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THREAD: Now that U.S. President-elect Joe Biden has named or nominated senior members of his foreign policy and national security team, it might be useful to survey what all they have written or said in the recent past:
1. Tony Blinken has been named Secretary of State. Here is a wide-ranging conversation that touches upon a lot of global issues from last July: https://www.hudson.org/research/16210-transcript-dialogues-on-american-foreign-policy-and-world-affairs-a-conversation-with-former-deputy-secretary-of-state-antony-blinken
2. Wendy Sherman is set to be Deputy Secretary of State. Here she is on Trump's foreign policy from July 2020: https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/total-destruction-us-foreign-policy-under-trump
3. Toria Nuland is to be Under Secretary for Policy at the State Department. A former Ambassador to NATO, here she is on "How to Heal NATO" from late 2019: https://foreignpolicy.com/podcasts/and-now-the-hard-part/how-to-heal-the-nato-alliance/
4. Over to the National Security Council staff. Jake Sullivan has been named National Security Adviser. Here he writes on American exceptionalism in January/February 2019: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/01/yes-america-can-still-lead-the-world/576427/
5. Here is Sullivan and Kurt Campbell (reported to be named Indo-Pacific coordinator at the White House) on competition with China: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/competition-with-china-without-catastrophe
6. Deputy National Security Adviser-to-be Jon Finer is a former journalist. Here he is on intervention in Yemen. https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/09/from-seals-to-all-out-war-why-rushing-into-yemen-is-a-terrible-idea/
7. Here's Campbell and Rush Doshi (reportedly joining the NSC staff on China) on the Indo-Pacific: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2020-03-18/coronavirus-could-reshape-global-order
8. Among many others named to the NSC staff, Tarun Chhabra has been named senior director for technology. Here he is on the China challenge from February 2019: https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-china-challenge-democracy-and-u-s-grand-strategy/
9. Turning to intelligence, Avril Haines has been nominated to be Director of National Intelligence. Here she is talking (with surprising detail) about North Korea in October 2017:
10. Bill Burns, a diplomat and head of the Carnegie Endowment, has been named Director of the CIA. He wrote on U.S. foreign policy last year: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/united-states-needs-new-foreign-policy/614110/
11. Burns also co-authored this essay on transforming U.S. diplomacy with Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who has been nominated as U.S. Ambassador to the UN. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-09-23/diplomacy-transformation
12. Turning to the Pentagon, retired general Lloyd Austin has been nominated to be Secretary of Defense. Here's an interview he gave upon retirement from the U.S. Army. https://www.army.mil/article/198441/looking_back_for_the_way_ahead_an_interview_with_retired_gen_lloyd_austin
13. Kathleen Hicks is set to be Deputy Secretary of Defense. Here she is on the subject of maritime domain awareness in Europe: https://www.csis.org/analysis/contested-seas
14. Colin Kahl is expected to be confirmed as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. He wrote a year ago on Trump's Middle East policy: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/04/trump-is-playing-with-fire-in-the-middle-east/
15. Foreign policy won't just involve the White House, State Department, Pentagon, and intelligence. Economic and technology roles will be just as important.
Here's the nominated U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai on a progressive trade agenda: https://www.americanprogress.org/events/2020/07/30/488355/progressive-visions-trade/
Here's the nominated U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai on a progressive trade agenda: https://www.americanprogress.org/events/2020/07/30/488355/progressive-visions-trade/
16. Janet Yellen is the nominee for U.S. Treasury Secretary. Here she is talking about trade and technology competition with China: https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/13/economy/janet-yellen-us-china-trade-war/index.html
17. Commerce Secretary nominee Gina Raimondo - previously Governor of Rhode Island - hasn't written or spoken recently on trade policy per se. But curiously, this features on her personal web site: https://ginaraimondo.com/meet-gina/
18. Finally, John Kerry has been named Special Envoy for Climate, a cabinet-level position. This is one of the last things he wrote before being named to the job: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/26/opinion/climate-change-antartica-china.html
CORRECTION: One of those links was to the wrong article. This was the Campbell / Doshi piece I had meant to link to, not the one on COVID-19 (although that's worth reading too!). https://twitter.com/d_jaishankar/status/1349169118029737984?s=20
19. I’ll add a few more as new names get announced. Laura Rosenberger will be Senior Director for China at the White House. Here she is discussing Chinese influence in Europe with Juli Smith (another Biden advisor): https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/chinas-european-playbook/
20. Cara Abercrombie as Senior Director for Defense on the NSC staff. In early 2019, she wrote about improving the potential for US-India defense cooperation: https://www.nbr.org/publication/realizing-the-potential-mature-defense-cooperation-and-the-u-s-india-strategic-partnership/
21. I should add another piece coauthored by Kurt Campbell, this time with Ely Ratner, who is reportedly heading to the Pentagon. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2018-02-13/china-reckoning
In case anyone's interested, I have a new article looking at the challenges faced by incoming national security principals in the Clinton, Bush 43, Obama, and Trump administrations: https://www.hindustantimes.com/opinion/all-the-president-s-men-and-women-101610717561025.html
