To mark the halfway point in U.S. President Joe Biden’s first term in office, Foreign Policy asked 20 experts to grade his administration’s performance on relationships with Russia and China, as well as on issues such as defense, democracy, and immigration. The assessments ranged all the way from A- to a failing grade. But more broadly, is there a way to define his administration’s agenda? Is there a Biden doctrine?
I spoke to experts with very different perspectives for insights. Nadia Schadlow was a deputy national security advisor in the Trump administration and is now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Stephen Wertheim is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a longtime advocate for ending so-called forever wars. Perhaps surprisingly, Wertheim was more critical of Biden’s foreign policy—specifically on China—than was Schadlow. Is that because Biden has largely doubled down on former President Donald Trump’s China policies?
Read on to find out. The interview was conducted as part of FP Live, the magazine’s forum for live journalism and debate. Subscribers can watch the complete interview on the video box at the top of this page. What follows is a condensed and edited transcript.
Foreign Policy: Let’s put our cards on the table. Stephen, if you had to grade the Biden administration’s foreign policy so far, what would you give them?
Stephen Wertheim: I don’t have to give out grades here at Yale Law School, so this is a foreign experience for me. I’m going to have to give you a split verdict. In terms of execution under difficult conditions, I would give the Biden administration good marks: B+. Maybe I could be convinced to move up to an A-.
But as I pull back and reflect on whether U.S. foreign policy is on a trajectory to be more responsive to the needs of the American people and to U.S. interests, I’d give them a low grade, more like a C.
I’m really worried about where we’re going, and I do think the Biden administration, particularly when it comes to relations with China, has played a more negative than positive role in bringing us to this place. I think Biden himself has had a lot of admirable qualities as president and commander in chief, but he risks handing to his successor a U.S. foreign policy that’s less strategic, more costly, and more risky than the one that he inherited from President Trump.
FP: Nadia, let me put you on the spot as well.
Nadia Schadlow: The beauty of this is that grades are very subjective. I would probably give the Biden administration much closer to a B+ on its approach toward China, whereas I would give it probably a C on many other aspects of its foreign policy precisely because there is a lot of rhetoric, in many cases, whether it’s human rights or energy or climate-related policies, and there are gaps between rhetoric and actual implementation.
FP: Stephen, is there even a clear Biden foreign-policy doctrine?
SW: There isn’t a doctrine in a strict sense, like the Carter Doctrine or the Truman Doctrine, that is a statement of U.S. vital interests and gives a sense of what the United States would be willing to do in support of its vital interests.
If the question is about Biden’s overall vision, I’d say it’s been a tale of two Bidens. The first year, Biden was trying to end the forever wars and promoted a foreign policy for the American people, or the middle class that, as Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor, said, aims to judge every decision by how it advances the daily lives of ordinary Americans.
That’s a very different Biden than the one that’s emerged in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine [almost] one year ago. The Biden doctrine seems to be more a defense of the free world, specifically against autocratic and revisionist powers, namely China and Russia, and I think the new national security strategy reflects that vision. It’s notable that “the free world,” a term Biden has used in connection to these challenges, is a specifically Cold War concept. It’s defined negatively, as the protection of U.S. allies and partners—and potentially not allies and partners—from encroachment by illiberal forces. That’s where we are right now.
FP: That’s right, Stephen, and I remember that you have in the past pointed out that instead of seeing the world as one divided among democracies and autocracies, a better way of framing the war in Ukraine would be to talk about sovereignty.
Nadia, as someone who was so important to the last administration’s strategy, what is your sense of whether there is a Biden doctrine?
NS: I agree with Stephen that I don’t think there is a Biden doctrine, and it would be very difficult to define it, less because of chronological reasons and more because of a fundamental division in the administration. You have some [in the administration] that are focused on China and that, I would argue, are seeing the world as a competitive place, as one of competition with other powers and rivals. But then you see many more adhering to a much more traditionally progressive, leftist agenda, which puts climate or global problems at the head of things. All these problems begin at the state level and really can only be solved at the state level. So you see a large portion of the Biden administration adhering to the world as they wish it would be.
FP: Let’s shift focus to Russia and Ukraine. Nadia, what’s your sense of how the Biden administration has managed this crisis over the last 18 months or so? What would you have done differently?
NS: The crisis really began before Biden came into office. If we use 2014 as a starting point, the Obama administration had a choice about whether or not to bolster Ukraine’s defenses, to stop any further encroachments by Russia or to help the Ukrainians stop any further encroachment. And the choice was made not to.
