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Cybersecurity from Trump to Biden: a triumph for cybersecurity?

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USAF, 2017 - A cyber operator.

After what felt like a lengthy and tortuous transition period, Joe Biden became the United States’ 46th president on the 20th January 2021. Whilst some feel relieved and others disgruntled by the result, one thing is abundantly clear: the renewed and elevated focus on cybersecurity under a Biden administration is certainly promising.

It is not news that the United States is becoming increasingly vulnerable to cyber threats; the recent SolarWinds and Microsoft attacks so aptly epitomises the extent of the vulnerability of, not only the US, but the entire world. Our ever-increasing dependency on technology also suggests that the impact of the threat will grow accordingly, which can be demonstrated by our reliance on technology during the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, the survival and maintenance of our livelihoods, relationships and education, to name a few, currently depend on our access to technology. As both Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) come to greater fruition and almost every part of our lives are inextricably connected to technology – from the appliances in our homes to our modes of transport – US citizens will also no doubt become dangerously susceptible to disruptive hacks. Looking forward, an elevated cybersecurity focus is absolutely necessary to appropriately protect US intellectual property, prevent psychological and physical damage to its people and their property and to preserve the US’ status as a major player on the world stage.

Four Years of Cybersecurity Under Trump

As one of the most serious threats facing the US, cybersecurity should be dealt with earnestly and should never have taken the backseat that it has in recent years. Despite this, skepticism surrounding cybersecurity in the US since the beginning of Donald Trump’s presidency was rife, and rightly so. Trump consistently failed to acknowledge or confront the Kremlin interference in the 2016 election – to the extent that it was considered a hallmark of his presidency – posing an enormous threat to the fabric of US democracy. The Mueller report conclusively found that Russia executed ‘a social media campaign that favoured presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’ and attempted to sow mass discord across the US.

To put it into perspective, when two Russian hacking groups, Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, hacked the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Trump was quick to state that ‘’it was the DNC that did the ‘hacking’ as a way to distract from the many issues facing their deeply flawed candidate and failed party leader’’ prior to any real investigation or analysis. This was soon found to be untrue. Worse yet, Trump had actively urged Russia to leak Hilary Clinton’s ‘missing emails’. Seemingly, Trump was more concerned with his relationship with Vladimir Putin than the security of the country he was presiding over. Or was he concerned that confronting and acknowledging this interference would highlight that his electoral victory was not so victorious after all?

More recently, Trump flippantly blamed China for the SolarWinds attack, in light of evidence that pointed to Russia, and tweeted ‘’Russia, Russia, Russia is the priority chant for when anything happens because Lamesteam is, for mostly financial reasons, petrified of discussing the possibility that it may be China (it may!).’’ Again, this is completely misaligned with what his own Secretary of State and intelligence community had said which demonstrates a complete lack of coherence in the administration where cybersecurity is concerned. Sadly, in many ways, cybersecurity clearly suffered grave negligence under the Trump administration.

The evolution of ‘’defend forward’’ under Biden?

Nonetheless, Trump’s cybersecurity strategy is likely to leave somewhat of a legacy and its more active and bold tone is likely to evolve under the Biden administration. This can be inferred from the Biden-Harris statement that was released in the wake of the SolarWinds attack whereby they echoed much of defend forward and stated that “a good defense isn’t enough’’. Specifically, one concept from the Trump administration’s cyber vision that is likely to mature is persistent engagement - that is, the idea that by continuously contesting an adversary and ‘forcing them to expend more resources on defence and rebuild capabilities’, the adversary becomes less effective and the offender achieves superiority. Persistent engagement could help in the construction of norms of acceptable and non-acceptable behaviour in cyberspace through a process of tacit bargaining because states can gauge an understanding of adversaries’ so-called red lines. Therefore, it could prove to be a useful method for creating deterrence structures within cyberspace going forward. Although, as the Biden administration seeks to strengthen its offensive capabilities, it should consider that prepositioning and reconnoitring in an adversary’s network could also have undesirable escalatory effects. This raises the important question of how the US would de-escalate if escalation occurred?

