Much of America is breathing a sigh of relief that, gracefully or otherwise, Trump will soon vacate the White House. Allies of the United States – not just governments but much of the commentariat – are expecting a less turbulent and more predictable international environment. That may be wishful thinking.
There is no denying that Trumpism has been a recipe for policy incoherence, administrative chaos, and vulgar, often untruthful discourse. Biden’s team will no doubt restore a measure of civility to American diplomacy and craft a set of domestic policies designed to repair some of the damage inflicted on health, environment, and race relations.
Yet, even here the signs are less than reassuring. Yes, we can expect climate change to be given a higher priority in foreign policy. The appointment of US Secretary of State John Kerry as special presidential envoy on climate change signals a willingness to return to the international negotiating table.
Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, Obama committed the United States to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28% by 2025, from 2005 levels. The Biden administration will renew that commitment and may even set a goal of net zero emissions by 2050.
But let’s not forget, what can be done on the international stage depends largely on what happens domestically. Soon after his inauguration Biden is expected to use executive leverage to reverse some of Trump’s most egregious decisions, which erased or loosened nearly 100 environmental rules and regulations.
He may not, however, be able to reinstate all these rules. And, even if he can, this will not be enough to meet the net zero emission target. Eventually, a comprehensive legislative network will be needed. It is not clear how Biden proposes to do this, if, as seems likely, he is faced with a hostile Senate and an obstructionist Supreme Court.
Behind and beyond these institutional roadblocks lies the bigger hurdle – fossil fuel interests. Intense lobbying by coal, gas and oil companies, and the utility and transportation sectors, coupled with large donations to political parties, has been remarkably successful. Nothing said during the election campaign suggests Biden is of a mind to neutralise the fossil fuel lobby’s formidable political muscle.
As for Washington’s future engagement with the world, we may be in for a torrid time. When formally announcing the members of his national security and foreign policy team last week, Biden chose as his opening words ‘America is back’.
Which America is this, we may ask? Is it the America that took us to Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya? Is it the America that has steadfastly invoked external threats to justify in peacetime the deadliest military arsenal in human history?
Much has been made of America’s commitment to a rules-based international order. Yet, US administrations have made a habit of overthrowing foreign governments, whether by force or other means. Over the last 67 years, it has attempted regime change in 58 separate instances, that is, the equivalent of one every 14 months.
The defining feature of America’s presence in the world since 1945 has been the growth of its ‘national security state’. Though presidents come and go, the security apparatus has developed a mind of its own, and tentacles that reach into virtually every area of policy, every institution of government, and a great many foreign governments.
It is entirely possible that Biden has other ideas about future US security policy. He may favour a gentler, wiser, less interventionist America, less intent on reviving its ambition for hegemony. If so, he has yet to spell them out.
All we have at the moment are a few broad-brush sentences. The words he used to introduce his security team are nevertheless cause for concern, and merit restating:
‘It’s a team that reflects the fact that America is back. Ready to lead the world, not retreat from it. Once again, sit at the head of the table. Ready to confront our adversaries, and not reject our allies, ready to stand up for our values.’
We can only assume that the primary adversaries he has in mind are Russia and China. If so, the idea of confronting them raises troubling questions: confront them in response to what, by what means, and with what objectives?
There is, it seems, little appreciation that we are witnessing a shift in the centre of economic and geopolitical gravity from West to East, in part the result of East Asia’s renewed economic dynamism.
More importantly, the West-centric world in which first Europe and then the United Stated held sway, is slowly but steadily giving way to a new world in which other civilisational centres are emerging or re-re-emerging. This calls for new forms of dialogue and accommodation both across and within major civilisations.
Sadly, there is no indication that the incoming administration is aware of, not to say favourably disposed to, these possibilities.
In many ways, Biden’s choice of cabinet members is itself instructive. Antony Blinken (secretary of state), Avril Haines (director of national intelligence), and Jake Sullivan (national security adviser) all went to Ivy League schools, and were closely associated with the Obama administration. They are all quintessential products of the security and foreign policy establishment.
They all speak of an America that can resume global leadership as if they know what leadership entails at this historical moment. They assume the world is yearning to be led and to have the United States as its leader. This can be hardly true of Russia or China, and it is difficult to see either Germany or France meekly complying with US preferences and priorities.
Put simply, there is no evidence that the Biden administration is alive to the immense challenges posed by a rapidly transforming world. Significantly, neither the president-elect nor his appointees have referred to the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons. Nor have they indicated much interest in reaching out to other countries with a view to breathing new life into existing international institutions, in particular the United Nations.
