Even more than is usual, this U.S. presidential election has the entire world on edge. The result will either be a return to the “America First” foreign policy that Republican nominee Donald Trump preached during his first term, or the adoption of an entirely new approach to international relations under an untested Democratic nominee in Kamala Harris.
U.S. allies are not sure which they should fear most: A second Trump presidency that undermines Western alliances and leaves global peace at the mercy of a volatile U.S. leader who uses threats and bribes to get his way, or a Harris administration led by an inexperienced commander-in-chief who is risk-averse and loath to use U.S. military force.
The foreign policy stakes in this election are the highest since the Cold War era. As the bipartisan Commission on the National Defense Strategy warned in a July report: “The threats the United States faces are the most serious and most challenging the nation has encountered since 1945 and include the potential for near-term major war.” And it is unclear either presidential candidate is prepared.
Despite her nearly four years as Vice-President, during which she regularly participated in Situation Room debates, Ms. Harris had little influence over U.S. foreign policy. With decades of international experience under his belt, President Joe Biden has not relied on Ms. Harris for foreign policy advice the way former president Barack Obama counted on Mr. Biden when he served as his vice-president.
Ms. Harris’s campaign comments on foreign policy do suggest she would adopt a different approach from that of her current boss, one framed less in moral terms – such as the “struggle between democracy and autocracy” that Mr. Biden so often refers to – and based rather in pragmatism and aimed at achieving longer-term security objectives regarding climate change and artificial intelligence.
Ms. Harris is also seen as less of a China hawk than Mr. Biden – or even Mr. Trump, for that matter – and eager to defuse tensions with Beijing.
It did not go unnoticed when, during a 60 Minutes interview last month, Ms. Harris described Iran as her country’s “greatest adversary.” Her answer was at odds with her own administration’s assessment of China as the biggest threat to U.S. national security. China, after all, remains the only country able to challenge U.S. military, economic and technological primacy.
Or threaten the sovereignty of U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific. Ms. Harris has refrained from vowing to defend Taiwan if China invaded it. “I’m not going to get into hypotheticals,” she told her 60 Minutes interviewer, breaking with Mr. Biden’s repeated pledges to come to Taiwan’s aid in the event of Chinese aggression. Chinese President Xi Jinping may see Ms. Harris as more malleable than Mr. Biden.
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, boasts that his personal relationship with Mr. Xi and the autocratic leaders of Russia and North Korea are an effective means of deterrence. He thus insists Russian President Vladimir Putin would never have invaded Ukraine on his watch. He adds he would end the war immediately if he wins the White House again. Ukraine supporters fear this would mean imposing a negotiated settlement on Kyiv that favours Russia, a move that would only encourage further aggression by Mr. Putin and autocrats everywhere.
Mr. Trump last month told the Wall Street Journal editorial board that he would threaten to impose punitive tariffs on China to deter it from invading Taiwan. Asked whether he would use military force to prevent Mr. Xi from erecting a blockade on Taiwan, Mr. Trump responded: “I wouldn’t have to because he respects me, and he knows I’m f---- crazy.”
Hinting at your own instability might seem to have its limits as a deterrence tool. Yet, as former Trump national security adviser Robert O’ Brien recently told The New York Times, the “madman theory” (once employed during the Cold War by then-president Richard Nixon) would be a critical foreign policy tool in a future Trump administration.
While dealing with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East will be the next U.S. administration’s most immediate foreign policy priorities, other international crises are almost certain to pop up, sooner rather than later, to monopolize the attention of whoever becomes president. And it is how she or he reacts to unforeseen events that will reveal their foreign policy brilliance or ineptness.
While the prospect of a second Trump presidency unsettles most U.S. allies far more than the potential advent of a Harris administration, no one should be feeling reassured. Either way, U.S. foreign policy looks set to enter uncharted territory.