Biden Takes the Baton: A Hopeful Future for Cybersecurity?

Even in the early stages of Biden’s presidency, Biden has demonstrated a much more earnest attitude towards cybersecurity. This is clear in Biden’s orchestration of a strong cybersecurity team which has been endorsed by many public and private sector individuals and was referred to by Tom Burt, the vice president of Microsoft, as ‘’world-class’’. Biden has also demonstrated a willingness to confront adversaries rather than ‘’sit idly by in the face of cyber assaults’’ which, as we have discovered, stands in direct contrast to Trump’s approach to confrontation (or lack thereof). Promisingly, Biden’s National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, has also made it clear that the administration is willing to use a combination of seen and unseen tools and ‘’ensure that Russia understands where the United States draws the line on this kind of activity.’’

Another reassuring factor is Biden’s desire to work with other countries and nurture stronger bilateral and multilateral partnerships after a period of neglect to help mitigate the threat. Due to the permeable nature of cybersecurity which ultimately knows no borders and is therefore an inherently team sport, this is a promising prospect. As Charlie Croom once said, “we all have knowledge and experiences that when shared make us better than we individually could be’’ and this is especially applicable where states and cybersecurity are concerned. In particular, the emergence of cyber diplomacy will be a crucial part of fostering a sense of team spirit among states by guaranteeing constant dialogue and in turn, preventing unnecessary escalation or wrongful attribution. However, under Trump, the US’ cyber diplomacy efforts were negatively impacted by Rex Tillerson’s decision to abolish the Office of the Coordinator for Cyber Issues. Fortunately, it is likely that Biden will enlist Jen Easterly as National Cyber Director, as a part of the Executive Office of the President, raising the profile of cybersecurity as a clear priority. The hope is that Easterly will then be able to coordinate the government’s cyber capabilities and bolster the US’ cyber diplomacy through her efforts.

One aspect that could have made Biden’s cybersecurity approach more encouraging is the appointment of more private sector experts. Those set to be in leadership positions are largely from the public sector which is wildly disproportionate to how much of the US’ internet infrastructure is owned by the private sector, which is the vast majority of it. Therefore, a fusion of public and private sector expertise would be more representative of this dynamic and provide a richer pool of knowledge. It would also help to create a more effective channel of communication between the two whereby threat information can be shared more easily and effectively. Importantly, appointing more individuals from the private sector would likely provide an opportunity to bring greater clarity to the public-private partnership in the US, as ‘there are no clear statements outlining legal authority, responsibility and rights across the diverse set of relationships that the government maintain with the private sector’. Ultimately, this would provide direction and confidence to the public and private sector to make definitive decisions within their remits of responsibility.

Conclusion

Overall, if there is anything that we can conclude from this, it is that losing Trump will hopefully be a triumph for cybersecurity in the US. A revived focus on cybersecurity and the employment of offensive and defensive measures from a world-class team of experts means that projections for the future of cybersecurity in the US are largely optimistic. However, in the absence of private sector appointees, it is hoped that the Biden administration will make serious efforts to nurture a stronger public-private sector partnership in other ways going forward. Ultimately, the Biden administration’s responses to the SolarWinds and Microsoft attacks should paint a much clearer picture of what cybersecurity will look like for the US in successive years.

 

Harriet is an MA National Security Studies student at King’s College London and a recent Politics and International Relations graduate. Her final year dissertation explored the UK’s decision to renew Trident and was titled ‘Chasing Status: was status the dominant driver of the UK’s decision to renew its Trident nuclear deterrent in 2016?’ Her broader writing interests include cybersecurity strategy and policy, radicalisation, counter-terrorism, status and emotions in an International Relations context and non-proliferation.

Lessons from the 20th century book war

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By Joseph Bodnar

 

Throughout the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed for international influence through coercion and persuasion with the world’s most capable and committed spy agencies on the front lines.

Among other things, these covert operatives wrote books. They gathered intelligence, drafted manuscripts, stood up publishing firms, and passed on information about each other to media organisations, government officials, and the public. These hardcover campaigns were effective and escalatory. They also led the United States to exploit the reach and legitimacy of the free press in an attempt to defend it.

