Friday (February 5th): “American Diplomacy is back!”

Joesph Biden

Name? Joseph Biden

Westphalian identity? United States American

Age? 78

Why is he in the news? President Biden delivered his first foreign policy speech yesterday in which he called out Russia, announced the end of U.S. support to Saudia Arabia in Yemen, froze Trump’s withdrawal of troops from Germany, and ultimately strengthened US diplomacy among other things. 

Why do we care? Because Biden’s speech was more or less expected. After four years of unpredictable foreign (and domestic) policy, we are pretty excited to once again live in a world where the United States’ stance is predictable, it makes our job easier. 

Why should you care? His aims of strengthening American diplomacy will inherently also aim to strengthen multilateral institutions; aka “America’s greatest assets.” As the President emphasized, challenges such as Covid19, a rising China and cybersecurity “will only be solved by nations working together in common cause.”. On our How much should you care scale,  7/1o. 

Who else cares? MBS. In his speech, Biden officially ended support for “offensive” Saudi actions in Yemen. While this is in stark contrast to Trump’s gulf policy and Pompeo’s designation of the Houthi’s as a terrorist group, it really doesn’t change much for MBS. The Crown Prince will most likely still receive training and intelligence sharing from US forces (as neither qualify as “offensive operations”). If anything, Biden has left the door open to helping Riyadh with border security issues in the future; making MBS one of the few if not only Trump-era allies to remain.

Any further comments? One of Biden’s top global priorities, promoting democracy, has already been challenged twice this past week with Russia’s sentencing of Navalny and the military coup in Myanmar. In his speech, Biden reiterated that there will be a cost (aka sanctions) to both governments.. That said, the president’s ultimate goal of leading with diplomacy makes it unlikely we will witness any “my button is bigger than yours” talk anytime soon.

Joshua Dario Hasenstab

General Coordinator