17 November 2020
There are many efforts at trying to portray how a Biden Harris administration would look at the world, and while now it is clear that Biden ticket will end up close to 80 million popular votes with a clear margin of almost as many votes that Trump added to his 2016 successful electoral turnout as popular vote tally in 2020. Part of the reason why Mike Pompeo made that assertion that there would be a smooth transition and added tongue in cheek that it would be to another Trump Presidency is because the Republican base knows very well, that this kind of a turn out on 3 November is unprecedented for the GOP and by humouring Trump, they are looking to keep the Senate majority even as a whittled down House majority for the Democrats means they will be more susceptible to filibustering!
Much of today’s foreign policy template is a consequence of Republican evangelism after Gorbachev conceded the Cold War and deconstructed the Soviet monolith to restructure our world. Instead of showing magnanimity and a more nuanced understanding for new world order, the Republicans under Gingrich and the Bush administration continued to put pressure in Eastern Europe and offer concessions to China, which in tandem created a structurally weak Russia, reliant solely on energy exports under an authoritarian Putin and a buoyant China which enjoyed access to markets and technology rapidly rising to now challenge the global sweepstakes in 2020. Obama tried his best to tactfully keep America relevant by engaging with Cuba, Iran and Russia which would have integrated these countries better to the global order and could have allowed America to focus on external threat from China and internal threat from Climate Challenge, but as we can safely say, the Republican party rallied behind President Trump to reverse all the gains of the Obama years.
Hence, President Biden on 20 January 2021, will find a NATO that has largely moved ahead without the US in last four years, its leadership exhaling relief that at least now their interactions with the POTUS may not be awkward or hostile. Boris Johnson has been so vocal about this refreshing change already, while the reticent Angela Merkel is likely to see what Biden can bring to the table before passing her judgement. She is aware of two important aspects- the human toll the Covid19 Pandemic is taking on USA, and the economic decoupling the Western Compact must embrace as single important lesson of 2020 from China, are both where the USA as a individual player has as much role as part of an alliance. So will Biden bite the bullet?
If one sees how the curtains are drawing over 2020, RCEP has been formalised with fanfare, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54949260 where China now looms large over the largest trade pact in the world, even as she continued punitive measures against Australian imports! It is further hint to our global order watchers that despite Biden endorsing Japan over Senkaku issue, Japan has gone ahead and now China may be persuaded by the RCEP signatories to admit USA in 2021 or 22, as a trading partner, after the Trans Pacific Partnership where America was the founder member saw Trump withdraw in a huff after assuming the Presidency! Remember that the RCEP was under discussion for much of last 8 years, while India has curiously opted out https://www.thehindu.com/business/a-day-after-rcep-jaishankar-slams-trade-pacts-globalisation/article33110309.ece/amp/?__twitter_impression=true from the FTA and Tariffs elimination of range of imports, while retaining the option to join these at a later stage of her economic journey, the major impetus to get this deal through in ASEAN has been the TPP disruption which was typical Trump ‘tantrum’. It offers a clear hint to American strategic thinkers and Deep State of how much damage a 4 year blip of an unpredictable and unwieldy Presidential order can bring to permanent American interests. So in the very year that China exported a Pandemic that froze the global trade system in response, is also the very year, where the biggest trading bloc is breathed life into, despite the absence of America, despite China being punitive with Australia, despite Japan’s moves to relocate factories to Vietnam from Mainland China, despite the ASEAN countries facing up an aggressive Chinese PLAN in the SCS! So the flip over 5G services from Huawei occurred more because of genuine doubts amongst nations of Chinese technological infiltration and hold, rather than any alignment with US interests, and in future going forward, nations are likely to weigh in on issues not because President Biden is more persuasive, predictable and diplomatic than his predecessor!
One expects President Biden to offer traditional American values and moralism like an elder and in the diminished space left behind by Trump antics, it will be more a time spent on picking up the pieces than actually constructing a firm base for retaining American predominance in the global order. Increasingly it is clear that countries like Pakistan have switched to China, and more African countries are indebted to China as well. Not just that, there would be greater challenge to enforce a rules based order, after the UNGA voted with Mauritius against Diego Garcia base being retained by UK, which compares with the International Tribunal ruling on Chinese constructions in the reefs and shoals of SCS in what are waters disputed by Philippines! Trump lost the initiative when his administration refused to persuade President Duterte to take the resolution to its logical end and refused to engage with the UNGA over Diego Garcia as well. With China now enrolling in most UN bodies and taking canvassing and lobbying to new levels, the untrammelled access the US had with the UN and her agencies to stamp their approvals for American unilateralism is lost. Today in a body like WHO, the US by its pull out stance, has lost nearly five decades of standing.
Yes, Biden Harris administration will offer a greater support to liberal causes, but the power of the Presidency to reach out and influence the global order will take some effort and rebuilding, which will severely limit its influence on South Asia’s many human rights issues, from Pakistan’s Blasphemy laws to Baloch problem to India’s Article 370 and CAA based worries about majoritarianism. Ultimately Biden may leave it to better judgement of countries individually while he reprioritises engagement with the new world order that Trump has fashioned in his four short years. A Defiant Russia and Turkey, a Belligerent China, a cagey NATO and a sceptical South Asia and obstinate West Asia! So those who think that America will influence India’s domestic scene are grossly mistaken. We are on our own. We have the Chinese breathing down our necks in Ladakh. We have Pakistan spoiling for a fight in known unconventional ways, as evidenced by increasing recruiting, cross border violations of cease fire in LOC and moves on Shaksgam and Gilgit Baltistan regions by Islamabad.
I doubt, if US has any influence over Azerbaijan, a country which is annexing parts of the Nagorno Karabakh region after a short war with Armenia where the peace has been brokered by Armenian surrender and Russian soldiers on ground as observers. The reduced territory of the disputed region now sets the ball rolling toward an eventually swallowing the entire territory by Azeris, which would mean an ethnic cleansing of that area of Armenians. US had funded disarmament and shutting down of Cold War era Soviet facilities in the Bush and Obama years, another program reversed by Trump, abandoning the Azeris to Turkish influence. So I doubt if US has any hold now over the GHQ in Rawalpindi as well. I hope India’s planners are catering for a more adventurous and active GHQ and ISI!
It will take the USA perhaps 2023 to put behind the economic downturn Trump’s disruptions and the Covid19 Pandemic have caused. What scale and manner of that recovery would determine US influence on global trade and polity. It is clear that China’s economy has recovered for now from the Covid19 disruptions, even though it is unclear whether she will recoup the technological setbacks that a ‘denial regime’ put in place recently by US and likely to enjoy full backing under Biden as well! If anything, the USMC’s training exercises with Taiwanese forces is the immediate guarantee other than the flurry of deals being inked to transfer more area denial weapons to Taiwan, that PLA dare not think of exploiting the chaos of the current ‘Transition’ between Trump and Biden presidencies! In contrast, one of the signatories of 2+2 with India carried out with fanfare in end October, Dr Mark T Esper is no longer Secretary of Defense, a move that has raised concerns in Pentagon and American ability to respond cogently to an exigent situation involving China and India. India will be better placed to delay any agreement with China over Ladakh ground situation until the Biden transition has been effected and fresh consultations with new Defense Secretary occur. If it entails a harsh winter over for troops now in forward positions along the LAC, it is a risk India must take. It is a price India pays for the Climate of Strategic Uncertainty. One that was hastened by President Trump if not midwifed by him!
indiarubberman.com 