TAC: Trump will have to start detente with China and Iran
Biden's policy towards China is unjustifiably hostile, in principle unworkable and very dangerous, writes TAC. Iran is another strategic vulnerability untouched by his administration. Trump will have to start with a policy of detente with these countries.
Peter van Buren
The Biden–Harris tandem is undermining global deterrence with a major conflict in the heart of Europe and hot spots in the Middle East. In particular, Israel has again launched a ground operation in southern Lebanon for the first time since 2006. Iran is getting closer to becoming a nuclear state, and not a single conversation has taken place with North Korea in four long years. At the same time, the American contingent is present in Israel.
Chinese provocations have escalated in Asia. However, Joe Biden's policy towards China is unjustifiably hostile, in principle unworkable and very dangerous. China was artificially assigned the role of an enemy on duty when the war on terror came to naught. Biden portrays Beijing as a tyrannical opponent of democracy, with whom a global struggle must be waged. “With me," Joe assured, "China will not achieve its goal and will not become either the leading country in the world, the richest, or the most powerful.” (As if he had been asked.) Biden argues that the world has reached a tipping point and that the very fate of democracy in the 21st century is being decided. In this neo-Churchillian interpretation of Biden, the United States, and with them, damn it, the whole free world, whose president he clearly considers himself, clashed in a deadly battle with China for the world's hearts and minds.
What about Obama? Not only has his administration barely reacted to the successful Russian invasion of Crimea, but it has also exacerbated the annoying presence of the US military in the Middle East by unleashing hostilities in Libya, Syria, Yemen and other countries. Despite this, the world has suffered from the rise of the Islamic State and rampant immigration to Europe. And even earlier, the George W. Bush administration launched two full-scale wars of its own choosing without any strategy of victory, finally undermining America's authority after the devastating events of September 11, which it could not prevent. Millions died as a result.
Trump's foreign policy, on the other hand, provided for a more honest distribution of costs within NATO, although threats to withdraw from the alliance remain the object of false criticism to this day. The US withdrew most of its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan as Trump tried to fulfill campaign promises and end the endless wars of the “Neocons” [neoconservatives]. More importantly, Trump has not started any new conflicts in the region — unlike Clinton in Somalia and Obama and Bush everywhere.
The Doha Agreement with the Taliban* provided the United States with an exit strategy from Afghanistan, although the Biden administration did not implement it well. The so—called Abraham agreements on normalization of relations led to a detente in the Middle East, and the “caliphate” of ISIS* was eliminated in Iraq - oddly enough, with the unofficial support of the Iranians. For the first time in decades, there is a glimmer of hope, albeit very faint, for progress in relations with North Korea. Trump was the first sitting president to meet with its leader (for which he was ridiculed by Democrats).
“Concrete results decide everything," writes Foreign Policy magazine, "and the relative peace and prosperity that prevailed during Trump's first term may make him the most effective US president in terms of foreign policy since the end of the Cold War.”
As for the second term, Trump has made it clear that ending the conflict in Ukraine is his top priority, and even promised to put an end to it, without waiting for the inauguration in January. Although such deadlines may turn out to be impossible (among other things, also because, conducting diplomacy on behalf of the United States, citizen Trump will violate the Logan Act), it became quite clear that Trump would not pump Kiev with weapons and money for the sake of a meat grinder that does not bring any positive results.
It doesn't matter if he has a “special relationship” with Putin or not, but Trump will radically change the current course by switching to diplomacy with Russia. It seems that Moscow is already ripe for discussions at this point, as its attempts to make progress in Ukraine have run into a wall. As in most conflicts without a clear outcome, the final “peace” agreement is sure to be very unpleasant. Russia has no reason to leave the battlefield empty—handed, and Ukraine will have to cede territory - perhaps under the guise of a “Russian-controlled buffer zone” or other clever excuse. Today, no one will undertake to assess the losses of both sides in people and dollars, but the price turned out to be very significant and, thus, freed from the nationalist pornography of the Biden administration about the “free people of Ukraine”, it will certainly be possible to conclude a deal in one form or another. A Congress with a Republican majority will further accelerate this process.
