There Is No “Doom Loop”

I agree with some things in Walter Russell Mead’s latest Wall Street Journal column and disagree with others. For example, I disagree with this:

With less than a year before a challenging election, the Biden administration risks getting caught in a political doom loop. President Biden’s perceived weakness at home undermines his authority in dealing with foreign leaders, while the deteriorating global picture erodes his popularity at home.

As a general rule Americans don’t care about foreign policy. I doubt that a single person who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 will vote for Donald Trump in 2024 because of the “deteriorating global picture”. They might stay home but it still won’t move them to vote for Trump. They might because Joe Biden’s term has seen the highest inflation in 40 years or the situation at our southern border is in disarray but “deteriorating global picture”? Not a chance.

However, I agree with this:

This is not a world that is becoming more stable, and it is not a world in which American interests or values are becoming more secure. It is not a world in which America’s rivals and enemies are gaining respect for the president. It is not a world in which America’s waning powers of deterrence can long hold back the rising tide of aggression and war.

and this is a prudent warning:

The Indo-Pacific has been quieter lately, but only because China remains committed to its creeping gradualism, or “cabbage leaf strategy.” Building new islands, equipping them as military bases, harassing American ships and planes, challenging Taiwanese airspace, staging invasion exercises: The cabbage slowly grows, one leaf at a time.

These days, China is looking toward rich fishing grounds and the adjacent shoals and atolls that, under widely recognized legal principles, form part of the Philippines’s Exclusive Economic Zone. The EEZ’s Scarborough and Second Thomas shoals have long attracted fishing fleets. Increasingly, they are attracting aggressive Chinese maritime militia and coast-guard forces as well.

The Philippines controlled the Scarborough Shoal before 2012, but China pushed Manila aside, advancing Beijing’s legally baseless claims to most of the South China Sea. Philippine fishing boats still attempt to fish in these troubled waters, but Chinese maritime militia and coast-guard vessels harass and obstruct them, deploying inflatable boats, buoys and a “long-range acoustic device” that temporarily incapacitate Philippine crew members. This month Chinese ships fired water cannons and rammed Philippine vessels trying to bring fuel and food to Philippine crews in the area.

Looking for diplomatic solutions, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the Asia-Pacific economic summit in San Francisco last month. While Biden administration officials hailed improved U.S.-China relations following the summit, Beijing’s response to the Philippines was chilly. Jose Manuel Romualdez, the Philippine ambassador to the U.S., said Mr. Xi’s answers to Mr. Marcos’s requests were “disappointing,” “evasive” and “noncommittal.” Mr. Xi “didn’t say anything,” Mr. Romualdez told the Japanese newspaper Nikkei Asia.

Chinese provocations have only increased since the summit. Chinese forces are moving against the Philippine presence in the Second Thomas Shoal. “It’s pure aggression,” Phillipine Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. told the Associated Press. A wooden-hulled ship he was aboard, posing no threat to Chinese vessels, was blasted by water cannons and bumped by Chinese forces as it brought supplies to a small military force stationed on a long-marooned Philippine navy ship at the shoal.

China turned up the heat another notch on Dec. 11, when 11 Chinese vessels entered the Second Thomas Shoal, with up to 27 vessels present all week. “Next after the water cannon is probably ramming and also they will attempt to board our vessel,” Philippine Vice Adm. Alberto Carlos told CNN Philippines.

Amid escalating Chinese pressure, Philippine officials are trying to rouse Washington and its allies to respond. Calling the South China Sea a flashpoint comparable to the Taiwan Strait, Ambassador Romualdez told Nikkei that conflict near the Philippines could be “the beginning of another war, world war.”

It may come as a surprise to Americans including President Biden and his advisors but other countries have interests of their own and they’re not always aligned with American interests. That includes China.

I have no idea what will happen if Donald Trump is elected to a second term in 2024. We haven’t had a president serve two terms with a hiatus between them for 130 years, since Grover Cleveland. Consequently, although not unprecedented we shouldn’t make any assumptions about what will or will not happen. However, we have a pretty good idea of what to expect from a second Biden term although his advanced age may have some impact. Foreign policy always seems to land like a ton of bricks on president in their second terms and I doubt that a second Biden term will be any different.

I tend to think that President Biden’s disapproval rating at home and the “deteriorating global picture” have a common cause: bad assumptions. Bad assumptions about the economy and about the world. I doubt that a second term will improve those.