Emulate Truman?

I have mentioned many times that however focused on domestic policy a president might be when entering office foreign policy has a way of taking over. Seeing this in the Biden presidency former World Bank President Robert Zoellick has an op-e in the Wall Street Journal suggesting that President Biden emulate Harry Truman following the disastrous first midterms of his presidency:

First, the U.S. must boost its military investments. The administration drafted its defense budget before the Russian invasion of Ukraine altered the security landscape in Europe. Mr. Biden now needs to match new commitments with updated strategies. Ukrainians need the weapons and technologies to defend themselves. The U.S. needs new plans for forward defense across the Atlantic and Pacific. Pacts addressing nuclear weapons, missiles, and American troops in Europe are out-of-date. The administration needs modern technologies and new concepts of flexible response, combined with a willingness to negotiate, so that weapons of mass destruction—including calamitous cyberattacks—are never used.

Second, the U.S. must grow stronger and more resilient at home. The bedrock must be respect for the core constitutional principle of free elections, including acceptance of the results; a bipartisan reform of the Electoral Count Act is long overdue. The country also needs to prepare for the next pandemic. Mr. Biden could encourage gas and oil production alongside a transition to renewable energy through market incentives. Americans may struggle to understand climate models, but everyone has seen the severe storms and flooding along with the need for adaptation. The president can boost scientific research and development for computing, communications, energy and biology. He should focus schools on educating for the future by speaking to political centrists who aren’t interested in identity politics. America should attract the world’s talent and encourage newcomers. The president would also be wise to distance himself from those in his party trying to defund the police. He can do this by committing to safe streets while respecting everyone’s civil rights.

Third, the president needs to explain that only the U.S. can build a new type of international coalition, working with allies but also looking beyond to appeal to developing countries that are abstaining from the Russia-China challenge. Under President George W. Bush, the U.S. led the global effort to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS and malaria. The Biden administration should do the same for Covid. Americans can help build global resilience in the face of food price shocks and climate changes by offering the world emergency supplies, seeds and fertilizers. All this can be done while keeping markets open and encouraging investments for future production, efficiency and trade. Washington’s strategy for the long-term should stress openness and opportunity, in contrast with authoritarian lockdowns.

Mr. Biden may reasonably worry that the Congress is short of Arthur Vandenbergs—the Republican senator with whom Truman worked to design America’s successful international architecture. But the response of most Republicans to Ukraine suggests the president could negotiate support for the three pillars of national safety and strength if he acts resolutely.

I don’t think that a lack of Vandenbergs is the only challenge standing in the way of Biden’s imitating Truman. For one thing Chuck Schumer is no Alben Barkley.

Barkley’s name may not be familiar to you. The long-serving Kentucky senator was the Senate minority leader for the 80th Congress, the first Congress in which Republicans held both houses of Congress since the 71st (1929). He was widely considered the hardest working man in the Congress. Truman picked him as his running mate in the 1948 general election and he ran for his party nomination for president, losing to his cousin, Adlai Stevenson.