billion at the time), and the US insisted on repayment. But because Germany wasn’t paying France reparations, France wasn’t able to repay its war debts. So it invaded the Ruhr area of Germany to enforce the reparations agreement.

According to Kagan, that was the turning point that led to hyperinflation in Germany, the collapse of the Weimar Republic’s legitimacy in the eyes of the German people, and the rise of Hitler. The US could have easily addressed the issue by cancelling, reducing or forgiving European war debt. But it refused to do so, despite cries for help from the US ambassadors in Paris and Berlin, and from all the European governments involved. Thus, the US lost a real opportunity to establish a lasting peace, and so by the 1920s the world order had already begun to collapse, despite the apparent peace at the time.

According to Kagen, the Versailles Treaty wasn’t a bad deal or too harsh on the Germans, as is often claimed. The real problem was the US’s withdrawal from the treaty. The big issue of the day was how to ensure French security while allowing Germany to get back on its feet. Resolving that required the US to act to tilt the balance of power away from the rising power of Germany, as it did in both world wars, but it was unwilling to do so.

The US would suffer great disillusionment from the consequences of World War I. In the 1920s it turned inward with an America-first policy, combined with xenophobia, protectionism anti-immigration sentiment, race problems and the rejection of internationalism—a portrait hauntingly similar to today’s America. Indeed, Kagan argues that the 1920 US presidential election was very much like the 2016 election.

One lesson that Kagan draws from American inaction after World War I is that it’s possible, even today, for the US to maintain a reasonable peace in the world without conflict, if it is willing to be strong enough to deter adversaries. This means that the US and its allies and partners need to crank up military spending. However, Kagan believes the challenge coming from China is exaggerated, and his greatest concern is the possible return to the US presidency of Donald Trump, or a Trump-like figure, who could drag the US away from global leadership.

In writing The ghost at the feast, Kagan sought to get to the bottom of the international and domestic politics of this period, which is so distant yet so critical to understanding the contemporary US. And he certainly achieves that goal, even though there will always be those who interpret the period differently.

The high stakes of NATO’s Vilnius summit

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With NATO’s mid-July summit in Vilnius fast approaching, the question on everyone’s minds is how to avoid another debacle concerning Ukraine’s prospective membership in the alliance. When NATO leaders addressed the same issue in Bucharest 15 years ago, they failed to reach a credible agreement on how to address Ukraine’s and Georgia’s aspirations for membership. We’ve all been living with the consequences.

In the run-up to the 2008 summit, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili persuaded US President George W. Bush that NATO membership was the best option for their countries. Bush, in turn, promised that he would deliver a NATO decision in Bucharest. It didn’t end well. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were hostile to the idea, arguing that Ukraine and Georgia weren’t ready for membership and that Europe shouldn’t risk alienating Russia.

The first point was undoubtedly valid in the case of Ukraine, not least because large segments of Ukrainian society were firmly opposed to NATO membership. It had been only a decade since NATO bombs fell on Belgrade, so the question of joining the alliance was still highly divisive. Had membership been put to a referendum, it’s unclear what Ukrainian voters would have decided.

Obviously, Russia, too, opposed the idea. Russian President Vladimir Putin made that clear when he joined the summit (those were different times) and delivered a speech essentially denying Ukrainian statehood. The audience was stunned, but he has stuck unwaveringly to that position for years.

In the event, NATO leaders forged a compromise that represented the worst of all possible worlds. While the alliance made clear that Georgia and Ukraine ought to become members, it hastened to add that accession wouldn’t happen then and there. The door to membership appeared to have been opened, both fanning the flames in Russia and inflating the hopes of those who supported the idea.

Yet neither side had any real foundation for believing what it did. NATO’s fuzzy compromise didn’t really pose a threat to Russia because it didn’t really bring Ukraine and Georgia materially closer to membership. Until Putin’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, Ukraine maintained a policy of neutrality vis-à-vis Russia and NATO.