Insofar as Biden and his entourage have referred to multilateralism, it has been primarily in the context of international military alliances and regional formations closely aligned to US interests and priorities.
They have been conspicuously silent on the institutions, decision making processes and resourcing needed to manage, or better still prevent, the financial, environmental and humanitarian crises that have become a regular feature of the international landscape.
They have waxed lyrical about their commitment to US values and human rights, implying that they will respond loudly and forcefully when these standards are violated by adversaries. But they have said little about how they propose to handle gross human rights violations by friends and allies, as is presently the case with the likes of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Thailand and the Philippines .
It is fair to say that the Obama administration assumed office in January 2009 with a much grander vision and loftier rhetoric, but managed to deliver little in the ensuing eight years. It is conceivable that the Biden administration will assume office in January 2021 with a humbler agenda and still end up achieving more. Australia would be unwise to base its future on the strength of that assumption.
Joseph Camilleri is Emeritus Professor at La Trobe University in Melbourne, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences, Convener of Conversation at the Crossroads, and Co-Convener of SHAPE (Saving Humanity and Planet Earth)
Comments
28 responses to “Why the Biden victory is not the answer to our prayers”
The MSM both here in Australia & in the US are living in their own left-Marxist “group-think” bubble where all-is-well for a Biden Presidency. It will come a rude shock to them when on 21 Jan 2021, Trump is still President & both Bidens – sleepy-Joe & son Hunter, both Clintons – Bill & Hillary, both Obamas – Barrack & Michelle, Podesta, Soros & co are in a federal penitentiary awaiting treason trials – not by a civilian court, but by a military court.
That would be a nice episode in democracyisms’ never-ending story Marry.
You must be privy to the existence of an honest policeman? ;-p
Its paramount you save yourself Mary ..and don’t wait for temporal messiahs.
They are exosomes (viruses) in the great matrix.
That would be a just outcome!
‘America is back’ will mean a re-focus on American hegemonic power that would not tolerate peer or near-peer competition, meaning China and Russia. War and regime change was a common denominator in the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations. Ditto nearly all other administrations before them. There is almost no possibility that a Biden administration will be any different. Internally, Biden is also unlikely to solve the extreme income disparity in America, with the 1% becoming even more obscenely rich. Poverty-stricken Americans, Trump or no Trump, are seriously angry. The RCEP trade pact, the largest in the world, heralds the rise of China/Asia, which economically threatens to outshine the hegemon. American exceptionalism will have difficulty in tolerating increasing Asian prosperity in the light of America’s own ugly poverty landscape across so many parts of America. Michele Flournoy, possible future US Defence Secretary, has already said that America will want to “sink all” Chinese vessels within 72 hours… . If the Obama administration was a huge failure for Americans and for the world, the Biden administration could turn out to be a lot worse.
Biden et. al. – outmoded Euro-centric ways of thinking not capable of dealing with the reality of the newly emerging global order.
“Flailing States” https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n14/pankaj-mishra/flailing-states
podcast: https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/lrb-conversations/states-of-shock
That American “sigh of relief” is entirely a media driven hypnosis. ……Speak to that Joe svp?
Why do all these ëmeritus professors restrict their stick to juggling the possibilities of the pantomime horses in this dichotomous theatre and nothing about the neuro linguistic programming of the media and the usually suspect institutions to which most are tenured?
I don’t think America’s so called “exceptionalism” (meaning they can do they want) and the idea of perpetual war for perpetual peace will vanish under Biden.
I was watching interviews conducted by Roger Ailes circa 1995 on Youtube and an article called The Paranoid Style in American Politics by Richard Hofstadter written in 1964 was mentioned.
This paper ranked high among politicians as being influential in understanding, well American culture? Here’s a taste:
It (The Paranoid Style) had been around a long time before the Radical Right discovered it—and its targets have ranged from “the international bankers” to Masons, Jesuits, and munitions makers.
American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority (Not now Trump got 70 million of them) . But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wing. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind.
I am wondering how much influence Biden will have in changing angry minds and I might add angry hearts.
Can’t have divide and rule without those angry hearts and minds.
The World will keep burning coal and oil until no more is left , the icecaps are melted and coastal cities inundated, all because some greedy people want to die with the most money.
https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-would-sea-level-change-if-all-glaciers-melted?qt-news_science_products=0#qt-news_science_products
By 2100, the problem will not be climate change but how to save cities – do we build a moat, or do we relocate?
That will be the burning question for politicians, and no doubt those US citizens who occupy red states in the middle of America who won’t be affected by sea level rise.
the global melted-mass migrations
will deviate the earths’ nutation
and alter states of isostasy
to inundate some state and nation.
