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From Trump to Biden the Way Forward for U.S From Trump to Biden The Way Forward for U.S. National Security Edited by John Hannah & David Adesnik January 2021 FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES From Trump to Biden The Way Forward for U.S. National Security Edited by John Hannah & David Adesnik January 2021 From Trump to Biden: The Way Forward for U.S. National Security Table of Contents FOREWORD INTRODUCTION AFGHANISTAN FDD Senior Management John Hannah and Bill Roggio 6 8 David Adesnik 12 CHINA EUROPE INDIA Emily de La Bruyère and Eric S. Edelman and Cleo Paskal 16 Nathan Picarsic 20 Philip Kowalski 24 IRAN IRAQ ISRAEL Mark Dubowitz and John Hannah Jonathan Schanzer and 28 Richard Goldberg 32 36 David May LATIN AMERICA LEBANON NORTH KOREA Emanuele Ottolenghi Tony Badran David Maxwell and 40 44 48 Mathew Ha RUSSIA SAUDI ARABIA SYRIA Eric S. Edelman and John Hannah and David Adesnik 52 John Hardie 56 Varsha Koduvayur 60 TURKEY YEMEN ARMS CONTROL AND 64 Aykan Erdemir and 68 Varsha Koduvayur 72 NONPROLIFERATION Philip Kowalski Behnam Ben Taleblu and Andrea Stricker CYBER DEFENSE ENERGY Samantha Ravich, Bradley Bowman Brenda Shaffer 76 RADM (Ret.) Mark Montgomery, 80 84 Annie Fixler, and Trevor Logan HEZBOLLAH’S HUMAN RIGHTS INTERNATIONAL LAW 88 GLOBAL THREAT 92 Tzvi Kahn, Alireza Nader, and 96 Orde F. Kittrie Emanuele Ottolenghi Saeed Ghasseminejad INTERNATIONAL NATIONAL SUNNI JIHADISM 100 ORGANIZATIONS 104 ECONOMIC SECURITY 108 Thomas Joscelyn Richard Goldberg Eric B. Lorber and Juan C. Zarate CONCLUSION 112 Clifford D. May | 5 FOREWORD FDD Senior Management ABOVE: Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as they push barricades to storm the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021. (Photo by Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images) 6 | From Trump to Biden: The Way Forward for U.S. National Security On January 6, 2021, a mob of American rioters stormed the Capitol building in Washington, DC. The ensuing melee led to the killing of a Capitol Police officer and the death of four rioters. The episode was a national disgrace. It was an assault on Congress. It was an attempt to forcibly overturn the results of a democratic election. It was a gift to foreign enemies whose main goal is to see American power and leadership laid low, riven by internal division and chaos. And it would not have happened without the encouragement of the president of the United States, Donald Trump. The abortive insurrection was launched just as this edited volume on Trump’s national security legacy was about to go to publication. Indeed, FDD’s scholars had the unenviable task of having completed our foreign policy assessments of the most controversial president in modern memory at the very moment the most shocking events of his presidency were unfolding. Trump’s term in office will forever be defined by the terrible events of January 6. Nothing will change that. To a lesser extent, it will be defined by his mercurial decision-making style. Trump was a “post-policy” president who vexed allies and enemies alike. And as we can attest, he vexed think tankers, too. Yet there are foreign policy lessons to be learned from the Trump presidency. Whether challenging the Chinese Communist Party after years of accommodation and even obsequiousness, applying maximum pressure on the regime in Iran, or forging peace between Israel and no fewer than four Arab states, there are important wins to process. And even where Trump stumbled, such as by insulting NATO allies; flattering dictators such as Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping, and Vladimir Putin; pressuring Ukraine to advance his own re-election; attempting to help Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan avoid accountability for a massive sanctions-busting scheme; making a bad “peace” deal with the Taliban; or suddenly withdrawing troops from Syria, there are lessons to be learned. We cannot simply dismiss four years of policymaking because Trump’s legacy is now indelibly stained. America must learn from these last four years. Given the political climate and the toxic ideologies and divisions that will persist well after Trump is gone, that will not be easy. But FDD remains committed to playing a role in the foreign policy and national security debates that are sure to come. Our hope is that those debates remain substantive and respectful and ultimately serve to defend America’s democracy. To be sure, that democracy has emerged bruised and battered after these four years, if not longer. But it still stands tall. And we have every intention of joining with our fellow Americans – Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike – in helping to keep it that way and opposing all adversaries that would threaten our nation’s constitutional order and national security. | 7 From Trump to Biden: The Way Forward for U.S. National Security INTRODUCTION John Hannah and David Adesnik Two years after FDD published its midterm assessment