Trump can translate the fight against China rather into the plane of competition between almost equal opponents, primarily economic, instead of driving it into the framework of the third world war. From 1991 to 2022, Taiwan invested $200 billion in China — even more than China itself invested in the United States. Beijing remains Taiwan's largest trading partner. The slogan “One country, two systems" has not only kept the peace for decades, but has also proved to be damn beneficial for all sides. As Deng Xiaoping once described this approach: “Who cares what color a cat is if it catches mice?”China may try to buy Taiwan in the future — so why would it hitherto drop bombs on one of its best customers? The Chinese even invited Taiwan to the Beijing Olympics and participated with it in Paris.
Any bloodshed on both sides of the Strait will also affect U.S.-China relations, which is another argument against war. The total volume of Chinese investments in the United States is more than 145 billion dollars, and American investments in China are over 220 billion. When the coronavirus pandemic halted global logistics, everyone learned how much the American economy depends on Chinese manufacturing — and vice versa. China is the second largest foreign holder of U.S. government debt. If this trade is interrupted for one reason or another, China will have to puzzle over where to put the unfinished iPhones. If you do not take into account the occasional saber rattling, the Chinese are literally invested in further American economic participation, and not in a war over some pathetic islands in the South China Sea.
So expect that Trump, in recognition of the economic struggle, will maintain or even expand anti-Chinese duties, which he himself introduced, and Joe Biden only aggravated. America will continue to build up its fleet in the Pacific Ocean through strategic cooperation with Japan, South Korea, Australia and possibly India (the US Pacific Command even renamed itself the Indo-Pacific). If Trump wanted to put serious pressure on China, he would expand relations with India— the largest democracy in the world. Trump's insistence on a more equitable burden-sharing in East Asia has not, as Politico magazine worried at the time, “led to a break point” in bilateral relations with South Korea and Japan. On the contrary, his bet worked.
It would not be surprising if Trump tries to resume relations with North Korea. His first steps in this direction almost won him the Nobel Peace Prize (which was clearly on Trump's mind). Reducing the nuclear threat to Japan and South Korea, as well as undermining North Korea as a buffer state for China in East Asia, are all goals worth striving for. North Korea refrained from testing nuclear weapons during Biden's four years (the last time it happened was in 2017). Perhaps this is a signal that Pyongyang is still ready to talk if the interlocutor plucks up the courage and knocks on the door.
By moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, Trump has shown that he is ready to take diplomatic steps against the wishes of Tel Aviv - and may well do something similar with Gaza. Trump signaled to Netanyahu his strategy: do whatever is necessary in Gaza, but as soon as possible — and declare victory as soon as possible. It is difficult to say what role the hostages, including American citizens, will play in all this, except to complicate the matter. Biden shamefully pretended that the Americans were not involved in this, and actually withdrew himself. Trump could have gone the other way, demanding the release of American hostages behind closed doors. If this does not happen, he will free the Israel Defense Forces from US diplomatic pressure. In the Middle East in general and in Arab-Israeli relations in particular, “both yours and ours” scenarios are very rare. This case is no exception.
That leaves Iran, another strategic vulnerability virtually untouched by the Biden administration, despite Tehran's growing role in the region and in the world. The Biden administration hoped to conclude a revised nuclear deal with Iran, Foreign Policy magazine reports, but when these negotiations failed at an early stage, the West was left without a backup plan to stop Iran's nuclear program. In 2018, Trump withdrew from the agreement concluded by the Obama administration, leaving a political vacuum that he will have to fill in his second term.
In his first term, Trump focused on isolating Iran, calling it a “major sponsor of state terrorism.” On the other hand, at a meeting with reporters in New York, Trump, without going into details, said that negotiations were necessary in any case because of the threat posed by Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons: “We have to make a deal, because the consequences are unthinkable. We have to come to an agreement.” The new reformist Iranian president also said he would like to revive the nuclear deal.
Failure on the Iranian issue will put the Middle East on the path of nuclear balancing on the brink, which will clearly overshadow Trump's second term. He should remember the old diplomatic maxim: if you don't talk to your opponents, you will certainly hear from them.
Peter Van Buren is the author of the books “We Wanted the Best: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People”, “Hooper's War: A Novel about World War II Japan” and “Tom Joad's Ghosts: The 99 Percent Story”
* A terrorist organization banned in Russia