The United States’ reactive and undemocratic tactics throughout the book war of the 20th century underscore the importance of developing a proactive and values-based approach for the information contest of the 21st century.

Hardcover campaigns – Escalation and Deception

In May 1963, Oleg Penkovsky, a senior Soviet intelligence agent, was convicted of high treason, sentenced to death, and shot at a prison on KGB headquarters. For the previous sixteen months, Penkovsky had worked with the CIA and Britain’s MI6, passing along photographs of nearly 5,000 highly sensitive documents, including Soviet military manuals, missile sites, and war plans.

The CIA logged 10,000 pages of reports based on Penkovsky’s information before he was caught and executed. They then used the material to write a memoir. Twenty-nine newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic ran excerpts of the Penkovsky Papers ahead of its release, and the memoir eventually became a bestseller.

Despite the book’s success, neither journalists nor the Soviets bought the idea that Penkovsky had written it. The Washington Post later asked whether the CIA’s deception of the American public was a “by-product or part of the intent”. The Soviets decided to escalate.

In the following years, Czechoslovakian and East German intelligence services worked together to research, write, and release the book Who’s Who in the CIA in both German and English. In 1968, the book cost 10.50 East German Marks, but the subtitle gave away the ending. It read “a biographic encyclopedia of 3,000 members of staff of civilian and military intelligence agencies in the USA in 120 states”.

Who’s Who listed details on thousands of agents from across the U.S. intelligence community, mixing facts, subtle forgery, and blatant falsehoods. The book also included six charts that “exposed” open-source information on things like the intelligence structure of the Pentagon.

The CIA responded in kind, feeding intelligence to an investigative reporter for Reader’s Digest who published KGB: The Secret Work of Soviet Secret Agents in 1974, after it was proofread and fact checked by the US intelligence agency. The book contained a 35-page appendix listing information on 1,557 KGB and GRU officers – 942 of which were “identified by classified sources only”, according to a CIA memo.

The Soviets were rocked by the book, writing as many as 370 internal reports assessing its impact on ongoing and future operations.

However, public opinion and the credibility of the media also took a hit. Victor Zorza, a Polish-British journalist, noted at the time that democracies “suffer from the grave disadvantage that in attempting to damage the adversary they must also deceive their own public”.

This Century Can’t Be Like the Last

The book war did not start in 1963 with the Penkovsky Papers or end in 1974 with The Secret Work of Soviet Secret Agents. The CIA financed the publication of at least 250 books during the Cold War and employed journalists around the world.

But this incomplete chapter of history details the United States’ embrace of authoritarian methods to advance democratic ideals. It tracks a race to the bottom that the United States cannot afford to run in the 21st century, with democracy on its back foot and authoritarians increasingly adept at exploiting emerging technologies to distort information realities to their advantage.

The United States and its democratic allies must address the relentless information offensives being launched by Russia, China, Iran, and others. But that doesn’t require democracies to enter a competition of values on terms set by autocrats.

A successful strategy will leverage the appeal of open, transparent, and responsive systems. Rather than adopting the book war model of state-directed journalism, the United States should increase support for independent media and investigative reporting. This asymmetric approach will help expose the weaknesses, corruption, and brutality of authoritarian regimes around the world.

Defensive tactics should also be rooted in democratic principles, rather than in attempts to control and surveil. This will require the United States to set clear content moderation and data protection standards for the private tech companies that now dominate the information landscape. Identifying, exposing, and building resilience against authoritarian information operations also demands increased coordination between the government, private sector, and civil society groups.

The right answers to the information challenges faced today cannot be found in the history of the book war. But there are plenty of mistakes to recognise and avoid repeating. Democracies cannot protect or advance open information ecosystems by embracing the tools, tactics, and doctrines of authoritarian adversaries.

Joseph Bodnar is a graduate student at American University. His writings have been published by the National Interest, the Dallas Morning News, the Atlantic Council, and Charged Affairs.

