Get Ready for a Renewed World Order
Imagine it. The fraught divisions of domestic issues that have torn the country apart are quelled and it is time to turn our attention back onto the world.
In this future, there are no more “Democratic cities” and “Republican rural areas.” There is no more fighting in the streets and you no longer have to engage in fighting on Facebook or Twitter.
Instead, the United States is focusing on fighting back the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. States and localities have the proper personal protective equipment (PPE), a corps of thousands of contact tracers are working diligently to identify potential super-spreader events, and your loved ones are no longer at risk of catching the deadly disease. Pharmaceutical companies have banded together to share their results instead of competing with one another to fast-track a vaccine only to meet a political deadline. You feel safe to go to your local restaurant to enjoy a meal without fear of getting sick.
While you’re at that local haunt, you notice a television playing the news coverage of an national leader chairing a global Summit for Democracy. The focus of the international event is to bring the world’s free nations together to combat the major challenges of our time: corruption, rising authoritarianism, election interference, and human rights violations.
Who is that leader you may ask? That’s the President of the United States. His name is Joe Biden.
If you are one of those people who are not excited to vote for Joe Biden, I recommend you pay attention to the man’s foreign policy plans. If there is one area (of which there are many) that our country has taken several steps back, it is our standing in the world.
Whether it be through pulling the US out of international agreements to combat climate change (Au revior Paris Climate Accords), deter Iranian nuclear proliferation (خداحافظ Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action aka the “Iran Nuclear Deal”), or refusing to engage in a counter-balance to China through a massive free trade agreement (Goodbye Trans-Pacific Partnership), we have cut ties with our partners and backed away from the world’s stage. Regardless of your personal opinions on each of these agreements, one constant remains: Over the past four years, the US has retrenched from global leadership and become increasingly isolationist.
Under a Biden administration, that would dramatically change. How so? By setting an example for the world with actions here at home and then strengthening relations with the coalition of democratic nations that have looked to the US in the past for global leadership.
A Biden Foreign Policy — Fixing things at home and then leading the world again
In Biden’s view, the fervent belief that ensuring that the US is a country where democracy is supported (not second-guessed and infected with misinformation) is the basis for getting things back on track here at home. A Biden administration would focus on reforming our country’s education and justice system, restoring the Voting Rights Act ending systemic voter disenfranchisement, instituting measures prohibiting corporate ethics violations, and ushering in a renewed era of transparency where the White House, State Department and the Pentagon all hold daily press briefings to ensure that a free press thrives and that information flows to the American people.
Once things are back on track domestically, a Biden administration would look to the rest of the world to rebuild strong bonds with our allies and check the growing power of authoritarian regimes like China, Russia and Venezuela, and deny the resurrection of international terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda and ISIS. Specifically, Biden would defend the nation’s vital interests without sacrificing American values, put an end to ever-expanding forever wars in the Middle East, use diplomacy and not the military as the weapon of choice in foreign affairs, restore our commitments to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), our partners in the Asia-Pacific (India, Japan, South Korea, and Australia), and bring our friends in the emerging economies of Africa and Latin America into the US sphere of influence. No longer would the US embrace the audience of despots and dictators or have to resort to manning the sidelines at international conferences.
Setting the Tone with a Summit
In his first year as President, Biden would showcase to the world that the US is back at the head of the international table. His administration would host a global Summit for Democracy focusing on, in his words, renewing “the spirit and shared purpose of the nations of the Free World.” He would achieve this by including not only national governments but civil society organizations from around the world. By including the voices of those who stand on the front lines in defense of democracy this would facilitate a more robust conversation on the similarity of issues being faced amongst the US and other countries and find common sense solutions to be implemented in a multilateral approach.
Biden wouldn’t limit the reach of the summit to the public and nonprofit sector. The summit would issue a Call to Action for the private sector, specifically technology and social media giants like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple urging them to create their own mandates to recognize the pivotal role they play in the flow of and access to information and to ensure they help preserve open democratic societies and protect the freedom of speech. This would serve as a counter to the Chinese Communist Party control social media companies that were used to quell democratic uprising in Taiwan and Hong Kong earlier this year.
None of this is malarky either. Joe is able to put the summit into place immediately upon taking office. Prior to running for president, Biden served as a founding member of a Trans-Atlantic Commission on Election Integrity, an organization created to combat Russia’s attacks on Western democracies’ elections. The Commission asked politicians across Europe to pledge to committing to transparency in campaign finance and to reject the use of fabricated or hacked material. Now that he is a candidate for office, Biden has signed that pledge and is calling on every person running for president to do the same.
Fixing Specific Problems — Arms Control and Climate Change
In addition to restoring our standing on the world’s stage, a Biden administration would tackle the twin existential challenges of nuclear proliferation and climate change. In the area of arms control, a President Biden would use diplomacy and crippling sanctions to reign in Iran instead of bringing the world to the brink of war. He would also work with allies and China to create a denuclearized North Korea and re-engage Russia on extending the nuclear arms reduction treaty between the two nations (the New START treaty).
In the area of climate change, reducing the US carbon footprint by 2050 is a cornerstone of Biden’s Build Back Better infrastructure and jobs plan; however, his administration would not stop there. First, Biden would acknowledge that climate change is an issue. Then within the first 100 days of his administration he would hold a global summit where he would meet directly with world leaders in order to sway their governments to make even more ambitions pledges to turn back the effects of climate change. This would have a direct effect on the efforts of China, the world’s largest carbon emitter, and quell the Communist Party’s Belt and Road initiative’s funding of billions of dollars in fossil-fuel based projects.
The Right Person for the Moment
This is the type of foreign policy platform that can only be executed by a man with decades of foreign policy experience both in the Senate and as Vice President. Don’t believe me? Take the word of a historic number of former military leaders and intelligence officials (780 at the time of publication) in their open letter to America.
With this background, I encourage you to tune in to the last Presidential Debate (October 22 at 9pm EST) to hear all about Biden’s vision for the renewed world order.
