​By Janet Sanderson

​That wasn’t a breeze you felt when President-Elect Biden unveiled his foreign policy team yesterday but rather a huge sigh of relief from America’s friends, allies, foreign policy wonks and practitioners.  I was one of them. 
 
Biden’s selection of well-regarded, veteran foreign policy professionals points to an important but often underestimated element necessary for a successful foreign policy: stability.  The challenges and threats we now face, and will face in the future, are neither constant nor necessarily predictable. The team that we field to deal with them therefore must be.  Entertaining as the dramatic diplomatic gesture is, in my experience it rarely achieves its end.  Even the most audacious act — Nixon’s surprise visit to China or Reagan’s “Tear Down this Wall” challenge—required careful spadework and choreography. 
 
So I cheered Biden’s foreign policy team. I worked alongside many of them in my final years as a Foreign Service Officer, first as Ambassador to Haiti and then as Deputy Assistant Secretary of  State for Near East Affairs. I don’t claim close friendship with any of them and in retirement I’m a rank outsider. But I sat in Situation Room meetings with them, shared notes, and briefed some of them on a regular basis during the early years of the Obama administration. We didn’t always agree on issues and I hope we would all acknowledge that the Obama years had its share of foreign policy failures and blunders.  But let me offer some thoughts as to why I am enthused about those whom Biden has called to our nation’s service.
 
They are deeply experienced public servants. They don’t need to be “read in”.  They won’t be training on the job. Beyond their CVs, they bring a wealth of contacts, networks, and perspectives to the table.  Their individual backgrounds may be varied but they share a vision of America’s role in the world and how it can best serve the American people.  I am confident that they will learn from the foreign policy miscalculations of the past and question assumptions as they go along. Jake Sullivan was particularly adept at that in the State Department: I vividly remember one exchange on U.S. democratization programs in the Middle East in which he pushed a recalcitrant bureaucracy to reexamine its assumptions about long-established policies.  
 
This team is close to the president-elect.  When I was posted in the Middle East, Tony Blinken was known to us as the guy behind Joe Biden on the congressional plane, notebook in hand.  Later, when I was shepherding senior Middle East visitors to the White House, it was no surprise to see him popping up at meetings, whispering in the vice president’s ear. It certainly answers the question Ambassadors always get from their host government: how close is the new Secretary of State really to the president?
 
They care about friends, allies and institutions. If their first statements are any indication, the new team will rebuild relationships with old friends and recommit the United States to those international institutions that best serve our interests.  Biden’s decision to re-enter the Paris Climate Accord and the World Health Organization, his insistence on orderly outreach to world leaders in the transition period (chronicled in the regular release of press announcements), and his decision to re-establish the UN ambassadorial portfolio as a Cabinet position serve notice that U.S. will seek a more engaged relationship with the world. The Biden team is unlikely to simply revert to past habits, however. The world has changed greatly since many of them left office; how well they adapt, adjust and respond to those changes will help determine the success or failure of the new administration’s foreign policy.
 
Institutions at home matter as well.  My old home, the Department of State, is in shambles. The presence of career Foreign Service Officer Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield who, as Director General of the Foreign Service pushed the Department to become more open, responsive and representative of America, assures me that the Biden Administration will follow through on its promise to reinvigorate the Department.  Failure to do so, and to address the systemic personnel and bureaucratic impediments that have long hobbled our premier foreign affairs agency, would be diplomatic malpractice. Only a total rethink of the Department will allow it fully step up to support America abroad.
 
Process Matters.  Almost every major government agency and department have foreign policy equities which the bureaucracy must serve.  Keeping all those players involved and interacting makes better, more transparent, more effective policy.  Something as simple as senior-level travel abroad can have broad foreign policy implications: when I worked with Sullivan and his staff to prepare for the Secretary of State’s visits to the Middle East in the wake of Arab Spring, Secretary Clinton’s agenda included press freedoms, counterterrorism funding issues, human rights meetings, military assistance packages, Iranian sanctions policy, women’s rights, renewable energy, nuclear safeguards, military cooperation.  Now, consider the hundreds of pressing foreign policy issues the U.S. confronts. It’s herding cats, yes, but demonstrates the centrality of the NSC in organizing the government’s foreign policy.
 
They care about public service and the people that serve. I truly believe public service is a difficult, if personally rewarding, calling. And good public service is essential to our health of our democracy.  So it’s reassuring to see leaders who share that view.   You’ve heard about Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield’s Gumbo Diplomacy, but LTG stories are legion in the State Department. She’s one of our stars:  forthright, funny, smart. Supportive of her people.  And passionate about making the State Department more representative of America.  She does the unexpected.  Her staff at our embassy in Monrovia still talk about her picking up trash outside the embassy gates in the morning. Not what ambassadors usually do. I confess I didn’t.  Leadership matters.
 
Blinken, Sullivan, Thomas-Greenfield, DNI Director-Designate Avril Haines and the others, working alongside colleagues at home and abroad, will do the foreign policy spadework. But make no mistake: that policy will be driven by Joe Biden.  He won’t contract it out or delegate it. He has an abiding interest in promoting America’s interests abroad, in building and nurturing partnerships, in connecting with people. I saw that on his congressional travels to the Middle East.  He knew his brief.  He asked smart questions.  He listened.  He was a hit with his hosts, even when delivering a difficult message. And he always thanked our Embassy staff,  both American and local, for their support of his visit. That gesture was rarer that you might suppose.
 
