International Relations , Power & Security, United States Examining Biden's Foreign Policy Plans

NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro asks Perry World House's John Gans if there is a "Biden Doctrine" guiding American foreign policy.

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Producer Andrew Craig gathered those many voices and perspectives, and Ed McNulty edited them. Now a question. Is there a thread running through President Biden's Afghanistan decision and the sanctions leveled on Russia and the talks aimed at returning to the Iran nuclear deal? John Gans is a foreign policy and national security historian who teaches at the University of Pennsylvania. He has close ties to the administration, and he joins us now. Good morning.

JOHN GANS: Good morning. Good to be with you.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: We should start with Afghanistan. You know, President Obama, of course, came into office also promising to end the U.S. military's role there but instead saw troop levels rise from, I think, 30,000 to, at one point, 100,000. Is Obama's former vice president just fulfilling that promise? Or do you see more Biden here than Obama?

GANS: I definitely see more Biden here. I think what you see in the past week, not just with this major decision on war but major new initiatives on Russia, China, climate change, Iran and other matters is the depth of experience and capacity he brings and the team he brings the table to really - no other American president in the post-World War II era has ever attempted this many new national security initiatives in such a short amount of time after taking office and also handled them as well. It was an incredibly impressive week in terms of management. But the question I think we all wonder is these are pretty traditional. These are decisions you wouldn't have been surprised to see in 2016 during the Obama administration.

And after four years of a very upsetting Donald Trump administration in terms of how it handled international relations and the damage done by a massive pandemic that is still roiling politics and security and economics around the world, the question is whether even expertly handled traditional foreign policy initiatives are enough to sort of calm a very restive world and serve America's interests, which have changed a great deal since the Obama administration.

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