An Appeal for Ukraine

By Christopher Preble

Senior Fellow and Director, Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program

In a speech clearly intended as an opening salvo in his 2024 reelection campaign, President Joe Biden’s decision to lead with an appeal for additional aid to Ukraine was notable. Biden believes that the aid is both essential to Ukraine’s continued survival as a sovereign state and that his message will play well politically at home. But while foreign policy may have a unique salience in this year’s election (as I wrote here), it isn’t obvious that it plays to President Biden’s strengths. Americans generally are demanding a foreign policy that advances U.S. national interests, whereas President Biden often chooses to couch his case in terms of values. No one can doubt that Vladimir Putin’s vicious war is unjust, but he has already suffered a serious strategic setback. He failed to produce a quick regime change in Kyiv in February 2022, and he now faces a more determined Europe and a more capable NATO, with the addition of Sweden and Finland. Russia of 2024 is not Nazi Germany of 1940, and Putin cannot replay Hitler’s bid to dominate the continent, as Biden suggested last night. With Russia already badly weakened, and Europe growing stronger, what specific end does President Biden seek in Ukraine? And, most importantly, how does that end advance Americans’ security and prosperity? It is unsurprising that, in the absence of clear answers to these questions, more and more Americans, and Republicans especially, have grown skeptical of continued aid to Ukraine. The Biden administration should be actively exploring, with allies in Europe, ways to bring the war to an end.

The Continued Crisis in the Middle East

By Barbara Slavin

Distinguished Fellow, Middle East Perspectives

In a feisty speech largely dominated by domestic matters, President Biden had hoped to be able to announce at least one foreign policy achievement: a prolonged cease-fire in the Israel-Gaza war, now entering its fifth catastrophic month. However, third-party mediators have failed to accomplish this before the advent of Ramadan and the reference to the war was pushed deep down into an hour-long speech. Biden was addressing both U.S. progressives angered by his failure to end the war and Israeli leaders who seem determined to prolong it even as Gaza lies in ruins and more than 30,000 Palestinians are dead. Biden’s announcement that the U.S. military would set up a temporary pier on Gaza’s Mediterranean coast to deliver urgently needed food and medicine to starving Palestinians was an attempt to assuage his U.S. critics as was his comment that “humanitarian assistance cannot be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip” to free Israeli hostages. However, Biden’s comments that a two-state solution was still the sole path to long-term peace and Israeli regional acceptance were unlikely to have swayed Israel’s leadership and people who seem ever more set against a Palestinian state in the aftermath of Hamas’s gruesome assault of Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis.

US Success in the China Context

By Yun Sun

Director, China Program

President Biden’s references to China in the State of the Union address reflect the U.S. competitive approach to China and the challenges it presents. Among many observers, the recognition is that the Administration’s approach to China has been rather successful. Regionally, U.S. successes in strengthening alliances and partnerships to jointly counter the challenge China poses have been effectively imposing more costs on China’s foreign policy. On the bilateral level, U.S. restrictions on Chinese access to hi-tech products have helped to maintain U.S. technological advantage. Since 2023, the Administration has chartered a course of engagement with China that led to the resumption of mil/mil dialogues with China and Chinese cooperation on fentanyl. With China’s economic slowdown and its impact on China’s foreign policy posture, one could say that the SOTU offered a concise summary of U.S. successes vis-à-vis China in the past 3+ years.

Confronting the Climate Crisis

By Natalie Fiertz

Research Associate, Environmental Security Program

Last night, President Biden outlined his administration’s vision for “confronting the climate crisis.” Reiterating his commitment to cut carbon emissions by half and create jobs through newly enacted laws such as the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, President Biden also outlined steps to build climate resilience here in the United States.

“Conserving 30 percent of America’s lands and waters by 2030” will help protect against hurricanes, storm surges, and other extreme weather events. In Cedar Key, Florida last August, a restored “living shoreline” reduced the energy of waves from Hurricane Idalia by 15-20%, protecting homes, roads, and other key infrastructure in the community. The American Climate Corps, which President Biden promised to triple in size, is already strengthening climate resilience by restoring green spaces that can, for example, help communities like Los Angeles absorb the 8.6 billion gallons of water that accompanied February’s atmospheric river.

