Follow us on social

2020-08-06t154614z_625786815_mt1sipa000nmrt0p_rtrmadp_3_sipa-usa-scaled

With Trump gone, what happens to efforts to end endless war on the right?

Partisanship is what powers this town, so don’t be surprised when some Republicans start to jump the restraint ship.

Analysis | Washington Politics

Barring a recount miracle or judicial development that would make Bush v. Gore look like a routine court decision, Joe Biden appears likely to be the next president of the United States. What effect will this have on Republican foreign policy and increasing conservative openness to realism and restraint?

Paradoxically, the likeliest answer is the worse, the better. That is, if Biden behaves like the liberal hawk he has frequently been and follows the advice of a Democratic foreign policy establishment that is largely committed to its own version of benevolent global hegemony — making the overall direction of the country’s foreign policy worse — the Republican positions on these issues will reflexively favor restraint, which is better.

Alternatively, if Biden does indeed heed more realist, even progressive voices, the results will be more events-driven, but Republicans will be more inclined to hammer their Democratic foe as feckless and weak, following a playbook that has existed since the Cold War.

For all the drama of the last four years it seems like we are in a new era of politics, but partisanship is still what makes the world of Washington go round.

This is evident based on what happened when Barack Obama was in the White House, with Biden serving as his vice president. Sen. Rand Paul and Tea Party conservatives in the House were able to rally most Republicans against the unconstitutional war in Libya and a proposed military intervention in Syria. But there was little appetite for supporting the Iran nuclear deal or even Chuck Hagel, a Republican, for secretary of defense from the rest of the party.

Every incentive will be for ambitious Republicans to oppose Biden at every turn. This is especially true because there will be an expectation of 2022 election midterm gains and President Trump left his party a much clearer path to an Electoral College majority than any vanquished GOP presidential nominee since Gerald Ford.

Biden may benefit to some extent by having relationships with Capitol Hill Republicans Obama did not, and he also has some deal-making tendencies his former boss lacked. But there are three potential roadblocks to real foreign policy change: 1) Republicans who want to run for president in 2024 will generally want no part of this deal-making. 2) His institutionalist inclinations will be hemmed in by partisanship, with the left not wanting deals with anyone vaguely Trumpy. 3) Even if Biden follows his less partisan angels and reaches across the aisle, the foreign policy results will be bad because he will likely deal with GOP hawks — and bipartisan institutionalism is what powers the Blob.

The best case scenario is that some eager Republican sees the opportunity presented by some of Trump’s revisions of the GOP brand divorced from his personal toxicity. For all of the faults of his foreign policy in the end, Trump got Republicans talking about ending endless wars and extricating the U.S. from the Middle East. And while he did not understand how to conduct diplomacy properly, he thought it better to jaw-jaw than to war-war.

Unfortunately, what Trump did not understand until very late in the game was that personnel is policy. Telegenic defenders mean very little if they want the opposite of what you want in Afghanistan. A good cop/bad cop routine cannot work in diplomacy if all of the people dedicated to the details are bad cops. 

The longer term problem this poses is that Trump did not set up very many people to succeed him on the foreign policy front. The big exception is Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who was a more consistent “America First” proponent than his president. He voted against Trump on Yemen (as did Mark Meadows, the eventual White House chief of staff, and stalwart Trump defender Jim Jordan) and Iran. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri has yet to decisively distinguish himself from the pre-Trump neoconservative consensus. Two other Trump allies, recently re-elected Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, are very much a part of that consensus. Jeff Sessions’ foreign policy views actually improved under Trump, but the president ensured his former attorney general would not return to the Senate.

Many Republicans loyal to George W. Bush used the Trump years to rehabilitate their man, who is now more associated with sharing candy with Michelle Obama than the futile search for WMD in Iraq, and themselves. Others successfully straddled the two realities, Nikki Haley probably being the most prominent example. 

If Biden does govern as a liberal hawk, bipartisan cooperation for peace becomes easier. Trump’s rhetoric was a huge plus for intervention skeptics in the GOP but he was anathema to Democrats. That stumbling block is removed with a different man in the White House.

Large parts of even the left portion of the Democratic base were riled up about Russia in a way that implies hawkish foreign policy commitments. It will remain to be seen whether that sentiment lingers post-Trump or whether it will become a relic like “The 1980s called and wanted its foreign policy back.”

There have been some positive trends in public opinion on foreign policy over the last two administrations, headed by presidents who understood that the Iraq war was a costly mistake. But despite what seems like uncharted territory in the era of Trump and COVID, partisanship will continue to motivate the parties and their policies and “restraint” will just have to adjust.


Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., left, and Mike Lee, R-Utah, are seen in the Capitol senate subway during a vote on Thursday, August 6, 2020. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Sipa USA)
Analysis | Washington Politics
Alexander Vindman's new book is a folly: of history, and the truth
Top photo credit: Alexander Vindman (Philip Yabut/Shutterstock) and the cover of his new book (publisher, PublicAffairs)

Alexander Vindman's new book is a folly: of history, and the truth

Europe

Alexander Vindman’s recent book, “The Folly of Realism,”throws down the gauntlet, as the name suggests, at the “realists” he thinks were responsible for failing to deter Russia and seize opportunities for defense cooperation with Ukraine.

According to Vindman, the former National Security Council official who testified against President Trump during his impeachment trial in 2019, this “realist” behavior incentivized Moscow’s continued imperialist predations, culminating in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

keep readingShow less
Trump should take the victory in Canada and move on
Top photo credit: Pierre Poilievre and Mark Carney (Yan Parisien; bella1105 via shutterstock)

Trump should take the victory in Canada and move on

North America

Just days after replacing Justin Trudeau and becoming Canada’s 24th prime minister, Mark Carney has advised Governor General Mary Simon to dissolve Parliament. Canadians will now head to the polls on April 28 for a long awaited and highly anticipated federal election.

Trudeau had announced his intention to resign as prime minister and Liberal Party leader on January 6, having served more than nine years as Canada’s head of government. Opinion polling had shown an increasingly sizable lead for the rival Conservative Party over the preceding 18 months, with about 25 percentage points separating the two parties by the time Trudeau announced he was stepping down.

keep readingShow less
arrest free speech
Top photo credit: Spaxiax/Shutterstock

Does Vance’s free speech defense in Munich not apply here?

Global Crises

At the Munich Security Conference in mid-February, U.S. Vice President JD Vance warned Europe not to back away from one of the West’s most basic democratic values: free speech.

“In Washington there is a new sheriff in town," he said, "and under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree.”

keep readingShow less

Trump transition

Latest

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.