Biden's Middle East trip: Following in Trump's footsteps
WATCH: Biden looks poised to betray his campaign promise to sideline Saudi Arabia. Does this really serve America's interests?
Responsible Statecraft
Responsible Statecraft is a publication of analysis, opinion, and news that seeks to promote a positive vision of U.S. foreign policy based on humility, diplomatic engagement, and military restraint. RS also critiques the ideas — and the ideologies and interests behind them — that have mired the United States in counterproductive and endless wars and made the world less secure.
Top photo credit: South Korean president Lee Jae-myung travels to of the Group of Seven in Kananaskis, Canada, June 2025 (Ministry of culture, sports and Tourism/ Lee jeong woo/Creative Commons
Trump NSS puts S. Korea at center of US primacy aims in region
December 15, 2025
It has been half a year since the Lee Jae-myung administration took office in South Korea.
Domestically, the Republic of Korea (ROK) is still recovering from numerous problems left by former president Yoon Suk-yeol's brief imposition of martial law. However, there are also many diplomatic challenges that need to be addressed. The Lee administration faces arguably the most challenging external environment in years.
The global order is entering an era of great uncertainty as the U.S.–China rivalry intensifies on the one hand and multipolarization emerges on the other. Rather than looking for mutual accommodation with China and adapting to the shift toward multipolarity, the United States has focused on containing China’s rise and preserving strategic dominance in Asia.
The second Trump administration’s newly released National Security Strategy hints at the continuity of this trend, stressing the essential need for the United States to preserve “economic and technological preeminence” and “military overmatch” in Asia to outcompete and deter China.
This strategy of containment and great-power competition against China has required enormous resources and capabilities that the United States alone can hardly afford, as well as geographic proximity to China. The U.S. solution to overcome these structural limitations has been to seek the active participation of regional allies in the strategy.
As the National Security Strategy says, “Our allies must step up and spend — and more importantly do — much more for collective defense. America’s diplomatic efforts should focus on pressing our First Island Chain allies and partners to allow the U.S. military greater access to their ports and other facilities, to spend more on their own defense, and most importantly to invest in capabilities aimed at deterring aggression.” It also says that the United States will press its allies and partners to “use our combined economic power to help safeguard our prime position in the world economy.”
And indeed, South Korea is at the center of these demands. In recent years, South Korea has faced growing U.S. demands to elevate its alliance contributions. Regardless of who is in the White House, South Korea has repeatedly faced U.S. demands, for example, to pay more for the stationing of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) and invest more resources in the United States to support the reshoring and rebuilding of American industries.
Washington has also continuously pressed South Korea to allow USFK greater “strategic flexibility” to operate outside Korea, thereby broadening USFK’s purpose from deterring North Korea to containing China. The new U.S. National Security Strategy’s strong emphasis on Taiwan and the need to further enhance U.S. military access within the first island chain suggests that Washington’s pressure on Seoul to expand the USFK’s strategic flexibility may well ramp up in the coming years.
South Korea has thus far stepped up its contributions to the alliance, given its security dependence on the United States. Nevertheless, an emerging dilemma for South Korea is that it is increasingly unclear whether the security benefits of the U.S. alliance will continue to outweigh the costs and risks of aligning with U.S. strategies to militarily contain China and exclude it from global supply chains — which could push South Korea to the frontline of great power confrontation, both geographically and strategically.
Surely, Trump’s approach to squeezing allies and partners is aggressive. But the reality is that under both Biden and Trump, South Korea has faced similar pressures to accommodate Washington’s strategies that are not compatible with South Korean national interests.
Ultimately, the United States is becoming a growing risk to South Korea's foreign policy. Going forward, South Korea will need to “de-risk” not only from China but also from the United States, by enhancing strategic autonomy and expanding multilateral cooperation with middle-power countries.
During the previous Yoon Suk-yeol administration, which ended in disgrace after the failure of Yoon’s attempted “self-coup,” South Korea was effectively trapped within a Cold War–like framework under the banners of “value-based alliance” and “strategic clarity.” For Yoon, strengthening ROK–U.S.–Japan military cooperation — a U.S.-brokered initiative aimed against China and North Korea — seemed to define the entirety of diplomacy. While not broken, ROK–China relations were in a state of paralysis.
In contrast, President Lee Jae-myung and his administration recognize the importance of strategic autonomy. Lee declared “pragmatic diplomacy centered on national interests” immediately upon taking office, giving ROK–China relations a chance at rehabilitation. The message was clear: while maintaining a close ROK–U.S. alliance, South Korea cannot pursue an anti-China foreign policy.