U.S. Energy, Placing Strategy ahead of Policy

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Conceptual photo of energy sources. Source: LovetoKnow

U.S. Energy Production – Politics vs. Strategy

U.S. energy policy is U.S. energy politics. The fight for energy-producing states this election season demonstrated this feature. President Trump made a calculated all-out blitz for these politically essential states in 2016 and 2020 by targeting his messaging of unrestricted energy production policies to critical constituents. [i] The Democrat Party, always in a more precarious political position due to a broader base, attempted to thread the needle, moving between abruptly ending the fossil fuel industry and gently progressing away. Finally, deciding on $2T in spending as a middle ground between its constituents.

This phenomenon deviates from U.S. energy policy’s historical role, where political leadership from both parties would equate energy policy with national security. President Nixon declared an emergency after the oil embargo and increased domestic production programmes. President Carter looked to secure supplies by removing pricing controls, establishing a strategic reserve, and initiated the U.S. military’s force increase in the Gulf region.[ii] The first war in Iraq was partially justified as preventing Saddam Hussein from controlling an even greater share of the global oil supply. Similarly, the reactivation of the fifth fleet and regional basing and partnerships stem from these strategic calculations. Even as recently as President Obama, achieving energy independence from international vagaries was a central talking point of his clean and renewable energy policies. Despite different political bases and inherent beliefs, each approached energy policy from the point of strategic national benefit.

Overton Window

When tackling climate change, America would be wise not to put policy goals before a strategic approach, as demonstrated in the U.S. removal of Saddam Hussain. Here, a rush to achieve a “safer world” through removing several threats and the spread of democracy, all in one swift policy, demonstrates that having a policy goal of global change without a feasible and sustainable strategy to reach that goal can invite catastrophe.

Fortunately, the U.S. energy-producing states’ current importance to any presidential bid, the 50/50 divided in domestic politics, and a split congress offer the opportunity to implement an energy strategy over an energy policy. This is due to the current political conditions preventing either side from implementing a strictly partisan policy. Furthermore, the diverse options under any multifaceted and long-term strategy allow political actors from all sides to claim a moral victory and deliver results to their constituents.

Strategic Dilemma

Climate change is real. Unfortunately, so is Chinese and Russian aggression. The kernel of this strategic dilemma is that most U.S. steps to reduce carbon use also reduces U.S. and global security. While climate change will continue to impose itself on the word with strategic repercussions, so will Russia and China. China’s ability to use threats about trade to compel the E.U. in times of stress was successful, as the E.U. backed down in its reporting on China’s response to COVID. China also produced similar threats to cut off medical and pharmaceutical supplies to the U.S. Furthermore, their use of salami tactics to control trade routes, energy sources, and commercial fishing in national territory and control pieces of Europe will continue independent of climate change.

Decarbonization will be costly to the U.S. Every effort to impose restrictions will decrease the strategic risk of climate change but will increase the strategic risk imposed by China and Russia due to reduced U.S. economic capacity, global economic influence, energy independence, and reduce the energy independence of its allies and partners. There is also no guarantee that enduring these costs will achieve the objectives of ending or significantly reducing global warming due to China’s continual expansion of coal power plants and occupation of oil and gas fields in the South China Sea for potential exploitation. Furthermore, projected growth across India and Asia could additionally counter any feasible reductions in the U.S.

Strategic Opportunities

Advantages of the Status Quo: In 2019, the U.S. attained a greater degree of energy independence as it transitioned from being a net importer to a net exporter of crude and refined petroleum products. This accomplishment provides an economic advantage in revenue derived through market share, integration of world-class U.S. corporations into economies around the world, sustains a robust and dynamic economy that absorbs millions of immigrants and develops everything from the P.C. to one of the first the COVID-19 vaccine, and fuels a military that maintains global security. It also provides a hedge in the event of a great power or sustained conflict. Similarly, U.S. production capacity secures European economies and militaries as it allows for an alternative to global supply chains and dependence on Russia’s energy exports.[iii] Since oil and gas trade in USD, current arrangements help solidify the USD’s strategic advantage as the reserve currency and global finance provider. This latter fact is beneficial for countering an economically ambitious China attempting to ensnare smaller countries, as revealed in Sri Lanka’s loss of Hambantota Port, by creating new trade routes and an alternate reserve currency and financing opportunities.