Nonetheless, the legacy of NATO’s Bucharest debacle has remained a burden to the alliance ever since. Now that there’s a renewed push for Ukrainian membership, the issue will take centre stage in Vilnius. The situation has changed profoundly since 2014. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year has rendered fears of provoking the Kremlin moot, and the question of NATO membership is no longer highly divisive in Ukraine. Putin’s war of aggression has fully united the country in support of it.

Still, the politics of the issue are no less complicated than they were 15 years ago. Plenty of policymakers in Washington and other Western capitals are wary of bringing Ukraine into the alliance too quickly. It’s unlikely that two-thirds of US senators will be prepared to ratify NATO membership for Ukraine in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election. The problem is not only that some Republicans oppose a ‘blank check’ for Ukraine; it’s that Joe Biden’s administration and congressional Democrats won’t want to hand Donald Trump a useful issue with which to support his ‘America first’ re-election bid.

Moreover, NATO membership for Ukraine is arguably not the most pressing issue at the moment. While the prospect of the US deploying troops to the frontline battlefield of Bakhmut is a long way off, maintaining a strong, consistent flow of military and financial support to Ukraine is urgent and fully achievable as long as there’s political will for it. In the months ahead, concrete support will be far more useful to Ukraine than formal commitments on paper.

Nonetheless, the trauma of Bucharest will hang over this year’s summit. Many of NATO’s Eastern European members feel strongly that now is the time to correct past mistakes and flesh out the vague, unspecified promise that was offered 15 years ago. Another Bucharest-style debacle, they warn, would haunt the alliance for years to come.

In the end, the wordsmiths will have to produce a solution that provides a clear path to Ukrainian membership even as it falls short of immediate accession. Unlike in 2008, there can no longer be any doubt that membership will come one day. Ukraine’s security is key to European stability, and that will remain the case for decades. Resisting aggression and safeguarding Europe are the reasons NATO was created in the first place. At stake in Vilnius is not just Ukraine’s future but also that of the alliance.

A tribute to Allan Gyngell from the Director-General of National Intelligence

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The Office of National Intelligence is deeply saddened at the loss of Allan Gyngell AO, director-general of the Office of National Assessments (ONI’s predecessor) from 2009 to 2013, who died on 3 May 2023 after a short illness.

A giant in the policy world, Allan combined a mild manner with a brilliant intellect, keen grasp of Australia’s national interest and life-long commitment to our country and its future. His deep thinking and policy experience guided ONA work, always surveying the horizon for emerging issues and ensuring the most robust foundations for policy. He fostered contestability through collaboration with partners and broadened the Office’s engagement within and outside government. All of this is foundational to ONI’s efforts today. Many who knew Allan from his time leading the Office will recall his forensic interrogation of analytical judgments. But Allan’s precision was tempered by gentleness and he was always civil, considerate, caring and supportive.

It is hard to do justice in words to the impact Allan made on Australian public life and foreign policy, as a public servant and as a person.

Before ONA, Allan was the founding executive director of the Lowy Institute—Australia’s first think tank dedicated to international relations—guiding it from its start as a handful of young analysts (including one or two from ONA), establishing it as a leading presence both in Australia and internationally. In a semi-retirement that was anything but, he took on the national presidency of the Australian Institute of International Affairs, as well as conducting numerous reviews for government, assuming academic appointments at the Crawford School at ANU, and making countless other contributions to the national conversation on foreign policy and national security. His book Making Australian Foreign Policy with Michael Wesley in 2003 became compulsory reading for students of foreign policy, as did his 2017 book Fear of Abandonment, about Australia’s place in the world since 1942. He was always eloquent and original in his writings, and thoughtful and considered in his speech.

Allan was senior adviser to Prime Minister Paul Keating between 1993 and 1996, served as a diplomat in Rangoon, Singapore and Washington, and held roles at DFAT and PM&C. He epitomised a generation of Australian public servants with an unstinting commitment to the nation, delivered with modesty, fairness and a healthy dose of self-effacing humour. He was not just frank and fearless, but wise, calm, intellectually curious and generous in spirit.