China remains South Korea's largest trading partner, and the supply chains for core industries such as semiconductors, batteries, and rare earths are tightly intertwined with China. Deterioration in ROK–China relations directly increases costs and risks for the South Korean economy. The Lee administration seeks to strengthen alliance cooperation on the premise of mutual benefit, while simultaneously managing relations with neighboring countries such as China and Russia.
However, the path to enhancing South Korea’s strategic autonomy is not as easy as it sounds. The United States wants South Korea to clearly distance itself from China, while China hopes South Korea does not become a “proxy” for the United States. The choices Seoul must make between these two great powers are narrowing.
At times like this, what is needed is a redefinition of the alliance. The ROK–U.S. alliance must evolve from a patron–client relationship into an equal partnership centered on mutual benefits and interests. If the United States seeks to treat South Korea as an accessory to its regional strategy, South Korea must secure its own strategic autonomy. For the alliance to become an equal partnership, South Korea must clearly articulate its own interests and be able to say “no” when necessary.
Particularly, as South Korea moves toward assuming the primary responsibility in ROK–U.S. combined deterrence against North Korea, adhering to the U.S. demand that “allies should do more for their own defense,” Seoul should make it clear to Washington that South Korea’s priority remains defending itself from North Korea, and it cannot be part of U.S. war planning against China over Taiwan. Allowing USFK deployments in a Taiwan contingency or committing ROK forces to defending Taiwan, which will exacerbate regional tensions and expose South Korea to threats of attacks from both North Korea and China, should be unacceptable for Seoul.
This is an era of global order restructuring, where even the United States prioritizes its own interests. The turbulence in ROK–U.S. relations should be seen as an opportunity to acknowledge the alliance’s value while critically examining which aspects of the alliance align with South Korea’s national interests and which do not. Going into 2026, the Lee administration's handling of ROK–U.S. relations stands on this testing ground.
In this context, the recent APEC summit held in Gyeongju, South Korea, left important takeaways for Seoul. It was not merely a diplomatic event but a stage testing the possibility of multilateral cooperation to “de-risk” from the zero-sum competition between the United States and China.
Many APEC participants are the so-called “middle powers” that rely on stable cooperation with both Washington and Beijing for their prosperity and share a keen interest in avoiding victimization amid the increasingly zero-sum U.S.-China rivalry. In 2026 and beyond, Seoul should invest significantly more diplomatic energy in bolstering engagement with like-minded middle powers to discuss ways to collectively encourage Washington and Beijing to stabilize their relations, as well as concrete initiatives to promote open and inclusive multilateral cooperation in Asia.
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Top photo credit: A member of Christians United for Israel during the second day of the Christians United for Israel summit in National Harbor, Maryland, U.S., July 29, 2024. REUTERS/Seth Herald
1,000 US pastors travel to train as 'ambassadors' for Israel
December 15, 2025
More than 1,000 U.S. Christian pastors and influencers traveled to Israel this month becoming “the largest group of American Christian leaders to visit Israel since its founding.”
At the height of the Christmas season — one of the two most important celebrations for Christians of the year, the birth of Christ, the other being Easter which marks his death — these pastors were on mission paid for by the Israeli government “to provide training and prepare participants to serve as unofficial ambassadors for Israel in their communities,” Fox News reported.
Trip organizer Mike Evans is an author, a top evangelical ally of Donald Trump, longtime confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and founder of the Friends of Zion Heritage Center in Jerusalem. “For Christians, Israel is not just another country on the map. It is the cradle of our faith. The story of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, King David, and Jesus starts here. If you cut Israel out of the Bible, you do not just edit a text, you undermine the foundations of Christian faith itself," the long-time, prominent Christian Zionist said in a press release about the trip.
Such Christian Zionists believe that the state of Israel fulfills biblical prophecy. Sometimes they say things like the people of Israel are "a special treasure above all the people on the face of the earth, that includes the United States of America" as Pastor John Hagee, leader of Christians United for Israel, exclaimed in a speech this summer, referring to scripture.
“This week we want Pastors to experience Israel first-hand and be reminded of these foundational truths,” Evans said of the trip, which would be, he said, giving these pastors and others “an immersive, state-level experience” that included meetings with Israeli officials, generals, intelligence leaders and President Isaac Herzog.
The “mission” it would seem is just as critical to firming up support for the government’s military actions in Gaza and the West Bank as it is to affirming support for the religious integrity of the national project.
