The Center Lane Widens for U.S. Foreign Policy
The Center Lane Widens for U.S. Foreign Policy
Moderates in the next Congress have a chance to build back a better political approach on national security
President Joe Biden took a victory lap around the world with a slight breeze blowing at his sails after his party beat expectations in last week’s midterm elections. Biden’s six-day journey focused on big issues shaping his foreign policy, including climate change, China, the Ukraine war, and worries about the global economy at the G-20 summit.
But back in America, the election results trumped Biden’s trip. The main headline of these elections: America’s democracy held together as voters rejected extremism on the right and the left.
The lack of clear majorities for either party – Democrats will hold the Senate and Republicans will almost certainly take the House, both by slim margins – mean that it’ll be vital for President Biden to build coalitions from the center in support of his foreign policy agenda for the next two years.
As Peter Juul highlighted, the lame duck Congress can take some important steps to shore up America’s global position in the next two months. Looking beyond this immediate horizon, however, there’s a clearer path ahead for building moderate political coalitions on foreign policy than there has been for years in America. It may not happen, as there are many wildcards including who wins Congressional leadership positions and what happens in the real world – but it’s worth considering the possibilities for a moment.
Points of consensus
Three leading national security issues have broad public support and could foster greater bipartisan cooperation in the next Congress.
1. Competition with China. The current Congress passed several measures to enhance America’s ability to compete with China and stand up to the threats China presents in its region and around the world. Most Americans have unfavorable views about China, and Democrats and Republicans in Congress share similar views about the need to tackle China’s trade and economic policies and help partners like Taiwan to defend themselves from potential Chinese military aggression.
2. Support for Ukraine. Despite recent rumblings on both the left and the right, the mainstream consensus in the United States remains strongly supportive of helping Ukraine defend itself from Russia’s invasion.
3. Bolstering America’s economic competitiveness in the world. A third point of consensus is found in the series of measures the current Congress has passed to boost America’s national industrial policy, including the infrastructure bill last year and the CHIPS and Science bill this year.
A key challenge ahead on this front: ensuring America has the talent and the capacity to implement measures like ramping up microchips production at home. That will likely require smarter immigration policies for skilled, technical workers to make this happen.
These investments also need to be synchronized with clear steps to build stronger economic ties and secure supply chains with reliable allies in the world. The way ahead on this front should also include efforts to bolster America’s energy security to include cleaner sources of energy and implementing a more practical energy transition over a longer period of time.
Contentious issues that would benefit from bipartisan bridge building
A number of other issues would benefit from stronger and more inclusive political coalitions at home, but these coalitions seem unlikely to materialize due to current political dynamics. Nevertheless, it’s important to consider the strategic costs of hyper-partisanship on these three issues.
1. Tackling tough Middle East policy issues. Some of the thorniest and most complicated issues are found in U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Iran, Israeli-Palestinian affairs, and Saudi Arabia have each in their own ways become hot button issues in elite domestic politics. Various actors have tried to use these countries as partisan wedge issues, but without much real success either electorally or producing results for U.S. policy in the Middle East.
Ironically, there’s potential for building a stronger political consensus on all of these issues if political leaders look beyond the narrow frames set by advocacy-driven agendas and keep the focus on long-term goals like preventing more wars, stopping the spread of nuclear weapons to places like Iran, and advancing ideas like the Abraham Accords to include more countries and provide benefits to more people, including the Palestinians.
An effort to de-politicize thorny Middle East policy issues and build a consensus is made all the more difficult with the election of a new far right-wing Israeli government led by a person engaged in some of the most aggressive efforts to make Middle East policy questions partisan wedge issues in America. But that previous period did not produce major gains for stability and prosperity in the Middle East.
2. Relations with Mexico and immigration policy challenges. A second heavily politicized area of concern for many Americans is the issue of border security with Mexico and the challenges posed by migration and drug trafficking across America’s southern border. This is one issue that neither the Biden, Trump, or Obama administrations have addressed adequately, and it’s one that’s closest to home. The strategic costs of failing to address these challenges because of political divisions continues to mount.
3. Taking the next steps on climate change. Another issue where there are deep partisan divides at the popular and elite political levels is climate change. The Biden administration has made this issue a top priority and is currently making historic investments in America’s infrastructure to help make the shift to cleaner sources of energy. If this plan is implemented successfully and seen as providing economic benefits to America, it could clear a pathway for more bipartisan support for greater investment in the future.
Two main wildcards exist for those who are open to an argument for building back U.S. politics of national security from the center.
First are the open questions of who will emerge as the leading voices in Congress on national security in both parties. The GOP remains in disarray after the surprising setback it suffered in these midterms. Inside of the Democratic Party, there are loud voices who like to pretend the positions they espouse on foreign policy have more public support than they actually do. Yet the American public supports a more balanced foreign policy agenda than these fringe voices seem to recognize.
Second, as always, the key wildcard will be what happens in the real world – not what happens in the hyper-partisan hothouse of Washington politics. Most Americans by and large want their leaders to work together on the tough national security challenges we face and avoid using foreign policy as a wedge issue for partisan gain. For better or for worse, moreover, presidents have more power these days to set their own national security agenda given the growth of the executive branch in the defense and intelligence agencies in the two decades since 9/11.
But as things stand right now, President Biden has ample room to continue in the more balanced and steadier foreign policy course he set in his first two years in office. As John Halpin wrote earlier this year about America’s domestic politics, “the center lane is still open to any political leader, party, or citizen willing to move over and occupy the space.”
The 2022 midterms demonstrated a strong appetite to rebuild America’s politics from the moderate center – and that’s an advantage for U.S. foreign policy looking ahead to 2023 and beyond.