One last note on President-Elect Biden.  In February, 2009, when I was U.S Ambassador to Haiti,  President René Préval of Haiti asked that I organize an Oval Office meeting with President Obama.  Préval had apparently told his fellow Caribbean leaders he would be the first among them to meet the new president.  Now, it’s axiomatic in Washington that the first months of a new president’s term is focused on domestic issues so I was not surprised when the White Houses took a pass. But Joe Biden immediately stepped in. Mindful of the relationship that we were cultivating with the Préval and the importance of the U.S./Haitian relationship, Biden hosted an intimate meeting in his private office. Préval talked at length; Biden never rushed him.  The Haitian President left charmed. It certainly made my job easier.  Grace notes sometimes matter as much as competence and vision. The most successful leaders combine all three.  That’s what Joe Biden and his team now bring to the White House— and to the American people. 

Janet Ann Sanderson is a former American diplomat and an adjunct professor of international relations at Georgetown University. During her 34-year career as a foreign service officer, she served as U.S. Ambassador to Haiti and U.S. Ambassador to Algeria, among other assignments.

Following Ambassador Nicholas Burnsʼ excellent talk to TCFR on February 21, 2019, the ambassador was interviewed by Christopher Conover of Arizona Public Media. Mr. Conover later interviewed Steven Hall, retired member of the CIA Senior Intelligence Service, who opened the current TCFR season with his talk in September 2018. The two interviews recently ran on AZPMʼs public affairs radio program, “The Buzz.” The following link will take you to the program and also to the complete audio of Ambassador Burnsʼ talk to TCFR:

https://radio.azpm.org/p/radio-buzz/2019/3/7/147469-changing-us-foreign-relations/

John Boright, Executive Director of International Affairs of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine

John Boright will talk about contrasts, relationships and lessons learned in his various roles as a government official on nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear energy use, a United State Embassy and State Department science counselor, and at the National Academies building capacity and partnerships to meet major global challenges, especially in the least developed countries. His talk will cover perspectives on nuclear power in the context of climate change and nuclear risks, and cooperation to meet urgent human needs in the presence of issues of human rights and strong national policy disagreements.

In 1994-1995, Boright was Deputy to the Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs at the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President, after spending five years as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Science and Technology Affairs at the Department of State overseeing U.S. science and technology agreements with other countries, and international space policy and program matters. In 1987-1989 he was Director of the Division of International Programs at the National Science Foundation, where he developed international cooperative arrangements and U.S. access to science and engineering in other countries, particularly with Japan and countries in Asia and Eastern Europe. Before that he worked for 10 years at Department of State and has worked at the Goddard Space Flight Center, the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and the U.S. Mission to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and received his BA and PhD in physics from Cornell University.

PRESS RELEASE - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Cambridge, MA—As the 70th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) approaches, the world’s oldest and most successful military alliance of democratic nations faces serious and complex challenges to its purpose, effectiveness, and unity in 2019.

Former U.S. Permanent Representatives to NATO Douglas Lute and Nicholas Burns highlight ten major challenges to NATO in a new report, NATO at Seventy: An Alliance in Crisis, and offer recommendations to bolster this critically important alliance.
 
Burns, who is Faculty Chair of The Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, and Lute, a Senior Fellow with the Europe Project, will discuss the report during events at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, February 15.  

“NATO is facing one of its most difficult crises in seven decades,” said Nicholas Burns. “While NATO has strategic challenges to meet, the single greatest threat is the absence of strong, principled American presidential leadership for the first time in its history.”

Douglas Lute said, “We hope that this report serves as food for thought within the Alliance, prompting attention to tough, strategic challenges and deep introspection among the allies. NATO should move revitalized and retooled into the decades ahead, and again demonstrate its ability to adapt.”

Based on extensive discussions with current European and North American leaders, former senior officials, academics, and journalists, Burns and Lute recommend that Congress pass legislation this year to protect NATO, such as requiring Congressional approval should President Trump attempt to alter U.S. treaty commitments to NATO allies or seek to take the U.S. out of the Alliance altogether. They also offer recommendations on how NATO should cope with low European defense spending, Russia’s continued aggression in Eastern Europe, anti-democratic governments within NATO, Afghanistan, China and more. 

The authors recommend action in these areas:

Challenges from Within NATO

• Reviving American Leadership of the Alliance   
• Restoring European Defense Strength   
• Upholding NATO’s Democratic Values  
• Streamlining NATO Decision-Making
  

Challenges from Beyond NATO’s Borders

• Containing Putin’s Russia  
• Ending the Afghan War  
• Refocusing NATO Partnerships  
• Maintaining an Open Door to Future Members  
• Challenges on the Horizon
• Winning the Technology Battle in the Digital Age   
• Competing with China  
  

Read the full report here. 

By Elliott Weiss

In November, Dr Patrick McEachern spoke about what North Korea’s goal is in developing nuclear weapons capable of reaching the mainland United States. He suggested that Kim Jong Un’s objectives were to protect his country against an American attack, nuclear or otherwise, and to preserve his regime. Kim, he suggested, was determined not to suffer the same fate as Saddam and Quadaffi, two other dictators who had been deposed after agreeing to abandon their nuclear weapon programs.

A recent article in The Atlantic outlines the thinking of H.R. McMaster, President Trump’s National Security Advisor, on troublesome issues posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Gen. McMaster thinks it is likely that Kim’s principal goal is to have the capability to threaten the United States with a nuclear attack if it seeks to block an attack by the North’s conventional forces against South Korea. This view is encapsulated in the question “Would the United States Government risk Seattle to save Seoul?”

Gen. McMaster’s thesis varies from the hypotheses discussed by Dr. McEachern. I thought that members of TCFR, especially those who attended Dr. McEachern’s talk, would find it interesting to consider this contrasting point of view. You can find it discussed at some length here.

Elliott Weiss, a retired attorney and professor of law, is a director of TCFR and the chair of the board’s Nominating Committee.

By Thomas J. Volgy