Transition Note 4 | White House strategic planning in a time of uncertainty
This article is part of a series of posts by ISD staff and fellows — Transition Notes — which provide insights and recommendations on key foreign policy issues as the federal government transitions to a new administration under President-elect Biden.
Want to stay up-to-date with the latest from The Diplomatic Pouch? Sign up for our newsletter, This month in diplomacy.
On February 19, 1998, then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright declared on NBC’s Today Show, “If we have to use force, it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us.”
Two decades later, America’s standing is diminished and its vision is clouded. Endless and inconclusive wars, repeated financial crises, inadequate responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, and a tumultuously inept presidency have drastically lowered U.S. global reputation and clout.
Former deputy secretary of state and president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, William Burns, provided the bookend to Secretary Albright’s 1998 statement in an Atlantic Magazine article this past summer writing, “What we do know, however, is that we have drifted into one of those rare periods of transition, with American dominance in the rearview mirror and a more anarchical order looming dimly beyond.”
Beginning January 20, 2021, President-elect Biden will have to lead a globally challenged and substantively weakened America. He will have to address myriad domestic difficulties while responding to global crises dramatically more complex than when he last walked the corridors of power. The strategy he and his highly competent incoming team of national security officials are developing must marry achievable ends to constrained means. Domestic imperatives must loom large in their planning. At no time since Franklin Roosevelt mobilized the nation in the wake of Pearl Harbor have the challenges confronting the nation been greater — from COVID, to a rising China, to ominous climatic trends, to racial injustice and to disturbing job losses and business failures.
However, despite Secretary Albright’s claim that Americans “see further than other countries into the future,” we do not have an enviable record of anticipation and planning. 9/11 was a surprise and our over-commitment during two decades in the Middle East was surprisingly debilitating; our domestic political paralysis and partisan divisions have weakened us at home and abroad, and our national failure to fully anticipate the consequences of China’s rise all represent failures to “see further.” Successive U.S. presidents have flipped their predecessor’s policies with abandon — none more so than Donald J. Trump. America now has a well-deserved reputation for unreliability and unpredictability.
Joe Biden must set a strategic direction that his successors can sustain. This means that Republicans as well as Democrats must be present at the policy creation — a lesson Harry Truman understood when in 1947 he sought and gained the support of the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Arthur Vandenberg, for a strategic redirection of American foreign policy. There were very sharp partisan tactical differences on foreign policy over the next forty-five years, but the strategic imperative to limit the expansion of Soviet power endured.
Periodically, the U.S. executive branch produces a national security strategy intended to inform the strategic programs of the government and identify the nation’s global priorities for foreign and domestic audiences. All too often, these documents catalogue an aspirational laundry list of policy objectives with little reference to tradeoffs and tensions between these objectives and the resources necessary to pursue them. More than at any time in recent memory, President Biden will have to find a sustainable balance between domestic imperatives and foreign necessities.
How can the Biden administration do better than its predecessors in laying out an enduring strategy for America? Getting the process right will be critical.
In a paper entitled, “Grand Strategy and Strategic Surprise,” published by the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy in 2018, I called for a strategy office in the White House with the following elements:
- Clear presidential authority and support;
- A small but highly qualified multidisciplinary staff drawn from across the U.S. government and private sector, with sufficient seniority to command respect;
- A minimum of staff turnover to preserve continuity of analysis and insight;
- A staff charged with clear “deliverables,” including a national security strategy in the first year of a new administration;
Previous administrations have had “strategy” units housed in the staff of the National Security Council. None has had the staffing and authorities necessary to plot a bold new direction for America drawing on the enormous resources of the U.S. government and private sector to once again “see further.” The Biden administration can do better, and in the process establish an enduring model for future administrations.
Casimir Yost is a Senior Fellow in the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy and Director Emeritus of the Institute. He teaches a graduate seminar in the School of Foreign Service, entitled “U.S. and China: Decisions on War and Peace” and an undergraduate seminar, “War and Presidential Decision Making.” From 2009 to 2013, Mr. Yost served on the National Intelligence Council, where he directed the Strategic Futures Group and its predecessor, the Long Range Analysis Unit.
Read more from Casimir Yost:
