A thread on my latest piece on Biden administration where I argue that it will take more than some Ivy League appointments to restore America's global leadership. (caution: long thread) (1/18) https://www.firstpost.com/world/america-isnt-back-yet-appointing-ivy-league-careerists-alone-wont-restore-us-global-leadership-9053991.html
First up, the liberal values that lie at the core of Biden’s foreign policy and defines the analogous idea of his team are not enough to preserve America’s role as the global hegemon. @MrMaitra (2/18) https://www.firstpost.com/world/america-isnt-back-yet-appointing-ivy-league-careerists-alone-wont-restore-us-global-leadership-9053991.html
The exceptionalism evident in Biden, Blinken or Sullivan's comments, that only American leadership may save the world from chaos, has a long tradition in US history and is a concept hardwired into its foreign policy and policymakers. (3/18) https://www.firstpost.com/world/america-isnt-back-yet-appointing-ivy-league-careerists-alone-wont-restore-us-global-leadership-9053991.html
It is an echo of Madeline Albright's self-aggrandizing comments in 1998: "we are America; we are the indispensable nation." It echoes a time when a post-Cold War US had no global peer in geopolitical influence, military might or power. (4/18) https://www.firstpost.com/world/america-isnt-back-yet-appointing-ivy-league-careerists-alone-wont-restore-us-global-leadership-9053991.html
It would seem that US exceptionalism is alive and kicking, if only the hard edges softened by new geopolitical realities. We have to ask, though, how relevant is this assumption amid a decline in American power and a concomitant rise of China? (5/18) https://www.firstpost.com/world/america-isnt-back-yet-appointing-ivy-league-careerists-alone-wont-restore-us-global-leadership-9053991.html
If the task is of reclaiming the seat and leading the US once again to be the ‘rule maker’, and not the ‘rule taker’ — not to speak of shaping up to take on China — will all that take is for the US to change its political guard? (6/18) https://www.firstpost.com/world/america-isnt-back-yet-appointing-ivy-league-careerists-alone-wont-restore-us-global-leadership-9053991.html
Biden and his team believe that restoration of America’s moral leadership must precede its reclamation of global leadership. It all sounds very reassuring, and evidently without any focus on power politics. (7/18) https://www.firstpost.com/world/america-isnt-back-yet-appointing-ivy-league-careerists-alone-wont-restore-us-global-leadership-9053991.html
Biden raises flashback of the Obama-era when an overdose of schmaltz replaced power politics. Restoring US hegemony will take much more than wielding soft power. Hegemony is preserved by relentless pursuit of hard power. (8/18) https://www.firstpost.com/world/america-isnt-back-yet-appointing-ivy-league-careerists-alone-wont-restore-us-global-leadership-9053991.html
And exercising hard power involves making hard choices, taking risks and making statements. And here, Biden has a credibility problem at least in Asia where China’s emergence as the regional hegemon has involved coercive policies and bullying. (9/18) https://www.firstpost.com/world/america-isnt-back-yet-appointing-ivy-league-careerists-alone-wont-restore-us-global-leadership-9053991.html
Blinken says Trump has weakened US alliances but the view from Asia is quite different, where the prospect of a Biden admin has raised quiet trepidation, given the memory of US foreign policy under Obama who was reluctant to exercise power. (10/18) https://www.firstpost.com/world/america-isnt-back-yet-appointing-ivy-league-careerists-alone-wont-restore-us-global-leadership-9053991.html
Taiwan, for eg., has welcomed Trump's increased weapons sales, greater economic cooperation & diplomatic backing, starting with Trump’s decision in 2016 to accept a congratulatory call from President Tsai Ing-wen in a groundbreaking decision. (11/18) https://www.firstpost.com/world/america-isnt-back-yet-appointing-ivy-league-careerists-alone-wont-restore-us-global-leadership-9053991.html
In contrast, Biden has declined to receive the congratulatory phone call from president Tsai, preferring instead to let Blinken receive the call from Hsiao Bi-khim, Taiwan’s representative in Washington. (12/18) https://www.firstpost.com/world/america-isnt-back-yet-appointing-ivy-league-careerists-alone-wont-restore-us-global-leadership-9053991.html
It is possible that Biden, in seeking to differentiate foreign policy from the Trump era, doesn’t want to irk China before even assuming office or make Taiwan an inflection point, but these very acts trigger memories in Asia of US unreliability. (13/18) https://www.firstpost.com/world/america-isnt-back-yet-appointing-ivy-league-careerists-alone-wont-restore-us-global-leadership-9053991.html
On China, specially, Biden or his team has not been very forthcoming on policy prescriptions, preferring instead to speak in broad (and sometimes contradictory) terms.(14/18) https://www.firstpost.com/world/america-isnt-back-yet-appointing-ivy-league-careerists-alone-wont-restore-us-global-leadership-9053991.html
'Rescuing America’s foreign policy' will involve a clear-eyed view of the strategic threat posed by China in the Indo-Pacific, and wielding the threat of force to maintain equilibrium of power. (15/18) https://www.firstpost.com/world/america-isnt-back-yet-appointing-ivy-league-careerists-alone-wont-restore-us-global-leadership-9053991.html
As @cnlyonsjones in @ASPI_org "Indo-Pacific is a politically diverse, multipolar region whose constituent governments... want to retain their sovereignty and avoid falling under Beijing’s orbit. That requires an interested, engaged America..." (16/18) https://www.firstpost.com/world/america-isnt-back-yet-appointing-ivy-league-careerists-alone-wont-restore-us-global-leadership-9053991.html
Is Biden and his team ready to take up that role? His appointments doesn’t inspire confidence, most specifically of Kerry, a proven failure in diplomacy whose tenure coincides with some of US worst foreign policy mistakes." (17/18) https://www.firstpost.com/world/america-isnt-back-yet-appointing-ivy-league-careerists-alone-wont-restore-us-global-leadership-9053991.html
For the US to restore ‘global leadership' under Biden, there either has to be a renewed focus on power politics, or an acceptance that the time has come for the US to “decline gracefully”, as @PatPorter76 suggests. (18/18) Ends. https://www.firstpost.com/world/america-isnt-back-yet-appointing-ivy-league-careerists-alone-wont-restore-us-global-leadership-9053991.html