As such, evangelical participants on the sojourn wanted to talk about Israel in terms of perpetual victimhood. Tamryn Foley of Florida told Fox Digital, "more than half of the Palestinian population embraces Hamas’ ideology of radical Islam, which isn’t based on land for peace but on establishing an Islamic state and eradicating the Jewish state."
Foley, who did not provide evidence for her claims, was part of the trip as an executive team member of the National Faith Advisory Board, founded by President Trump’s spiritual advisor Paula White-Cain. When “Trump’s understanding of the need to support the Jewish state intensified in 2003, when he contacted Evangelist Paula White-Cain…they became quick friends and White-Cain introduced Trump to several other Evangelicals. Since then, she has served as his personal pastor — and these other Evangelicals, including (Mike) Evans, have been influencing the president," the Jerusalem Post reported in early 2020.
White-Cain has been a longtime loyal supporter of both Israel and pro-life causes.
The National Faith Advisory Board, Fox reported, “is the largest coalition backing and advocating for people of faith… Its mission is built on four pillars — protecting religious freedom, promoting a strong America, defending life at all stages and honoring family values — and it identifies the U.S.-Israel alliance as central to that agenda."
“Life” is important to evangelical Christians. According to a 2024 Pew Poll, 73% of white evangelical Protestants this abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.
But defending “life” at all stages? Their “immersive” experience might not have been quite immersive enough.
In May, a United Nations report detailed the plight of women and girls living in Gaza. “UN Women estimates that more than 28,000 women and girls have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war in October 2023 — that is one woman and one girl on average killed every hour in attacks by Israeli forces,” the report noted. “Among those killed, thousands were mothers, leaving behind devastated children, families, and communities.” That estimate is from six months ago.
The official numbers, according to the Gazan Health Ministry, are over 70,000 killed since Oct. 7, 2023. Other estimates, which take account undiscovered dead bodies under the 68 million tons of rubble in the Strip, are well over 100,000 Palestinians killed, most of whom are considered civilians, since the beginning of the war.
Defenders of Israel’s collective punishment, especially American evangelicals, contend that it is mere retaliation for the horrific October 7, attack on Israel by Hamas. According to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in September of last year, 64 percent of white Protestant evangelicals maintain that Israel is defending its interests and is justified in its military actions in Gaza, roughly double that of the overall American population (32%). It is also a far greater proportion than Americans of other faiths, including Catholics (34%),non-evangelical Protestants (31%), and far more than non-religious Americans (19%).
Some of the U.S. evangelical travelers to Israel last week conveyed stories to media about meeting Israeli October 7 survivors and witnessing their pain up close, creating a more intimate understanding of their plight.
There were no reports of the evangelical travelers also visiting Gaza or listening to harrowing stories of Palestinian survivors of Israel’s bombardments, the displacement of millions, and famine and disease conditions now exacerbated by flooding and the continued lack of shelter, food, and medicine. It simply does not appear to be part of the conversation, and to the degree that it ever is, it is almost always to defend Israel’s actions.
Responsible Statecraft’s Paul R. Pillar analyzed the one-sided nature of the conflict in late July. “The news stories emerging almost daily from Gaza are not about pitched battles between the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and Hamas fighters,” he wrote. “They are mostly not about battles at all.”
Pillar continued, “Instead, they are about the latest large-scale killing by Israel of Gazans, mostly civilians, at a rate that has averaged about 150 deaths per day since the current round of carnage began in late 2023. Civilians are killed largely with airstrikes but also more recently through getting shot while seeking ever-scarcer food.”
In November, Responsible Statecraft’s Connor Echols reported that trip organizer Mike Evans once began writing a fictional novel that was edited by a paid Israeli reserve colonel “about an all-out war on Israel, masterminded by a rogues’ gallery of Iran, Hamas, ISIS, and, to a lesser extent, the media.” The book was never published.
Its outline was described by Echols as “bleak” and he noted that “Evans goes to great lengths to blur the lines between Hamas members and civilians.”
Speaking on Israel's critics, Evans told Fox News Digital, "These devils that hate Jews hate Christians just as much. What is being said against the state of Israel is one hundred times worse than what the Nazis said on their party platform in 1920, and everyone is ignoring it.”
“They don’t realize how dangerous this is,” Evans added. Mike Evans’ Zionist missionaries also seem to ignore things. Big things. No matter how dangerous to life that has been.
