Following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race and Vice President Kamala Harris’ ascension to the top of the Democratic ticket, a crucial question emerges: How would Harris’ foreign policy depart from Biden’s?
Biden entered the White House as the most experienced and knowledgeable foreign-policy president of our generation. A longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he played a vocal role in national-security debates for decades, and then spearheaded key diplomatic initiatives as Barack Obama’s vice president. Harris’ pre-White House foreign-policy resume – career prosecutor, state attorney general, first-term senator – was decidedly sparse by comparison.
But her four years as vice president have provided a crash course in international relations that few Democrats or Republicans can match. She has received the President’s Daily Brief every morning, sat in on most of Biden’s meetings with visiting heads of state and government, and been present in the Situation Room when critical national-security decisions were made. She has also traveled to more than 20 countries, met with more than 150 foreign leaders, and led many key delegations herself – including the past three to the Munich Security Conference.
Samuel Charap
Through the Covid-19 pandemic, the U.S.' withdrawal from Afghanistan, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, intensifying great-power competition with China, the latest Middle East war, and numerous smaller crises, U.S. allies and partners have come to see her as a steady, capable hand. Even if they do not rank her as highly as Biden, whom they’ve known for decades and – in many cases – grown fond of, they certainly see her as far more capable and reliable than Donald Trump.
But how do her worldview and policy preferences compare to Biden’s? There is plenty of overlap, but also significant daylight between them. Biden, now 81, came of age at the height of the Cold War, and his worldview reflects this. He is a strong believer in “American exceptionalism,” and he views international relations in black-and-white terms – namely as a struggle between democracies and autocracies – where the United States is always a force for good. He is also a believer in the “great man” theory of politics, which posits that statesmen like him can alter the course of events through personal relationship-building and sheer force of will.
By contrast, the 59-year-old Harris grew up in a post-Cold War world where the greatest challenge to American hegemony was a failure to uphold its ideals at home and abroad. Her inclination as a prosecutor is to judge countries by their adherence to the rule of law and international norms, rather than by their political system or leaders. Recognizing the necessity of U.S. engagement with non-democratic countries and acknowledging America’s own democratic shortcomings, she views Biden’s “democracies vs. autocracies” framework as reductive, hypocritical, and unrealistic.
Though Harris agrees with Biden that the U.S. is generally a force for good, she is wary of unintended consequences and favors multilateral approaches over unilateral interventions. She also believes that leading by example is the most effective way for America to exercise power in a more contested and multipolar world, where the U.S. is still the global hegemon but lacks the ability, will, and legitimacy to dictate outcomes the way it once did.
These contrasting worldviews manifest differently across policy areas. On China, continuity is the order of the day. U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan explicitly assured Chinese President Xi Jinping of that in a rare meeting late last month. Biden and Harris are fully aligned on engaging with China wherever cooperation is possible, while competing vigorously but in close coordination with allies on national security-related issues. Any differences in policy between them are likely to be just a matter of emphasis or tactics.
As vice president, for example, Harris expended considerable effort in shoring up America’s Indo-Pacific relationships, traveling four times to Asia and meeting regularly with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. Her administration would prioritize alliance-building over unilateral measures (such as tariffs, export controls, and sanctions), intensifying the “pivot to Asia” beyond Biden’s approach.
Timothy Snyder
The Russia-Ukraine war is a different story. Harris and Biden align in supporting Ukraine, but their motivations differ. Whereas Harris sees the conflict in legal terms, emphasizing Russia’s violation of Ukrainian sovereignty, Biden views it through a moral lens, casting it as a struggle between democracy and autocracy. This underlying difference in perspective could lead to a policy divergence under changing circumstances. While Harris would accept a bilateral ceasefire agreement, she would be less likely than Biden – whose personal relationship with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is tepid at best – to pressure Ukraine into unwanted negotiations, especially while Ukrainian territory remains under illegal occupation.
The Israel-Palestine issue marks the most significant foreign-policy divide between Biden and his vice president. Harris is more sensitive to alleged Israeli violations of international law (committed with US complicity) in Gaza and the West Bank. She is also generally more supportive of Palestinian statehood than Biden, who nominally favors a two-state solution but has been all too deferential to Israel’s far-right prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.
While Harris would continue to recognize Israel as America’s most important regional security partner and ensure its ability to defend itself, she would exert more pressure on its government to uphold the rule of law. This different approach to the “special relationship” would represent a break from past administrations, but it would align US policy more closely with that of most of its allies.
As the election nears, Harris’ potential to shape global affairs for the next four or eight years is coming into sharper focus. Though often aligned with Biden, her unique worldview promises a distinct form of leadership on the international stage.
Editor’s Note: Copyright, Project Syndicate. This article was published by Project Syndicate on Sept. 5, 2024, and has been republished by the Kyiv Independent with permission.The opinions expressed in the op-ed section are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of the Kyiv Independent.