Advantages of Opportunity: While the U.S. does maintain a current strategic advantage in the extraction-based world, this does not mean that a future of transition is devoid of similar strategic opportunities. The U.S. possesses several inherent strategic advantages, which it can lever in the quest to develop an answer to these problems. These include its capacity for research and development through its universities, defence and federal government initiatives, and iconic inventors in their garages. It also includes its business culture, cutting edge firm practices, entrepreneurship, and its flexible and dynamic investing ecosystem. Therefore, any path towards decarbonization can maintain some of the current advantages if it applies these strengths.

Strategic Pillars

Treat Decarbonization like Disarmament: To prevent a strategic nadir, the U.S. can treat decarbonization like disarmament. Agreements such as the Paris Climate Accords, on their own, will only hurt compliers while increasing relative gains of countries savvy or cynical enough to join and evade or ignore commitments. While Xi Jinping was producing statement after statement about reducing greenhouse emissions, his party brought more new coal plants into existence, nationally and internationally, than the accords can potentially overcome. Alternately, as U.S. efforts to decarbonize increase consumers’ and exporters’ costs, reduce U.S. multinational firms’ capacity, and reduce core industrial capability and small businesses vitality, America’s rivals continue to decrease energy production and consumption costs.

Therefore, as the Biden administration starts to adjust the Trump trade war, realigns relations with China, and builds U.S. manufacturing and the post-COVID economy, an opportunity exists to create agreements that can balance these concerns and embed reciprocal actions over blanket U.S. reductions.

Secure Supply Lines: Long-term movement away from carbon dependence requires a move towards reliance on rare earth elements. While the federal government has taken steps to increase its reserves of these elements, no efforts exist to secure continued supply, especially in a national emergency or sustained conflict. The fact that Russia and China together can possess or control up to 90% of global supply, depending on the specific element, adds another security challenge that requires a solution before relying on renewables.

Fortunately, the potential for new exploration exists in the U.S., Australia, Africa, and Latin America. Similarly, other Asian countries besides China can provide a low-cost option in making these materials usable. Malaysia being one, where China’s attempt to dominate its port facilities and transportation infrastructure demonstrates the need to secure these chains. Ambitious exploration and exploitation can reduce the costs of extraction and open new supplies. Part of securing this access, against China’s attempts, could include setting up ventures between U.S. and host nation companies to address the exploration, mining, extraction, and transportation required to bring these items to market while keeping the process partly in U.S. hands. As any return on investment would be long-term and risky, the U.S. Government would need to play a role in funding, guaranteeing profits, and technology exchange. This model could also deliver structured and spill-over entrepreneurial, technology, and educational benefits to local businesses and populations through additional loans, infrastructure development, educational opportunities, and access to both global and U.S. markets and companies. It could provide a local and grassroots development model and an alternate approach to China’s state-centered and state empowering One Belt One Road initiative. [iv]

Develop Comparative Advantages at Home: Within the U.S., opportunities exist that play to America’s strength and ensure that decarbonization supports U.S. economic advancement. As renewables and batteries depend on a significant amount of rare earth elements and minerals, the government can use U.S. universities to start programs that will create technology that can extract minerals with cheaper methods. The government can also promote STEM education in these fields through subsiding education. The importance of the production of these components to national security provides an opportunity to bring advanced manufacturing back to the U.S. Although, achieving this remains complicated as production in the U.S. is more expensive than in Asia. Still, the government should examine expenses, including the cost of not controlling production, including diplomatic and military, associated with securing overseas supplies and use them in a calculation on onshoring.[v]

Conclusion

In the U.S., the election cycle, which seemingly is an almost continuous street brawl these days, limits politicians’ ability to implement longer-term and incremental solutions. Instead, they must execute the immediate option to meet their short-term political demands. Although, as the President and Congress wade through a divided government and country, the opportunity exists to trade short-term paralysis for a long-term strategy and implement a far-sighted approach to battling climate change.