The Trump administration restarted the provision of Javelins to Ukraine in 2017. The Biden administration decided to halt the provision of those defensive weapons in the hopes that some discussion with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin could change the situation. So this predated February 2022.
The Biden administration has taken the right approach in providing the Ukrainians with the weapons they need to defend themselves from this brutal invasion by Russia. But I think there are problems with the incrementalism of this approach. The president has used, maybe 30 times, what is called his drawdown authorities, which makes it really hard to plan. This incrementalism sends certain signals. It detracts from the strength of sending the weapons. It gives time for the Russians to regroup. For example, with the recent announcement to send tanks, the actual implementation of that decision will not occur for a year. We’re creating a situation in which Russia can plan and adapt. The operational conditions on the ground aren’t going to change with the tanks because of that year delay, and then we need to wonder why we’re not using existing pre-positioned stocks of tanks to get to Ukraine. So you have a series of mixed signals.
FP: Stephen, you have a different take, and your sense is that the administration has actually built a fierce and united coalition supporting Ukraine. Expand on that.
SW: So far, my assessment of the administration’s handling of Ukraine and Russia policy is more positive than not. I think the administration was right to pursue a stable and predictable relationship with Russia, which now sounds ridiculous, but that’s because we have the benefit of hindsight. It made sense to try to set those priorities, given the challenges of security in Asia. When Biden came into office he quickly adjusted once he understood that the invasion was going to happen and did a remarkable job releasing intelligence and preparing U.S. allies in the world for what was going to happen. Certainly, looking at where the war is today, I wouldn’t go back and not support Ukraine and enable Ukraine to retake some of the territory that it’s lost.
The concern I have is twofold. The first part is where are we really going? The administration isn’t transparent about where exactly our objectives lie in this war, though, for the most part, the way they framed it is pretty reasonable. There are recent reports that Ukraine might consider putting Crimea at risk and potentially liberating Crimea as part of this war. We don’t know exactly what the Biden administration would do if that is what Ukraine wanted to do. But the escalation risks are so great in that case that this is something that we should not really have on the table as part of this war. I’m somewhat optimistic that Ukraine, for its own reasons, won’t want to do that, but this could become a very dangerous situation.
I praise Biden for warning of World War III. He’s understood the stakes. He rejected a no-fly zone very early on. He’s quite sober about the risks of escalation. And for that, I give him credit. But I’m still concerned that there is a kind of escalation of the rhetoric as well as the actual military support that the West is sending. I think the administration has framed support for Ukraine so heavily in terms of supporting a democracy against the aggression of an autocracy, which, of course, translates into rising tensions with China and makes people view Taiwan in light of Ukraine. These are framings that are actually offensive to a number of countries that perhaps might be more attracted to Ukraine’s side in the global south, because I think they understand that what’s really at stake is Russia’s aggression against a sovereign state and its violation of the most basic rule of international relations and the prohibition of the use of force in the U.N. Charter, and that would be true regardless of whether Ukraine were a democracy or not.
FP: Yes, we can fall into the trap of thinking of democracies and autocracies as a black-and-white issue, when in reality, for many countries around the world, it is not.
Nadia, when you were in government, the Trump administration had a very different relationship with NATO and alliance-building. That’s changed. How do you view America’s relations with European countries and with NATO?
NS: Just to go back to Stephen’s point about how this will end. Remember, the Ukrainians and the Russians have the big say in this as well. It’s not all being driven by the United States, and escalation has a lot to do with Russia’s choices as well.
During the Trump administration, he was very tough on allies for increasing their defense spending and their capabilities. He was very tough on Germany for its dependance on Russia for oil and gas. I think it really depends on the assumptions going in, but on those two matters, those were the right positions to have.
I think what we’ve seen with Russia’s invasion is that some Europeans, in places like Germany for example, that were quite skeptical of NATO suddenly have very different views about the value of the alliance. That, again, was driven by the fact that eyes were now open to the reality of the world and the reality of power and the importance of military capabilities. So is the diplomacy of the U.S.-European relationship smoother? Yes. But I would argue that the fundamentals there, both the positives and the negatives and the tensions, existed during the previous administration and still to a degree exist today. We’re seeing that now, with the European pushback on the Biden administration subsidies for electric vehicles.
There was always a sense of tension and cooperation across the alliance for years. I’m not sure that it was actually as dramatically bad as most of the media put it in the previous administration.
