coherence is tres hard

priorities matter

I like coherence. No, I love coherence in much of life, certainly to the degree possible. But, it’s a bloody hard thing to accomplish, it turns out, especially in foreign affairs. In preparing for a set of lectures I am giving for a program run by the College of William and Mary, I am reminded of this. In fact, I don’t think I can stress it sufficiently.

Coherence is important for credibility about what we are saying and doing. It’s not generally a good idea to say you are a true free marketeer, then advocate for state subsidies for every product in the Home Deport or grocery store (never mind that many of them do receive subsidies like dairy products to assure we have a dairy industry. As a complete vegetarian, why do we need a dairy industry? Yes, I am a strange one on this example.) It’s not terrific to say you are a firm believer in mass transit only to then whine and moan about the cost of the hot gas guzzler you’re determined to buy off the lot. Turns out others listen to us sometimes, noting these logic drops in arguments. The specific examples are quite minor. But the sanctity of life becomes quite uncomfortable when you either argue for either abortion or the death penalty. Increasingly in 2024 America merely discussing freedoms is pretty messy as well.

Teaching national security strategy is hard enough but making and conducting it is infinitely more difficult because of this coherence deal. Most of the time we voters figure that those bubbas and bubbettes making policy just don’t recognise their own inconsistencies. Yes and no.

Evidence of this dilemma was in a headline I saw this afternoon: ‘Biden Calls Japan and India ‘Xenophobic’ in Defending U.S. Immigration’. According to the article, the POTUS similarly labeled policies in Russia and China as xenophobic. He was giving a speech about the securing the border, a most troubling policy question in the modern era.

What caught my attention was that India and Japan—certainly not China or Russia—are two of the countries we work hardest to woo into our side of the current international scorecard. We want these two countries, one a democracy with the largest population with huge potential and the other the firmest of allies despite us dropping two nuclear weapons on them eighty years ago, to invest in our alliance and partnership system to thwart China’s role in the world. Last time I checked, deterring China is our primary goal as we try to retain U.S.-led stability in the international system.

You may well read this, then slough it off as Biden campaigning with an assumption that either Joe bungled his words or the Japanese or the Indians across society will understand as rhetoric. I think you would be completely wrong.

Americans, whether in decision-making positions or on the street corner in Ponca City, Oklahoma, rarely remember that the world still tracks our statements by major officials with great care. In societies where freedoms are less ingrained in public discourse (pretty much everywhere else in the world), government officials speak authoritatively. We don’t understand that too often.

The comments about xenophobia are not what surprises me; it’s that we are courting these people assiduously for their support but this will not enhance that support. Don’t get me wrong as I don’t think it’s that crucial with everything else going on daily but it will be a slap to nationalists in these countries. The speech may not reach into the psyches of five people in either state (though I suspect it will get more coverage than that) but it is a prickly slap to two countries we want to remain strong friends.

Japan, particularly, has a strong right wing nationalist fringe as it did a century ago. Various Japanese prime ministers expended much political capital to support the Trans Pacific Partnership in the face of these voters, only to have the United States drop our support for the plan in 2017. That experience chastened some in Japan, leading to them asking if we are committed to Asia. The entire TPP episode could not have helped Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who ultimately died at an assassin’s hands, though the guilty man cited personal grievances for his 2022 attack.

More recently, President Biden hosted Prime Minister Kishida with the Korean President Yoon in August 2023 at Camp David. Kishida’s base may not be quite as hostile to Korea as those on the peninsula are to Japan but Kishida’s participation had to result from personal respect for Biden and the centrality of the U.S.-Japan alliance. Chastising Japan had to sting Kishida who is banking on so much from the closeness he and Biden clearly share.

Domestic issues are a higher priority than global concerns, even when we think we have grander aspirations. Biden’s aimed to mollify or at least address a domestic audience worrying about too many immigrants, rating this phenomenon over that of cultivating important relationships—positive and negative. Priorities are not merely built on the global chess game we call national security strategy but include the real, day-to-day arguments about issues at home that entice voters to support a leader. Biden is no different from any other American political figure on this point except his position elevates the likelihood that our desired allies may feel frustrated with our politics.

We focus on ourselves, even at the cost of alienating long-term friends. It’s a simple political reality which any figure understands after being in Washington for any time. If one doesn’t get elected, one doesn’t get to make policies. Ask Hillary Clinton about that. Even Donald Trump appreciates this by his statements of late.

The domestic reality is uncomfortable but true. Biden will have to do damage control if this speech were to become a bigger issue but with Modi’s prevaling Hindu nationalism or Japan’s prickly right wing, one never knows.

Oddly, this is one of those times that Xi Jinping and Vlad the Impaler will agree with words from the White House because committed xenophobes they definitely are.

Strategy-making is a long game. We too often as analysts or voters expect policy choices to be ‘one and done’ but our enduring links require care and feeding to repair frictions that occur. This is a major reason Antony Blinken spends 9 out of every 10 days visiting foreign capitals as we have so many contradictory objectives with others which need tending. Successful alliance and partnership building and retention entail much handholding as does keeping the voters happy. Many balls are in the air all of the time. It’s not as if these decisions were made in a vacuum because they generally are not.

Thanks for reading ACC today. I welcome your thoughts, rebuttals, suggestions, and reflections. Ours is a dynamic system so change is always possible but means we need to be involved to assure it. I thank you for reading the column any day and I am so thankful for those who subscribe to it. Please circulate this if you find it of value to expand our civil conversation.

Be well and be safe. FIN

Michael D. Shear, ‘Biden Calls Japan and India ‘Xenophobic’ in Defending U.S. Immigration’, NewYorkTimes.com, 2 May 2024, retrieved at https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/02/us/politics/biden-japan-india-immigration.html