[i] Guliyev, Farid. “Trump’s ‘America first’ energy policy, contingency and the reconfiguration of the global energy order.” Energy Policy, vol. 140, May 2020.

[ii] Painter, David. “Oil and Geopolitics: The Oil Crisis of the 1970s and the Cold War.” Historical and Social Research, vol. 39, no. 4, 2014.

[iii] Henderson J., Mitrova T. (2020) Implications of the Global Energy Transition on Russia. In: Hafner M., Tagliapietra S. (eds) The Geopolitics of the Global Energy Transition. Lecture Notes in Energy, vol 73. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39066-2_5.

[iv] According to ideas proposed during conversations between Benjamin Flosi, Christopher Tynan, and John Huntsman (https://securitystudies.org/) from September-November 2020.

[v] According to ideas proposed during conversations between Benjamin Flosi, Christopher Tynan, and John Huntsman (https://securitystudies.org/)from September-November 2020.

Benjamin Flosi is a first year Ph.D. student at King’s College London and a Copy Editor at Strife.

 

Why Biden Will Not Get Soft with China

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by Martina Bernardini

President-Elect Joe Biden, then in his capacity of Vice President, walks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, shortly after his arrival at Andrews Air Force Base during a 2015 visit to the United States (Image credit: AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

The election of Joe Biden as President of the United States is meaningful for several reasons, but foreign policy stands out as one of the most important. While the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the subsequent crisis in Transatlantic relations challenged the resilience of U.S. hegemony, the widespread enthusiasm to Biden’s election demonstrates that the U.S. historic allies still want – and require – an engaged United States on their side. Taking the reins of U.S. foreign policy in this particular moment in the history of the international system, however, is not an easy task. The biggest challenge lies in re-affirming the U.S. position in world affairs, a grand strategy that will contribute to building a strict balance between Washington and Beijing, to show that the absolute decline of U.S. power has not occurred.

During his presidential campaign, outgoing U.S. President Donald J. Trump argued that Biden allowed China to become a threat to the United States by supporting China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization in 2001. Such assumption indicated that for Trump, if Biden became President of the United States, he would get soft with China. The recent history of U.S. foreign policy, however, dismisses this thesis. In 2000, in fact, together with eighty-two U.S. Senators and 237 members of the House of Representatives, Joe Biden did vote in favour of the China Trade Bill, which authorised ‘the extension of nondiscriminatory treatment (normal trade relations treatment) to the People’s Republic of China, and to establish a framework for relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China.’

The approval of such a bill by the U.S. Congress accompanied U.S. support for China’s accession to the WTO. At the dawn of the 21st century, this move represented - at least to U.S. policymakers - China’s official embrace of a world order based on the American-led ideals of free trade and democracy, a trend that was set in motion by President Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush. China’s entry into the WTO was indeed positively welcomed both by Democrats and Republicans - by Presidents Clinton as well as George W. Bush - because it was seen as the coronation of a grand strategy aimed at bringing China into a pan-American trade regime. Consequently, Biden’s vote in favour of the China Trade Bill does not mean that, as President of the United States, he will adopt a concessionary China policy. Incidentally, the exact reasons for his support of China’s integration into the global trade system increase the probability that Biden’s foreign policy towards China will not be accommodating.

Biden’s vision of the United States in the world reflects the American exceptionalism that drove the United States towards superpower status by spreading the American soft power and democratic ideals abroad from the Spanish-American war (1898) to Obama’s presidency (2008-2016). For Biden, this means that the U.S. has the duty to lead and inspire the other powers of the international system. In this framework, his administration’s foreign policy plan is to lead the United States to re-establish such a relationship with the international community after four years of isolationism under Trump.