also find many instances in which his initiatives had of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy, the job real merit in terms of advancing important American of evaluating his administration’s legacy on national interests and are worthy of being maintained or built security affairs has not gotten easier.1 As Trump’s upon by the Biden administration. presidency ends, his shortcomings as the leader of the world’s most powerful liberal democracy are starker Pointing out where the Trump administration than ever. The insults flung at longstanding democratic may have succeeded in no way mitigates Trump’s allies. The flattery of tyrants. The questioning of solemn incitement of an insurrection against our constitutional treaty commitments. An oftentimes shambolic decision- order. Rather, it is an effort to point out what can be making process marked by confusion, flip flops, and deep salvaged as Biden seeks to repair the damage done at contradictions between Trump and his top advisors. The home and abroad. list goes on. And all of it magnified in the final months All of the chapters in this volume follow the same of his presidency by Trump’s unprecedented refusal to three-part structure: 1) a factual description of the acknowledge the legitimacy of his successor, President- Trump administration’s policy in a given area; 2) an elect Joe Biden, his extended quest to overturn the assessment of that policy’s successes and shortcomings; results of a democratic election, and the shocking and 3) a series of recommendations for the new spectacle of a pro-Trump mob storming the U.S. Capitol administration and Congress. While each chapter as Congress assembled to fulfill its constitutionally stands on its own and readers should not hesitate to mandated duty to certify Biden’s status as the nation’s focus on their areas of interest, taken together they next commander in chief. paint a comprehensive portrait of Trump’s foreign policy and offer a wide menu of useful policy ideas for The events of January 6, 2021, will forever tarnish the Biden administration. Trump’s place in American history. On top of all the other outrages, large and small, associated with his America First tenure, there will no doubt be a powerful instinct within the incoming Biden administration to recoil from While Trump – not always without justification – touted everything associated with the 45th president, including his unpredictability as an asset in foreign relations, he the entirety of his foreign policy. But as this volume also said that his overall approach to the world could be of essays suggests, that would be a serious mistake. understood by one common-sense principle: “America In the 25 chapters that follow, FDD experts offer a First.” A blend of populism, nationalism, mercantilism, systematic analysis of Trump’s term in office, tackling isolationism, and unilateralism, this maxim helped explain on an issue-by-issue basis the vast majority of topics of his transactional view of alliances, lack of attention to greatest significance to U.S. national security. They pull human rights, and skepticism of free-trade deals and no punches in areas where they judge Trump’s efforts foreign military commitments. to have fallen short or even failed. But the authors 8 | From Trump to Biden: The Way Forward for U.S. National Security In many instances, the results were mixed. Amid In some cases, Trump’s actions fed suspicions Trump’s public scolding, NATO members continued to that America First had given way to the pursuit increase their investments in collective defense. But the of his own personal interests first. Whatever the contempt Trump showed for his European counterparts constitutional implications of his “perfect” phone call also made it harder to mobilize some of the world’s with Ukraine’s new president in 2019, it created the most influential democracies to meet common threats, damaging perception that Trump was withholding particularly from China. U.S. assistance to a critical partner unless it acted to advance his re-election prospects. Less well-known but Trump’s idiosyncratic decision- also troubling were Trump’s efforts, at the urging of making style often confounded Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to stop federal prosecutors from holding accountable close Erdogan efforts to develop and execute associates involved in a multibillion-dollar scheme to a coherent national strategy, circumvent U.S. sanctions on Iran. “America First” or otherwise. Trump’s idiosyncratic decision-making style often Trump’s efforts to establish a strong personal bond confounded efforts to develop and execute a coherent with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin national strategy, “America First” or otherwise. Policy Salman helped win the kingdom’s backing for the historic by presidential tweet was a fact of life for senior normalization deals that Israel struck with several Arab administration officials, who often received no warning of neighbors.
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