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Top photo credit: Chat GPT
A farewell to Oz: Trump’s strategy for a multipolar world
December 15, 2025
The end of the Cold War ushered in a long period of make-believe in American foreign policy. We saw ourselves, in the words of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, as “the indispensable power. We stand tall. We see farther into the future.” And we could use our unmatched abilities to transform the world in unprecedented ways.
Globalized flows of capital and labor would liberalize China and usher in a new age of largely frictionless international relations. Russia would be transformed quickly into a friendly, free market democracy. NATO would shift its focus from protecting Western Europe to reforming and incorporating the states between it and Russia, with little worry that it might ever have to fight to defend new members. The US military would serve as the world’s benevolent policeman, and Americans could re-engineer societies in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan. Americans would be endlessly content to fight endless wars that bore little connection to their own well-being, and foreign creditors would forever finance America’s burgeoning national debt.
Things obviously did not go as planned.
President Trump’s new National Security Strategy says goodbye to such magical thinking. It begins with a clear premise that breaks sharply with past strategies: The United States does not have infinite resources and capabilities, so it must prioritize what it seeks to accomplish in its foreign policy. It asserts that these priorities must flow from an assessment of what is most important to the security, prosperity, and freedom of the American people. And it argues that, while the world has changed in important ways, geography has not: the threats and opportunities in America’s immediate neighborhood matter more to our national security than events in far-flung locales.
This reasoning is little more than common sense, but it has been entirely uncommon in past American strategies.
Trump’s approach is much more than a simple effort to reconnect American objectives in the world to its capabilities and interests, however, as commendable as that is. Equally important, it recognizes that the distribution of power in the world has become more polycentric, and that technologies are changing the components of national power in ways that have big implications for geopolitics.
In an emerging multipolar world, it makes no sense for the United States to do things that encourage Russia and China to cooperate against us, as we have inadvertently done for many years. The strategy implicitly recognizes that having a more normal relationship with the West will make Moscow less beholden to Beijing and better able to operate as an independent pole in the emerging order, rather than as a force-multiplier of Chinese power. The strategy also understands that it makes no sense for the United States to encourage continued European dependence on US security protection. We need Europe to have the military strength and internal cohesion to serve as a stabilizing counterweight to Russia, and we need it to have the societal and cultural health to manage perceived threats on the basis of confidence and resilience rather than fear.
Of course, rational strategic thinking does not necessarily make for a successful foreign policy. It makes abundant sense to elevate the principle of non-intervention, pursue peace settlements that advance American interests and influence, recognize the importance of the Western hemisphere, rebalance the transatlantic alliance, and pursue a mix of deterring, engaging, counter-balancing, and out-competing China. The attempt to translate those concepts into practice is likely to be messy, however, as Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine have demonstrated. Much can go wrong, and often does, when plans encounter unforeseen crises, opposition from friends and foes, and the stubborn complexities that underlie so many problems abroad. Striking the delicate balances that the strategy envisions and achieving the broad goals it outlines will require a high degree of nuanced statesmanship.
In this regard, questions remain about implementation. The strategy’s proclamation of a “Trump Corollary” to America’s longstanding but recently dormant Monroe Doctrine raises the question of whether the administration will learn from the mistakes Russia has made in trying to drive foreign actors out of its own neighborhood, where Moscow’s bullying and coercion only encouraged neighbors to seek closer ties to the West.
The strategy’s call to “cultivate resistance” to European continent’s self-destructive trajectory has caused some to question just how intrusive the administration plans to be in the region’s domestic affairs – and whether too heavy a hand might hurt rather than help Europe’s populist parties, a stated goal in the NSS.
Moreover, Trump’s foreign affairs team remains far from complete, with key positions unfilled. Its ability to marshal the expertise necessary for the strategy’s success while managing an often resistant and sometimes defiant bureaucracy is far from clear.
Policy implementation concerns are inevitable in any administration, but they grow more acute when a strategy is such an abrupt departure from the ways past administrations have approached their foreign policies.
That departure is to be welcomed, not lamented, however. The most renowned American foreign affairs columnist of the twentieth century, Walter Lippmann, coined a term to describe a wide gap between America’s objectives in the world and its capabilities to attain them: foreign policy “insolvency.” By this measure, US foreign policy has been insolvent for more than three decades. If nothing else, the new Trump National Security Strategy provides hope that our approach to the world may become solvent again.
All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions or views of the US Government. Nothing in the contents should be construed as asserting or implying US Government authentication of information or endorsement of the author’s views.
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