This foreign policy approach will consequently bring Sino-American relations back to the Obama years, when Washington recognised that China represented a challenge for U.S. power that had to be addressed firmly, without undermining the bilateral relationship nor the stability of the international system, of which the United States intends to be the guarantor. In the last phase of his presidential campaign, Biden anticipated how he is likely to approach Beijing. For example, he criticized Trump for not having acted on the issue of human rights in the Xinjiang region, but at the same time, he talked about working with China on climate-related matters and the COVID-19 pandemic. That is to say, that open hostilities are unlikely to break out, but Biden will want the U.S. to take a firm stance against China in the key fields where the U.S. leadership among its allies and its great power status are at stake.

The most delicate grounds for Sino-American relations in the near future are two: trade and technology. Biden will inherit the trade war that Trump launched during his years in office as an attempt to reverse the course of the growing U.S. trade deficit with China. When he was Vice President from 2009 to 2017 under Obama, the United States pursued a multilateral economic strategy to reach the goal of re-balancing the U.S. balance of payments with China. Today, this approach is no longer an option, mainly because Biden will face a bipartisan consensus for toughening the U.S. China policy.

As David Shambaugh explained, the Democrats might not have fully agreed on the utility of tariffs for U.S. national security, but they were not against Trump’s tough China policy overall. A cross-party general indisposition and the willingness to take effective action towards China have risen in U.S. Congress because China challenges the U.S. power on many fronts, and exactly because Biden recognised the need of rebalancing the economic relations with China already during his Vice-Presidency, he is expected to be determined to reach such goal. For now, Phase One of the Economic and Trade Agreement between the U.S. and China that was signed this year remains in place, and Biden declared that he is not intentioned to cancel such agreement, at least not immediately. The first step for the Biden administration’s China policy will thus be to get a sense of where the historical U.S. foreign policy partners stand vis-à-vis their commercial relations with China.

Alliances are likely to be the starting point for a firm stance on the technology front as well. ‘The United States does need to get tough with China. If China has its way, it will keep robbing the United States and American companies of their technology and intellectual property,’ Biden wrote in Foreign Affairs last spring, adding that the best way to confront the Chinese technological challenge is to build a ‘united front’ with allies. Much has been said about the U.S. semiconductor sector as at risk of being exploited by China, which led the U.S. Department of Defense to finally add Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) - the largest chipmaker in China - to the U.S. Entity List on December 18, 2020.

The list in question, which is run by the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security, contains the names of foreign persons, governmental organisations, and companies that are subject to specific license requirements for the import of items from American suppliers. Consequently, any operation held with one of the subjects present in the Entity List is considered at risk by the U.S. government, and will therefore be closely monitored. The move comes as the final act of the most vigorous measures that the outgoing Trump administration implemented towards Beijing before Biden takes office on January 20, 2021, fearful that the incoming administration would soften the line.

This, however, is not likely to happen, because Biden’s vision of the U.S. in the world will merge with the clear bipartisan support of a hard line with China coming from Congress. The incoming Biden administration will thus aim to bring the tensions on the commercial and technological fronts to a higher strategic level especially by working on reinvigorating Transatlantic relations. Biden’s overall approach to foreign policy will be guided by his vision of the U.S. in the world, which, on the one hand, is strictly related to the historical conception of American exceptionalism, but, on the other hand, must resiliently adapt to the shape of the 21st Century’s international system, which demands a cooperative approach on climate change, migration, and global health. This means that the world will not enter a ‘new Cold War’ – a misleading term that is very often overused to describe Sino-American relations – but that Biden’s foreign policy towards Beijing will contribute to a redefinition of the terms of great power competition in a globalised world, which is not necessarily an easier scenario.

Martina is a PhD Candidate at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. She has been awarded the Leverhulme Scholarship ‘Interrogating Visions of a Post-Western World: Interdisciplinary and Interregional Perspectives on the Future in a Changing International Order.’ Her research focuses on the history of U.S. foreign policy towards China, particularly on the role of China in U.S. President George H.W. Bush’s Grand Strategy for a post-Cold War World Order. She is an alumna of the School of Politics founded by former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta, and she holds a first-class honors Master’s degree in International Studies from Roma Tre University, where she also completed her BA in Political Science and International Relations.

