America Doesn't Have A Foreign Policy, It Has A Business Plan
W.J. Astore
America doesn't have a foreign policy, it has a business plan, and it's business as usual in the Biden administration. Joe Biden promised his donors that nothing would fundamentally change in his administration. Kamala Harris said her agenda wasn't about substantive change. So what we're getting under the Biden/Harris team is eminently predictable:
More blank checks for Israel, and no recognition of any rights for Palestinians.
A revival of the old Cold War, with China as the leading "threat" but with Russia not forgotten.
Politics subordinated to the military, rather than the military in service of political aims. In brief, military dominance is America's foreign policy.
Related to (1-3) is dominance of the world's trade in weapons. The State Department has become a tiny branch of the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex. It's all about closing arms deals, moving hardware, selling weaponry, making a buck.
Naturally, one of Biden's first acts as president was to bomb a foreign country, in this case Syria. So presidential!
In Joe Biden, America has a fading and flailing man to lead a fading and flailing empire. In Kamala Harris, America has an example of old wine in new packaging. She's a woman, she's Black, she's South Asian -- and she thinks like Hillary Clinton and Henry Kissinger.
Remember when Joe Biden said he'd be all about diplomacy? That the power of America's example would rule over the example of our power? Nice words, but that's all they've been so far. Words.
Two examples where Biden has appeared to offer meaningful change are with Afghanistan and Yemen. With Afghanistan, Biden has promised a complete military withdrawal by 9/11/2021. But does this apply only to combat troops while excluding mercenaries, the CIA, special forces "trainers," and the like? It's not yet clear. Plus anything can happen between now and 9/11 for Biden to switch gears and keep some combat troops in place.
With Yemen, Biden made a point about excluding offensive arms sales to Saudi Arabia while still allowing defensive ones. Almost any weapon can be labeled as defensive in nature, so it's doubtful whether Saudi operations in Yemen will be impacted at all by Biden's weasel-word policies.
The Biden/Harris foreign policy, such as it is, is retrograde. It's a return to the Cold War, with an emphasis on new nuclear weapons and larger Pentagon budgets. It's about global dominance while America at home burns. It's foolish and stupid yet it will make a few people richer for a few more business cycles.
And thus it's business as usual in Washington, which is exactly what Biden/Harris were hired for.