Why the Biden victory is not a Biden victory?
Because the US Presidential is yet to occur. Trump warns everybody and few hear it.
He will seek to swing votes in the Electoral College in December so that Biden does not get the 270 votes needed.
He will challenge the validity of EC votes in January.
Isn’t it obvious that, come 6 January, there will be Republicans from both House and Senate who are likely to object to electoral college votes for Biden from Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia?
And, assuming that happens, don’t the media know that the Republicans will have a 50/48 majority on the floor of the Senate on 6 January? Enough to vote to reject those States’ votes if the Senate breaks along party lines. Even if, say, Mitt Romney broke ranks, it would still be 49 all, with Mike Pence having the casting vote in his capacity as President of the Senate.
Democrats and the media are counting their chickens. 20 January 2021 could yet be a bigger shock to USA than
11 November 1975 in Australia.
Yes, he probably will do these things. And if he fails, which he likely will, still he will have consolidated the idea in the minds of more than half the US voters, that the whole election was rigged, thus poisoning the chalice of a Biden ascendency. Typical Trump behaviour? Possibly, but also, in my mind, payback for the whole Russiagate imbroglio.
Typical Trump behaviour? Absolutely, and in his mind it needs no justification.
Just consider the consequences if he succeeds. His chances are comparable to Malcolm Fraser’s in Nov 75.
The process of electing the US President starts next month. The popular vote on 3 Nov has very little influence on subsequent events. The party machinery now takes over and it has no regard for popular opinion. There is a process laid down in law and it will be fully exploited in the quest for power.
Don’t panic .. “That process of law” has the checks and balances of the ‘process of lawlessness’ that we are witnessing, being used to get Biden up.
In a typically American perspective, The Atlantic has likened the Presidential election
to sporting contests. The simile is false in important respects.
The ‘rules of the game’ for the election are simply not democratic. Trump
knows the real rules, including their vagueness and ambiguity, and has
signalled to all that he intends to exploit them in the courts and in
the Congress. His early losses of over 35 court challenges of electoral
results are not precedents for the challenges to come regarding EC
votes.
“Loser’s consent” is not present. The theatre, the Hollywood of concession is
wholly absent in 20/21 and the willingness to play again by the same
rules is refuted. So it should be. The winner’s first duty in power
has to be to clean up the idiotic, antiquated and undemocratic sham in
the present rules for a Presidential election. That is true whoever
wins.
Trump as a candidate has a logic that was absent from so many of his statements and policies as President. Perhaps he learned from episodes of The Apprentice? What do you think, Poet?
I think the estates of the realm and the federal money Magi, have stitched this game up eons ago.
The first division of that dominion is allowed to battle for the treasury in two gangs, donkeys-elephants, reds-blues, labors-Liberals, left-rights and dialectics up all night.
The fourth estate remains a generic urger, as long as the battle is in the middle but; in this case, as the Hillary Putch was put down by loose cannon Trump and a public then (and now) disaffected by blatant media bias .. that media, by the subordination of their tenure and an absurd self belief in their own bullshit, are compelled to remove Trump by fowl means. Trumps’ bullshit for public consumption is neither here nor there. What and who are being exposed by his behaviour is a good thing.
The good thing is lost of course if one has chosen a side and defends it beyond all edification.
So do you believe the ‘vote,’ was not ‘rigged,’ to give us what the media is claiming as an honest result for Biden?
I dont know if the vote was rigged or not, or at least I choose not to know, because I dont think it’s especially relevant. What matters in the end is what people believe has happened or is happening, a distinction I’m fairly sure, from your various comments, that you would appreciate. In reality of course the GOP seem to like voter suppression and the Dems like stuffing ballot boxes. Whether any of this was to the the excess required to affect the outcome is always uncertain.
Please yourself I guess.
I like to know to know as much as possible. If it’s irrelevant then why do we pay any attention and comment on any of it at all ?
Are you not shocked at all at this point, by the statistics of this so-called voting tote up?
Yes, Poet, it is shocking on several levels.
The first is the complexity and ‘indirectness’ of the Presidential election. This is little understood in the media. There are several ways in which Trump may seek to prevent Biden getting the required 270 votes in December. He can challenge the certificates from several key States. He can persuade electors to be ‘faithless’ and vote for say Sanders rather than Biden. He has signaled that he will use every means to win, and if he can prevent Biden reaching 270, then Republicans have the numbers in the Congress (voting by State, as they do only on this event).