FP: Nadia, you said at the start of this conversation that you would grade the Biden administration pretty highly on its China policies. Why?
NS: I think most of the Biden China experts, the group that’s handling the Asia and China portfolio, see China as a long-term strategic competitor to the United States, because China does not just seek to advance its ideology and authoritarianism within its own system but also externally. They see a link between China’s internal goals of the Chinese Communist Party’s control and its Marxist-Leninist ideology. They see it really as an ideological threat as well. They see technology as a key enabler of this type of political economic system, as an enabler of China’s extraordinary military modernization. Because of that, they’ve crafted a policy that both seeks to slow China’s development of systems that could harm the United States down the line, as well as to advance what the United States needs to do internally. They see China as a long-term strategic threat to the United States. I happen to agree with that. I think there’s a lot of evidence for that.
FP: Nadia, I’ve written about this ideological battle as well, but much of the rest of the world doesn’t see the same divide. I think they see two giant trading partners that they don’t want to see in a big fight. They see sanctions on the semiconductor industry, and they worry about secondary effects on their economies and their companies. What’s your sense of how to navigate that ideological divide that you point out, but that the rest of the world doesn’t see as useful?
NS: It’s useful for us because we need to understand what’s at stake. We need to develop a set of policies based on that. Having said that, I think we actually haven’t forced other countries into that framework. We have a decent relationship with the Saudis, who have pretty strong relationships with China. I don’t think, in our external policies, we’re forcing countries to take a particular line. We’re explaining to them why we think there are dangers in having Huawei, for instance, in their technology. We’re arguing and making a case for why U.S. labor practices are probably better than Chinese labor practices in many African countries where there is mining going on. But I don’t see many examples where we’re kicking people out of the partnership circle because they don’t agree with this. We have very good, strong relationships with Singapore. We’ve acknowledged for a long time that Singapore has had to have strong relationships with China as well as with the United States. So we’re not taking people out of our friendship circle, but we are, I think, appropriately letting other countries know the stakes that are involved and, long term, what these types of relationships, whether they’re economic, whether it’s investments in technology, could mean for them down the line.
FP: I’ll just add that with sanctions on semiconductor access, for example, what ends up happening is there are downstream sets of requirements that do, in fact, implicate companies and countries.
Stephen, you’ve said here on FP Live in the past that you’re worried about where the U.S.-China relationship is headed. You’ve advocated for more U.S. restraint. Talk us through that. Why are you worried? What do you think the Biden administration is doing wrong?
SW: I have no problem with competing with China. We should have a competitive approach toward China. I think revitalizing the [Quadrilateral Security Dialogue] is probably a positive. A lot of the changes that are happening in the region, like Japan’s dramatic plans to become more of a military power, that’s happening largely because of what Beijing is doing, but we’re also playing a role in fostering that. Some of these developments are positive. We should be clear-eyed about the nature of China, but I think ultimately where we want to get to is a place of competitive coexistence.
The administration, as Nadia has suggested, is of two minds on this. They say they want to avoid a Cold War and they want to coexist, but that’s like a throwaway line in the statements toward China, and increasingly it looks like an afterthought in the policies as well. We are forcing countries to choose. We’re forcing them to choose whether they really want to leave our orbit and rupture relations with us or not. And they’re not choosing to do that. But we’re forcing them. That’s why we’re imposing these restrictions, like the sanctions on semiconductors. They’re not doing it voluntarily. I have no problem doing that if it’s really in our national interest. But I worry that it’s not. I worry about the second- and third-order effects.
I worry particularly about the statements that President Biden has made about Taiwan, which may not be the fault of his staff, but they matter. And my view is that yes, we have a deterrence problem, but we also have a security spiral problem where if we seem to creep up to and cross Beijing’s red line, I’m afraid we will have a conflict over Taiwan. That doesn’t make Beijing right to act in those circumstances, but we should act prudently.
For some reason, the president, who seems to quite well understand the risk of World War III with respect to Russia, has degraded the “One China” policy on numerous occasions by making these non-gaffes that suggest that Taiwan has the ability to declare independence. It’s really a question for Taiwan to decide. So we’re chipping away and we’re taking a risk, and I just don’t see what the gain is even in terms of deterrence. I think it’s right to try to make Taiwan more able to defend itself through the porcupine defense strategy. That makes sense to me. But not needling Beijing in a way that’s quite dangerous.