Biden’s National Security Strategy: Meeting Face-to-Face in the Trump Era and the Challenges of the Rise of the Cold War
President Joe Biden stressed the importance of rebuilding alliances in order to compete over the coming decade in his first formal national security strategy.
Congress requires the document to come 21 months into Biden’s term. The President has emphasized the need to reestablish global partnerships, as well as counter China and Russia, during his tenure.
There is a high need for American leadership around the world. In the introduction to the strategy, Biden says that we are in the midst of a competition to shape the international order.
“We will not leave our future vulnerable to the whims of those who do not share our vision for a world that is free, open, prosperous, and secure,” he goes on. “As the world continues to navigate the lingering impacts of the pandemic and global economic uncertainty, there is no nation better positioned to lead with strength and purpose than the United States of America.”
“Russia poses an immediate threat to the free and open international system, recklessly flouting the basic laws of the international order today, as its brutal war of aggression against Ukraine has shown,” the document reads. “(China), by contrast, is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to advance that objective.”
The time this decade is vital to defining the terms of competition, particularly with the People’s Republic of China, and to getting ahead of massive challenges that if we lose the time this decade we will not be able to keep pace with.
Biden points out that there have been many years of friendship between the two leaders. But for all of the times they encountered each other when they were each serving as vice president, his meeting Monday begins at a remarkably low moment in US-China ties.
Even if Biden enters the talks with little expectation they can produce anything concrete, he hopes to get a more strategically valuable result by coming face-to-face.
American-China bilateral relations during Pelosi’s trip to China, where he and the US will meet next-to-Minimal cooperation
Relations deteriorated quickly because of economic disputes and a standoff over Taiwan. The countries used to get along well, but now their relationship is bad, like dealing with climate change and containing North Korea’s nuclear program.
US officials previewing the meeting have stressed the Biden administration is not looking to come out of it with specific “deliverables,” including a joint statement listing areas of potential cooperation. The setting is meant to give Biden and XI a significant opportunity to better share their goals and perspectives.
Planning for Monday’s meeting predated Pelosi’s trip, and discussions continued between US and Chinese officials despite Beijing’s furor. The process was “serious, very sustained and professional in the best traditions of US-China diplomacy,” the official said.
A senior US administration official said that every thing associated with the meeting was carefully considered, negotiated, and engaged between the two sides.
“I won’t say that the conversations weren’t contentious because obviously there’s lots of areas where we have differences and challenges,” the official said. Many of the issues that we’ve been talking to our Chinese counterparts about have surfaced.
Biden takes meetings like this seriously, and he reads extensively prior to them. He runs through various scenarios for meetings with advisers.
If this happens, should we handle it this way, according to the first official. “He understands that this is, in many respects, the most important bilateral relationship. He takes it very seriously and he has the responsibility to manage it well.
Officials said in Monday’s meeting they expected Biden’s senior-most advisers to accompany him as part of his official delegation. And the said they expected Xi to similarly surround himself with top aides, though the US team entered the meeting expecting to see some new faces on the Chinese side amid an ongoing transition inside Xi’s inner circle.
Biden’s aides have not set a time limit for the meeting, though Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, said he expected the talks to run “a couple hours” but could extend longer.
The White House has used a phrase called “building a floor” to describe the goal of the talks, suggesting that Biden hopes to stop relations from falling any further, and that he sees the potential for improvement.
Biden, who is in Cambodia for a meeting with Asian leaders, told reporters Sunday that they needed to figure out where the red lines are and what are the most important things for each of them going into the next two years.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/13/politics/joe-biden-xi-jinping-meeting-g20-bali/index.html
CNN’s Joe Biden: What Does the White House Really Want to Say About Beijing During the Post-Pendulum Crisis?
For Xi, the trip to Bali also marks his first journey abroad since the onset of the Covid pandemic, which prompted the Chinese government to impose strict lock downs and draconian restrictions. Xi’s reemergence on the physical world stage also comes on the heels of China’s Communist Party Congress in Beijing, during which he secured a norm-breaking third term as its leader.
Even a week ago, most inside the White House were expecting Biden to enter the talks comparatively weakened by Democratic losses in the midterm elections. The president felt as if he was entering his meetings this week with the wind at his back, according to top aides.
In recent years it has been more difficult to understand Beijing’s intentions in other countries because of their isolation but they believe that is going to change.
The senior administration said they can expect them to be more assertive. It’s hard to know right now what that looks like.
Sullivan said this week that finally substituting the pandemic-era video calls with a face-to-face meeting for the first time since Biden took office “takes the conversation to a different level strategically and allows the leaders to explore in deeper detail what each of them see in terms of their intentions and priorities.”
CNN senior political commentator and host of “The Axe Files” David Axelrod was the chief strategist for both the 2008 and 2012 Obama presidential campaigns. His own opinions are expressed in this commentary. There is more opinion on CNN.
The president is required in each State of the Union speech to report on domestic and foreign affairs. This year, Biden can rightly take credit for rallying the world’s response to Russian aggression.
The annual report to Congress and the nation is still very important as it almost guarantees a president the largest audience he will have all year to share his message with the American people.
The traditional pre-game television interview before the Super Bowl may deliver a much larger audience, of course, and a chance for President Joe Biden to crow about his beloved Philadelphia Eagles. Interviews are a big challenge for a president. Plus, people tune in to watch football – not politicians!
Biden has been distracted recently by a classified documents scandal, which has arisen due to a string of impressive legislative victories.
His overall job approval rating is stuck in the low 40s, according to CNN’s Poll of Polls. According to the recent NBC News survey, only 27% of Americans approve of Bidens handling of the economy, and three in four feel things are headed in the wrong direction.
Objectively, the economy is in much stronger shape than when Biden took office: more than 10 million jobs created and steady growth despite eight interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.
The significant steps he and Congress took to undergird people and businesses during the worst of the Pandemic were important. Major public works improvements across the country are now being made because of the bipartisan infrastructure bill he signed. The steps he’s taken are making health care more affordable for millions.
Yet Americans have weathered wrenching loss and jarring dislocations during the pandemic, many of which are still reverberating. The war in Ukraine has been a major factor in the rise in inflation, thanks to supply chain shortages and higher energy costs.
The rest of the world has been rocked by the same forces but, as Harry Truman said, when you’re President of the United States, “the buck stops here.” You can not force people to feel better.
Do Things Have Been Done Since Lyndon Johnson? When Did Biden Go? How Do We Go About It? What Have We Learned?
Even as he reports on what he has accomplished, Biden should not claim that the things have been done since Lyndon Johnson. or “The biggest since FDR!” They should leave that to historians.
Explain to people how you tried to help, but don’t tell them how great things are. Better yet, how great you are. If you try to convince them, you will lose them.
Presidents wish to project such a vision. But when you have recently turned 80, and you’re already the oldest president in American history, people don’t instinctively connect you with the word “future.”
So, rather than merely claiming credit for what he’s done, Biden desperately needs to tell a larger story about where we’re going and paint a picture of how these major initiatives are laying the groundwork for something better.
But there is a much larger point: The ongoing struggle in Ukraine underscores his argument for the importance of continued American leadership and global alliances in a dangerous world. His former – and perhaps future — Republican challenger’s “America First” mentality is a disastrous path if it means America alone.
I think the President will talk about gun violence and abortion rights, and the need for more steps to prevent horrors such as the savage beating of Tyre Nichols.
He needs to tell us how he plans to fix the crisis at the border and also how long it will take for comprehensive immigration reform to be done.
These issues, too, are about the future in our growingly diverse country. And, as a political matter, Biden has the popular position on almost all of them — though the border looms as a vulnerability — while the new Republican House majority is on the losing side.
The new slim House majority animated by the GOP will be the center of attention on Tuesday. They are sworn to Biden’s destruction. He needs to engage in politics and turn their negative energy back on them.
He should tell those in the new majority that all of them have a choice. We can spend the next two years trying to destroy each other for politics. Or we can try to work together wherever we can to solve problems facing families and communities across our country. I am pretty certain the American people want us to make the choice they do. I know which choice I’m prepared to make. I hope you will join me.
WASHINGTON — The world was a volatile place when President George W. Bush was leaving office. So on the way out the door, he and his national security team left a little advice for their successors:
The State of State: Why India is a friend, but Pakistan is not: What is the work that America will do? An Address to the Bush Memoranda
India is a friend. Pakistan is not. Don’t trust North Korea or Iran, but talking is still better than not. Russia has control over the territory of its neighbor, Ukraine. Beware becoming ensnared by intractable land wars in the Middle East and Central Asia. nation building is definitely not as easy as it looks.
Mr. Bush wrote in the book that he wanted the incoming administration to know what critical national security issues would face them. “The memoranda told them candidly what we thought we had accomplished — where we had succeeded and where we had fallen short — and what work remained to be done.”