Then there are questions about what the law is. If Biden gets the majority of votes cast in the College but fewer than 270 (because votes from some States are held to be invalid), who wins? There is doubt in the meaning of the present wording and the Supreme Court will decide. You recall recent Trump appointments?
Then there is the jurisprudential question. How should the law be changed? Clearly the present layers of bandaids have much potential to produce a result that the majority of voters would not accept. There are several proposals for change and America will decide. But it is urgent because nobody will want to play by these rules next Election.
I did have in mind as my first shock …the citizens vote tally as being a bogus stitch up, not the gerrymandering and legal meanderings and stitch ups that comes after those public vote numbers go up on the board.
Do you think there is no evidence of major vote rigging in that election?
Over 35 court cases initiated by Trump have produced no evidence of vote rigging.
Voting is not compulsory. So part of each candidates’ campaigns were designed to encourage voting by groups in favour and discourage voting by those opposed. Bigger voting turnout favoured Dems, smaller turnout favoured Republicans. Those tactics are considered legit, not rigging.
Courts don’t produce evidence .. they rule on it.
To say there is no evidence being produced; or more correctly, provided, by the Trump appellants is just plain incorrect .. and a repetition of Mainstream Media lies
Egyptian (Africa), Greek & Roman (Europe) Persian (Middle East) and Chinese (China) can be considered ancient civilizations. Each had developed her own political and values systems and in modern times post British colonization. The US is developed product of the European civilizations succeding the British Empire since 1945. Seventy-five years hence, we saw the re-rise of Asian nations politically and economically, and it is natural for them to say to the Western powers that we wish to re-arrange the room to accomodate for more Asian participation in world affairs. We have witness 75 years of US leadership of the world where ideological conflicts brought war and regime changes; although US won Cold War 1, the downfall of USSR was not exactly a prize but a poison chalice – the amount of resources spent on military industrial complex. and neglecting infrastructures at home. The last sentence was Trump’s ticket for the Presidency in 2016. With America First in everything is no way to retain friends or allies. Trump has steered America from her policeman and leadership of the world role and Biden will have a hard job in fighting disunity on both front, domestically and internationally. Biden must stop Cold War 2 created by Trump since the world has changed significantly that our past experience has beebn that ideological conflicgs start wars. If Biden continues the China containment policy for the US, things can only get worse. A new set of values acceptable to the East and West must be negotaited as a way forward to ensure peace on this planet. US should stop pushing allies to contain China, instead, use South Korea and Japan to as allies for peace in creating a health economic block with China/Russia. On this, the RCEP with the inclusionof India and the US would be a good start. We pray for peace and if Biden is peace loving then he is the answer to our prayers.
Bloody hell! …Ending that with giving Biden the benefit of the doubt (where there can be no doubt) is about the most náive thing I’ve read here.
with respect
Wishful thinking. Indeed!!
His foreign policy mob does not reflect that! Biden was put there by lobbyists ! He delivers for them!
Tony Blinken will become Secretary of State: Blinken maintains that the failure of U.S. policy in Syria was that our government did not employ enough force. He stands by the false argument that Biden’s vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq was a “vote for tough diplomacy.” He was reportedly in favor of the Libyan intervention, which Biden opposed, and he was initially a defender and advocate for U.S. support for the Saudi coalition war on Yemen. In short, Blinken has agreed with some of the biggest foreign policy mistakes that Biden and Obama made, and he has tended to be more of an interventionist than both of them.
Jake Sullivan will become National Security Advisor. He is a Hillary Clinton figure:
Sullivan has emerged as a kind of foreign policy scold, gently — and sometimes not so gently — criticizing those who reflexively oppose American intervention abroad and who disparage the idea of American “exceptionalism.” Indeed, in an article in the January-February issue of The Atlantic, “What Donald Trump and Dick Cheney Got Wrong About America,” Sullivan explicitly says that he’s intent on “rescuing the idea of American exceptionalism” and presents the “case for a new American exceptionalism”.
N. A. C. ? ….Not as good a series as P.N.A.C. ..Plan for a New American Century, when the Wolfowitz was at the door.
That gig had planes entering steel and concrete buildings like a hot knife through butter and buildings turning to dust in mid air and blowing away on the breeze.
Followed by invasions, pallets of quids to the Ishmaels, consumption of ordnance up the yin yan and then the Doodle Dandy conscience was redeemed by a Great White, Gay Hope.
Encore! …Author! More popcorn!
Granted, this preview had a plague, an election and streets full of rioters but, unless someone burns down the Reichstag ….I mean The White House … and gets the New Civil War started in the brave of the home and the free of the land .. I want my money back from the new American Exceptionalism: