Divergent Strategies: How Democrats and Republicans Tackle the ‘Great Power Politics’
Since 2016, the U.S. foreign policy has undergone many fundamental changes and adjustments. Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, to varying degrees, have moved away from the traditional U.S. foreign policy of liberal internationalism and support for a democratization agenda, often in militarized manifestations, around the globe.
The tolling experience of the U.S.-led nation-building agenda in the Middle East during the past two decades has led both parties to adopt new means and methods of ensuring U.S. interests abroad.
The rapid rise of China at a time when the U.S. was deeply entrenched in the unforgiving Middle East landscape has introduced new geopolitical dynamics. This has prompted the U.S. to remove itself from the region by any means necessary, even at times in a humiliating fashion, in order to focus its attention on the impending Cold War with China, sometimes dubbed Cold War 2.0.
The Rise of Great Power Politics and the Decline of Idealism
Great power politics involves the strategies and interactions of sovereign states with significant diplomatic, economic, and military strength. These states, known as great powers, exert influence globally, impacting international affairs. Today, recognized great powers include China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. However, out of the five, China, Russia, and the U.S. are generally considered by experts to dominate the multipolar structure of the Great Power Politics.
Both the democrats and the republicans appear to not only have acknowledged the disastrous results of the overall post-9/11 foreign policy of unabashed liberal idealism, but also (based on varying speed and methodologies) are clearly utilizing realism into their foreign policy doctrines respectively.
On the Left the prevailing foreign policy approach appears to be a blend of realism, and more purposeful Democratic internationalism within the purview of the emerging “great power politics.
While liberal idealism is still maintains a powerful presence in the Democratic party’s broad foreign policy strategy, it doesn’t appear to dominate it as similarly as in the past. In other words, idealism is not “the” guiding principle, but “a” powerful component of the Democrat’s and the Biden administration’s foreign policy approach. This can be visibly seen in the cases of the Middle East, EU and Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific region.
Based on this formula, the Democrats apply varying degrees of idealism based on the peculiarities of each case, which marks a dramatic departure from the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush application of hawkish idealism that defined the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The Democratic party’s great power politics: balancing between idealism and realism
The Biden administration has recognized the emergence of ‘Great Power Politics’ and has adjusted the application of America’s soft and hard power in a more balanced manner, striking a balance between idealism and pragmatism.
Due to two decades of misguided policies and priorities, the Biden administration now treads a delicate line between maintaining liberal internationalism and embracing balance-of-power realism. In other words, the administration, along with the Democratic Party’s national security elites, has become more discerning in selecting when, why, and how to apply its liberal ideology to achieve U.S. policy goal.
The most prominent case of this is Ukraine, where the Biden administration is moderately keen on upholding its liberal democratic values. On one hand, it spearheads democratic reforms and liberalization processes in the country, presumably to ensure that Ukraine meets the institutional and democratic criteria for joining the EU and possibly NATO in the future. On the other hand, the administration is mindful of the sensitivity of supporting this Eastern European nation, particularly in terms of the quality of military assistance. The administration treads carefully, avoiding actions that could provoke a catastrophic nuclear reaction from Russia.
Middle East
In the Middle East, the Biden administration’s foreign policy team has sought to gradually withdraw American military and hard power assets from the region, particularly from Afghanistan, Iraq, and possibly Syria. Simultaneously, they are attempting to ‘optimize’ security commitments to regional allies in the Persian Gulf region to prevent instability and prevent non-state terror groups such as al-Qaida and ISIS from filling the security vacuum in the region.
Moreover, the Biden administration has re-introduced multilateral security partnership with NATO, working in conjunction with regional partners such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, the UAE, and Jordan. The goal is to ‘stabilize’ the region and prevent it from descending into tension.
On human rights issues and civil society, the Biden administration is guided by pragmatism: it occasionally urges its partners to work toward more inclusive political reforms and maintains a tighter control over its foreign aid expenditures.
The October 7th incident and intermittent tussles between regional powers — Iran and Israel — have put the Biden administration’s new approach to the stress test. On one hand, the U.S. (unlike the Trump administration, which essentially outsourced its Middle East policy to Israel) aims to find a short-term fix for a long-term problem regarding Palestinian statehood and has criticized Israel’s military operation in Gaza. On the other hand, the administration remains committed to its long-standing security partnership with Israel. In other words, the Biden foreign policy team seeks to maintain sufficient stability in the region while gradually shifting its resources and manpower toward the Indo-Pacific, all without risking alienation of traditional allies such as Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the UAE in favor of China.
EU and Ukraine
The Biden administration has been particularly attentive to repairing U.S.-EU ties, which were significantly strained during four years of Trump’s America-First policy characterized by isolationism, economic nationalism, and ‘really classy’ negotiation tactics and public rhetoric against European leaders. Additionally, the administration has sought to reinvigorate NATO’s security architecture and military effectiveness by implementing reforms and exploring various expansion strategies.
Biden’s foreign policy toward the EU has two prongs: rebuilding trans-Atlantic alliances on the one hand, and addressing global challenges on the other. The administration has re-entered the Paris Agreement, reaffirmed the significance of the transatlantic alliance, and engaged diplomatically with partners in the region on issues related to cyberspace, tariffs, and trade. While reversing some Trump-era policies, Biden also emphasizes cooperation on shared issues such as climate change, cyber security and pandemic response.
In the case of Ukraine, particularly Russia’s invasion of the largest nation in continental Europe in 2022, the Biden administration has adopted a mixture of idealism and pragmatism. On one hand, it has provided in excess of $75 billion worth of military and non-military assistance to the embattled nation, working in tandem with the Zelensky government to enact a wide-ranging reform of the state apparatus. On the other hand, it has stopped short of admitting Ukraine into the NATO military pact and does not seem too keen on opening membership to the country anytime soon.
In essence, Biden’s European policy is characterized by the threat posed by Russia to the stability and territorial integrity of the continent on one side, while simultaneously expanding trans-Atlantic economic, military, and civil society ties.
Indo-Pacific
The Indo-Pacific region is arguably the most important region for U.S. foreign policy makers. President Biden’s strategy toward the Indo-Pacific region is multifaceted, with a central focus on balancing strategic competition with China while strengthening regional alliances and partnerships with its traditional partners such as Australia and India.
To address the rise of China, the administration has tried to expand security partnerships with long-standing allies such as Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Taiwan. Additionally, they are broadening security relations with Thailand and Vietnam, both of which border China in the mainland Southeast Asia subcontinent.
Expanding bilateral trade and investment with regional countries is also a major component of countering the economic rise of China in the Indo-Pacific domain. China’s peculiar economic development model, warned by U.S. and Western critics as a “debt trap” in places such as Laos, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and more recently in Bangladesh, has raised serious concerns about the future of these countries’ unsustainable development trajectory.
On the more pragmatic and internationalist side, the Biden administration intends to avoid risky confrontation with the soon-to-be-largest economy in the world. Therefore, it aims to balance its China policy as much as is realistically feasible as part of its broader foreign policy strategy. In this respect, it adopts selective cooperation with China on a range of global issues such as climate change, global health response, and renewable energy. Simultaneously, it seeks to counter China’s rise in the South China Sea through military deterrence.
The Republican Party and Great Power Politics: License to Illiberalism, Hard Power and Maximum Material Gains
American conservatism throughout its history has consistently been sympathetic to anti-Communist but authoritarian regimes during the Cold War period. William F. Buckley, the founder of the modern American conservative movement in his flagship magazine the National Review consistently expressed support and sympathy to Apartheid-era South Africa, segregationist Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and Chile’s right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet to name a few. The reasons for the support usually fell under the banter of countering the rise of communist ideology and the Soviet Union.
The Reagan administration’s envoy to the UN and neoconservative pundit, Jeane Kirkpatrick, wrote the famous essay titled “Dictatorships and Double Standards,” which was published in 1979. This essay was lauded by conservatives and Reagan for its criticism of the Democratic party’s moderate approach to the Soviet Union. It captures the essence of (neo)conservative support for authoritarian but anti-Communist and pro-Western regimes during the Cold War.
Fast forward to the present day, the conservatives especially during the Trump administration have revived the Kirkpatrick doctrine and amended it in 2020 as the so-called “Pompeo Doctrine” in the case of the Israeli policies toward Palestine that stands in contrast to the traditional U.S. liberal internationalism.
Moreover, during the four years of Trump’s administration amid the emerging multi-polar world order, whose fundamental rules are based on great power politics, there has been a growing desire among conservatives to exploit unprecedented geopolitical opportunities put forth by the emergence of a multipolar world order. This skepticism toward democracy and disdain for civil society and its institutions have been notable.
According to political scientists conservatives view the emerging great power politics as a license for promoting illiberalism abroad:
“In the eyes of many right-wing Americans and their overseas counterparts, Western illiberalism looks perfectly democratic. Authoritarian powers and illiberal democracies are seeking to undermine key aspects of the liberal international order. And the supposed pillars of that order, most notably the United States, are in danger of succumbing to illiberalism at home.”
Ideologically speaking, Trumpism and the foreign policy views of contemporary post-9/11 conservative movement now promote expanding and exporting illiberalism in Western liberal democracies. Populism has created a dichotomy between elites and the masses, thus weakening the structure of the rule of law and democratic institutions in the process.
According to a new study by V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, while he Democratic party is still committed to liberal democratic values, the Republican party is rapidly abandoning democratic norms and more prone than ever to promote illiberalism at home and abroad.
Four years of the Trump administration, particularly its release in December 2017 of the National Security Strategy (NSS), which discussed the emerging great power politics and America’s approach in the new multipolar world order, provides a glimpse of the Republican party’s ‘Hobbesian’ view of the international landscape and the U.S. foreign policy priorities within it.
This passage from the NSS 2017 text provides the essence of the American Right’s approach to world affairs:
“The interests of the American people “constitute our true North Star” and the United States will not impose its values or let them get in the way of efforts to confront challenges and compete fiercely. The future we face it ours to win or lose.”
We can infer that the new foreign policy strategy of the Republican party rests on a set of components, namely skepticism toward liberal idealism and democracy promotion, zero-sum realism that — depending on the case and circumstances — may resort to hard power to secure national interests, unilateralism, and prioritizing hard power and economic relations, often to the detriment of liberal values and multilateral commitments. These aspects are clearly visible in the GOP’s approach to three main areas of geopolitical interest: the Middle East, Europe, the Indo-Pacific, and the Western Hemisphere.
Middle East
Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. strategy as the sole superpower in a unipolar world order has expended significant manpower and resources in Middle East geopolitics, yielding little-to-no lasting achievement. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, the Middle East can be considered as marking both the start and the end of America’s ‘unipolar moment’.
In terms of the timeline, George H. W. Bush’s January 1991 speech on the dawn of a “new world order” kick-started America’s forceful entry into international politics, whereas Donald Trump’s Inaugural Speech on January 21, 2017, marked the end of the era of ‘Pax Americana’.
On August 2, 1990, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, a former ally of the U.S. during the Iran-Iraq war which lasted for a full eight years, launched a surprising invasion of Kuwait. This invasion was met with a UN-authorized and U.S.-led military response that ultimately drove the Iraqi military out of the oil-rich Gulf state on February 28, 1991.
The Republican party’s foreign policy essentially shaped U.S. foreign policy during the unipolar moment, which lasted for nearly three decades. It began as an internationalist approach (during the Bush Senior administration) and evolved into an isolationist stance (during the Trump administration).
Since 2016, in recognition of the need to navigate the new multipolar world order alongside two other major powers — namely Russia and China — the conservative movement, under the rising influence of Trumpism, has developed its own strategy for addressing great power politics.
The four years of the Trump administration provide a glimpse of how the Republicans approach great power politics in the Middle East
The ‘American First’ and its isolationist, unilateralist and Democracy-skepticist characteristics took a different approach to the volatile and highly-unstable Middle East geopolitics.
The conservatives have prioritized security, economic development, and military alliances almost exclusively on bilateral terms, and therefore multilateral frameworks, internationalism, and soft power diplomatic tool have been put to the side.
The cornerstone of the conservatives’ Middle East policy during the Trump administration was the Abraham Accords — a security framework between the Persian Gulf Arab states, Israel, and the U.S. acting as its guarantor. The primary aim was to geopolitically isolate Iran in the neighborhood. Additionally, in an effort to shift American influence toward the Indo-Pacific and counter China, the conservatives effectively outsourced U.S. geopolitics to Israel. A notable sign of this shift was the relocation of Israel to a new area of responsibility from the European Command to the CENTCOM. Moreover, the War in Gaza has also intensified the U.S. to (reluctantly, I’d argue) military assets to the region to provide security umbrella to Israel.
Europe and Ukraine
The day when Donald Trump came to the Oval Office in January 21, 2017 was the day that the long-standing trans-Atlantic relation between the U.S. and EU came under unprecedented scrutiny.
Beginning in 2017, the Trump administration subjected the NATO alliance to a significant stress test by demanding that European nations contribute their expected 2% equivalent of GDP to the alliance. This shift was often conveyed through taunting, tough-talking, and even mocking rhetoric, emphasizing the need for these nations to shoulder their share of the financial burden rather than relying solely on the U.S.
Trump’s foreign policy also adopted an adversarial stance toward multilateral commitments that both the EU and the U.S. were part of, including the Paris Climate Deal and the P5+1 deal with Iran (commonly known as the JCPOA or the Iran Nuclear Deal)
The imposition of a wide range of tariffs and customs taxes on EU goods destined for U.S. ports was an unprecedented move by the new administration. This action compelled Europeans to expand their trade relations with the world, aiming to mitigate the impact of the economic trade war initiated by the Trump administration.
Trump’s unusually cordial relationships with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Hungary’s Viktor Orban, and various right-wing populist political figures in Europe undermined the long-standing ideological unity between the U.S. and the EU.
For the Trump administration, the ideological affinity between the ‘America First’ movement and similar right-wing populist movements was considered essential. This stance was met with absolute disdain by EU leaders who anxiously watched Donald Trump inspire anti-Brussels and Eurosceptic forces in the Old Continent, ultimately destabilizing the political unity of the EU to this day.
The war in Ukraine, which occurred a year after Trump left office, captured significant attention from conservatives. They express their opposition to the conflict in Ukraine as an extension of their own domestic politics, particularly in opposition to the Democratic party’s policies.
Furthermore, they attribute the invasion to Ukraine’s own misplaced desire to join the EU and NATO, which raised concerns among Russians about potential security threats along their borders. Consequently, they believe that the U.S. lacks both the national interest and the desire to assist Ukraine in repelling Russian troops from its territories. Russia’s formidable nuclear arsenal and the imperative to shift focus toward China play significant roles in the conservatives’ great power calculations regarding the war in Ukraine.
Indo-Pacific
China occupies a core position in the Republican party’s geopolitical outlook toward the Indo-Pacific region. For conservative policy-makers recognizing and engaging with this vital region is a matter of strategic imperative as it hosts critical maritime trade routes (e.g. the strategic South China Sea) through which a significant portion of global commerce flows. Therefore, the Republicans view the region as vital for America’s global economic engine.
The rise of China is also perceived by conservatives as a serious security and military threat to the region which hosts many of the U.S. allies in the region such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines. China’s recent moves in the South China Sea have escalated the conservatives’ perception of the world-most-populous nation as a destabilizing and revanchist great power bound to re-shape the world order based on Chinese worldviews and strategic preferences.
Republican congressmen such as Tom Cotton (R-AR), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Lindsay Graham (R-SC), Mike Gallagher (R-MI), and Michael McCaul (R-TX) are among the most hawkish politicians who advocate for the containment of China by directly challenging the Chinse military, economic, and technological power. The conservatives also seek to expand American military alliances in the Indo-Pacific to isolate China and contain its rise in the world stage.
During the Trump administration, U.S. foreign policy underwent a dramatic confrontational shift by imposing $300 billion worth of tariffs on a wide range of goods and services originating from China. Additionally, the administration pursued interventionist public policies concerning Hong Kong and the Xinjiang autonomous region in China’s western frontier. These actions demonstrated the American right’s intention to apply a multi-faceted strategy toward China.
The U.S. Foreign Policy is stuck between a rock and a hard place
Since the end of the Cold War, which deprived American foreign policy-makers of a formidable ideological adversary in a bipolar world order, the overall U.S. foreign policy strategy has been marked by confusion, misevaluation of threats, misallocation of hard and soft power, and misdirection of its long-term objective.
The forceful American entry into the unforgiving geopolitics of the Middle East significantly impacted U.S. domestic politics. It has reached a point where it is nearly inconceivable to envision a scenario in which polarization and political division are no longer integral to the U.S. political culture.
Moreover, the rapid shifts between Democratic and Republican administrations since the end of the Cold War have compromised a sense of stability and continuity in terms of the U.S.’s capacity to develop long-term strategies for addressing challenges abroad.
The significant differences between the left and the right, regarding how matters of national interest should be addressed and why, within the broader context of emerging ‘Great Power Politics,’ have contributed to the absence of a shared vision. This lack of consensus may negatively impact the overall U.S. foreign policy strategy in the near to medium terms.
To make matters worse, the rapid rise of populism, which has managed to affect every facet of American political life, has created a deepening sense of detachment. This detachment exists between the elites (who are responsible for foreign policy formulation) and the citizens (whose views of the ruling elites and traditional American institutions are increasingly divergent).
The U.S. foreign policy strategy is suffering deeply from the lack of a shared vision at a time where nationalism and unity is on the rise around the world.
In simpler terms, the U.S. foreign policy is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
