The new administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has wasted no time wading into the impactful terrain of foreign policy and national security. On his first day in office, Biden announced that the United States would rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement and would reverse the Mexico City Policy on funding to non-profit organizations. Lloyd Austin, a retired general, was the first Biden Cabinet nominee to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. As secretary of defense, Austin will quickly put the president’s national security agenda into motion.
The Biden team is being shaped by veterans of the Obama and Clinton administrations. Their wont will be to undo much of former President Donald Trump's agenda, and to right what they perceive as the harm done to our international relations. They will hear a chorus of foreign leaders pushing for the United States to move away from the so-called America First policies of the past four years and return to the more globally active role of previous presidencies. French President Emmanuel Macron already urged Biden to have the U.S. military become more engaged in the Middle East and NATO activities, two areas where Trump was resistant.
Yet Biden and his team should resist the siren songs of gushing international leaders and the political reflex to push back anything that Trump touched. Some of the Trump administration’s actions and attitudes did alienate close allies, such as the quick withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. But other policies that focused on ending prolonged military engagements and modernizing defense alliances were aligned with American national security interests and the will of the American people. These should not be quickly abandoned without fair consideration and consultation with the U.S. Congress.
An area where Trump most starkly contrasted with previous presidents was his criticism of enduring military actions. As a candidate in the 2016 elections, Trump openly criticized the Republican-initiated wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, while also panning the Obama administration for involving the U.S. military in Libya and Syria. These sentiments were popular with voters, and though Trump’s administration did not completely follow through on campaign rhetoric, it did reduce the number of troops and the scale of American commitments in those conflicts.
Biden supported these same military actions, first as a senior member of the Senate, and later as vice president. Hopefully that record will not prevent him from taking an objective review of our overseas activities and making informed decisions based on our national security requirements.
We have been at war in the Middle East for nearly two decades, and the possible merits that initiated the conflicts are now largely irrelevant. While an al Qaeda organization still exists in name, the group that planned and executed the 9/11 attacks has long been disrupted and scattered. The same goes for the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, which was overthrown more than 15 years ago, but has been followed by years of intense sectarian violence that we showed little ability to mitigate.
Hopefully in hindsight, Biden will see that there were few reasons for the United States to respond to crises in places like Libya and Syria, where our involvement was precipitated by pressure from European countries, and where the desired outcomes were never agreed upon. There remain few compelling national-security justifications for re-engaging in these or similar conflicts.
Foreign leaders such as Macron are also eager to have the United States more involved with the alliances that Trump neglected or opposed. These alliances are important for all forms of statecraft, and there are diplomatic areas that need mending. However, early American leaders cautioned against alliances that could entangle us in foreign conflicts, and we are often warned that there are no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests.
We see how these dangers manifest themselves even in recent times. Besides the pressure from Europe on the Obama administration to act in Libya and Syria, both Obama and Trump escalated our military involvement in the Yemeni Civil War — a conflict that has very little impact on our national interests and even earned a rebuke from Congress — at the behest of our Saudi allies. Yet, faced with a more regionally assertive Russia over the past decade, while still failing to meet their own defense needs, NATO members are eager for the United States to increase our buffering presence in Europe and bring more countries into the alliance.
Without caution, this can lead the United States back into the wasteful position of playing global policeman while other nations play to their own interests. With a needed focus on supporting our own recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and strengthening the economy, it would be a mistake to engage in unnecessary foreign conflicts or undertake new defensive obligations that are nothing more to us than liabilities.
Robert Moore is a public policy advisor for Defense Priorities. He previously worked on national security and foreign policy issues as a staff member on Capitol Hill, most recently as the lead for Senator Mike Lee on the Senate Armed Services Committee. The views expressed are the author's own.