After the US Elections: Chances for a European Strategy on China

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by Gesine Weber

EU: the referee in the great-power competition that is the US-China relationship? (Image credit: ImagineChina)

Over the past four years, the EU’s inability to balance its position between the US and China proved to be extremely challenging. Its member states can neither afford to loosen their ties with their long-standing ally across the Atlantic, nor risk a large-scale decoupling from the giant in the East. The alliance with the US is an essential security guarantee for Europe and perceived as vital, especially by countries in Eastern Europe. Putting this relationship at risk would leave Europe’s eastern flank exposed to the unpredictable aggression from Russia.

At the same time, China holds crucial political weight in international affairs: besides its status as a major trading partner for Europe, Beijing is now heading four out of fifteen UN organisations. Turning completely away from China could therefore be seen as a rejection of global cooperation with an increasingly global player. As such, the EU finds itself in a delicate balancing act. Decision-makers across Europe urgently need to prevent the EU from falling as the first victim of the Thucydides trap between the two powers.

Keeping China on the political agenda

The necessity for the EU to find a common strategy for China is not new. Since the election of American President Donald J. Trump in 2016, the challenge of mitigating US-China competition grew to become an important issue for policy-makers in Europe. Despite transatlantic relations at their lowest point during this time, Trump’s China policy spurred on a European awakening towards China. This shift happened in two ways. Firstly, it put active policy-making vis-à-vis China and the Indo-Pacific high on the political agenda, counter to the region’s relative neglect in the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) before.

Secondly, however, European reluctance to endorse the US’s maximum pressure strategy towards China underlined the diverging opinions and thereby unveiled the lack of a comprehensive EU strategy on China. Despite the release of documents such as the strategic outlook on China or the 2020 Agenda for Strategic Cooperation, there has, so far, not been a comprehensive guideline or strategy on the EU’s current and future action towards China in the different realms of foreign affairs, ranging from trade to security, to technology, so on and so forth.

Presently, should President-Elect Joe Biden wants to credibly translate his value-based foreign policy discourse into practice, there is a need to cooperate with the Europeans. In this context, finding a common approach towards China might be possible at least in some policy areas. Although President Biden will most likely seek closer cooperation with the US’ European partners, there will be little patience in Washington for intra-EU or EU-NATO power struggles or debates on the wording. This is especially the case for France and Germany: the two most influential EU member states are currently getting lost in semantic quarrels on European strategic autonomy - a term that is highly contested in Germany and a concept strong advocated for by Macron -, although both actually want the same things, to advance European security and defence.

US elections as a potential driving force for EU strategy-making

Over the history of European integration, the functionalist approach of ‘form follows function’ often demonstrated the EU’s ability to overcome challenges. New policies and approaches were first and foremost designed to serve a certain objective, and institutional adaptation could follow at a later stage of this process once the output matched the expectations. In this sense, the US elections could catalyse European strategy-making.

As EU leaders have already declared their willingness to cooperate with Biden on China, it is now important for the latter to define their priorities and identify areas of cooperation. Such a development ought to happen first among the member states and then between the EU and the US. Despite the EU member states’ diverging opinions on some issues, especially on the 17+1 format, there is a growing consensus that the EU requires a common approach to China.

Accordingly, a window of opportunity is opening here for European strategy-making. Such a China strategy, however, is not to be solely focused on the identification of threats. No, this exercise should also concentrate on drafting a positive agenda on China. The potential of global cooperation, with a broad regional and multilateral approach, is to be pursued. If the EU and its member states achieve this objective and manage to present a comprehensive approach on China - ranging from foreign investment to security in the Indo-Pacific to regulation of new technologies and environmental challenges - strategy-making will succeed thanks to geopolitical drivers — and without getting lost in technical debates. Instead of wedged in between China and the US, the EU could emerge as the balancer of both.

Gesine Weber is a first-year PhD Candidate at the Defence Studies Department, King’s College London, and works as a Program Assistant for the Paris Office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. She holds a master’s degree in European Affairs (cum laude) from SciencesPo Paris and a master’s in Political Science from Freie Universität Berlin. Her research interests include European defence cooperation, which she focuses on in her PhD thesis, the CSDP, geopolitics and questions of global order.