Allan was a tremendous mentor and sponsor to many at ONI who are indebted to his generous guidance and support in their own careers, including mine. Among the many things he taught us is that we are all here to make a difference, regardless of our role, and he will forever have our gratitude. He remained an invaluable friend to ONI (and many staff) and supporter of our mission. It is an understatement to say he will be sorely missed.

 

 

Allan Gyngell, diplomat, analyst, writer, commentator—and ferociously deep thinker

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Perhaps now, more than ever, is the time when Australia needs outstanding foreign policy thinkers. It has lost one of its best with the death of Allan Gyngell after a short illness.

When he relinquished the national presidency of the Australian Institute of International Affairs (AIIA) a few months ago, he saw it as his last job. But had he lived on, he had too much energy and too much to say to have stopped there. His voice would have continued to be heard and heeded for its sagacity.

In Australia’s foreign policy world, there are the diplomats, the analysts, the writers and the commentators. Allan was unusual in that he was all of these. And in all these roles he thought, ferociously and deeply.

He started his working life as a diplomat in the Foreign Affairs intake of 1969 which produced a record number of agency heads across Canberra, to say nothing of senior ambassadorial appointments.

Allan had Character-in the old-fashioned sense.

He showed guts at an early stage. In 1972, he and a few others wrote a letter to the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald criticising racist comments by former Labor leader Arthur Calwell.

As one of his contemporaries remarked, ‘particularly in that era, not many of us would have taken that risk. He could have lost his job!’

Allan was posted as a diplomat to Rangoon, Singapore and Washington. In all these capitals he worked with distinction. But he developed his reputation as a policy thinker and doer in Australia itself.

Allan worked in the policy engine-room of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet in the Hawke years, after which he was foreign policy adviser to Paul Keating. He then left government and later became founding director of the Lowy Institute.

Under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Allan returned to government as head of the then Office of National Assessments.

In recent years he was an honorary professor at the ANU, and AIIA president.

And in between all this, he wrote the seminal work on Australian foreign policy: ‘Fear of

Abandonment’.

Allan attached importance to a clear delineation between intelligence analysis and policy formulation.

And he believed that if you got the policy substance right, the rest should follow.

The core of Allan’s thinking was about what was best for Australian interests—economic, security and perhaps less obviously, the respect of others. He always put Australia first. But he never argued along bludgeoning, nationalist lines. Rather he saw effective international policies and engagement as crucial to this country’s future.

Allan saw Australia’s external outlook in terms of our place in the region as broadly defined, of our security interests to which the relationship with the United States was central, and as an active participant in global and regional multilateral machinery.

Of these broad policy areas, Allan’s work in government will be best remembered for his focus on the region.

As foreign policy adviser, Allan was a key figure in Keating’s emphasis on Asia, particularly on Indonesia. He led the secret negotiations which produced the 1995 Australia-Indonesia security agreement. He was also heavily involved In Keating’s push for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings to be held at leaders’ level—with the first such summit hosted by President Clinton in Seattle in 1993.

But perhaps Allan’s most important legacy will lie with his work on developing a more thoughtful and broader foreign policy culture in Australia.

He understood that Australians needed to be more engaged on foreign policy issues affecting them.

Nobody serious about understanding Australian foreign policy can avoid reading ‘Fear of Abandonment’.

His work as founding director of the Lowy Institute took Australia into the world of major think tanks. Moreover, Allan’s introduction of a Lowy opinion poll led to a much clearer understanding of Australian public attitudes to external issues.

And under Allan as national president, the AIIA for the first time had a fully functioning branch in every Australian state and territory. He will also be remembered for over 100 podcasts from the AIIA with ANU academic Darren Lim.

Beyond all this there were his personal qualities as a friend and mentor. He had an innate discipline. He was never a show pony, always a gentleman.

Our thoughts are with his wife, Catherine, and his family.