This work shows the administration’s forward-leaning approach to addressing one of our most urgent challenges and last night the President shared that vision with the American people. Not included in last night’s speech, however, was how the United States will respond to the calls of our partners and allies abroad to build resilience to the climate threats they face. The administration should extend the whole-of-society approach they are using here at home and expand on the President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience to bolster American leadership to combat the climate crisis worldwide. 

Competition, Not Conflict with China

By Richard Cronin

Distinguished Fellow, Southeast Asia Program

President Biden only touched briefly on China, with one-liners that tied his China policy initiatives to his larger themes about the strength of the economy, trade, the revival of American manufacturing, the revitalization of U.S. partnerships and alliances, and the protection and promotion of U.S. leadership in high technology. He said that the U.S. had the world’s best economy, citing rising GDP, and the lowest trade deficit with China in the past ten years. He cited “standing up for peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait“ and alluded to stringent export controls that ban the export to China of leading-edge semiconductors and related technologies to ensure that they “can’t be used in China’s weapons.” Summing up, he declared that his policies supported “competition with China, but not conflict”, and put the United States “in a stronger position to win the competition for the 21st Century against China or anyone else for that matter.”

Harnessing the Power of AI

By Debra Decker

Senior Advisor, Cyber Program

President Biden: “Harness the promise of A.I. and protect us from its peril. Ban A.I. voice impersonation and more!”

AI is already helping doctors and drug developers improve our lives. And there are more benefits to come. But like any innovation, AI has its downsides and President Biden has been at the forefront of calling for action, especially with his most recent Executive Order on AI, which is far-ranging, to say the least. Yes, we need to develop guardrails against the longer-term, potentially catastrophic risks – the U.S. and international organizations like the UN, OECD, and IMF are working on this. But, international efforts take time we don’t have. More immediately, we need relief from very real current AI threats – like the deepfakes that are inundating us with mis/disinformation. Last month, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission did take action against AI-voice robocalls and now the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is poised to act on new rules to impose liability on companies helping to develop AI-fake images and voices for unlawful purposes. But they will need enforcement actions and funding. And they are not enough. The U.S. – and others with elections– face nation-state AI efforts at divisive tactics and targeting of campaigns using enhanced AI and social media. We need to be screaming “and more!” even louder – especially at the tech companies/platforms, so that more effective self-policing and innovative protections, like watermarking of AI, come sooner rather than later.

North Korea Problem Stays the Course

By Rachel Minyoung Lee

Senior Fellow, 38 North Program

For the third year, President Biden did not mention North Korea in his State of the Union address, indicating that the North Korean threat is not a top priority for the administration – and that it does not expect meaningful progress on the issue during the remainder of its term. This is notwithstanding the flurry of media speculation about whether a U.S. official’s March 3 comment that the U.S. would consider “interim steps” on the path to denuclearization might signal a change in Washington’s long-standing policy toward North Korea.

If North Korea has taken notice of the “interim steps” formulation and the follow-on media commentary, it has not reacted to them. Some analysts have noted that Kim Jong Un’s threat rhetoric softened during a March 7 artillery firing drill, possibly due, in part, to the U.S. official’s comment. It is premature, however, to draw any meaningful conclusions based on one North Korean media report on a single Kim activity.

Of importance are the trends in North Korea’s policy over time. Pyongyang’s reorientation of foreign policy over the past two to three years marks a strategic shift and reflects a fundamental change in how the North Korean leadership views the world. This shift — giving up on the normalization of relations with the U.S. through denuclearization and pivoting back to China and Russia — makes the North Korea conundrum that much more complicated to tackle. Should Biden still have mentioned North Korea in his State of the Union speech? Doing so would not have changed Kim’s course of action. Yet, it at least would have sent the message that the U.S. at the highest levels takes the country’s growing threats seriously, particularly in light of its renewed partnership with Russia. Biden’s silence on North Korea likely reaffirmed for Kim Jong Un that he operates in the perfect environment for nuclear buildup and proliferation activities – in a state of what some would call U.S. “neglect.”