The central elements of that aspiration were a “foreign policy for the middle class” (meaning, industrial policy, restricted trade, and expansive government spending), weighting diplomacy over military force, and deepening and expanding alliances. The policy explicitly connected democracy at home and abroad. In a recent essay in Foreign Affairs, Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote that the administration was able to successfully enact “a strategy of renewal, pairing historic investments in competitiveness at home with an intensive diplomatic campaign to revitalize partnerships abroad.”

The standards that the Biden administration set for itself are one way by which to measure the success or failure of its policies. And by the Biden team’s own criteria, its foreign policies have not met its grandiose standards. The middle class appeared more concerned about inflation than democracy at home or America being back abroad; near the end of Biden’s presidency, two-thirds of U.S. voters considered the country on the wrong track. And rather than strengthening democracy at home, the Biden administration has become the bridge between the first and second Trump presidencies.

But even before the Afghanistan debacle, Biden demonstrated indifference to the foreign-policy consequences of his glib public pronouncements. He called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “killer” and threatened to make Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman a “pariah.” While those sentiments were admirable, they weren’t matched by policies and instead wilted when those leaders imposed consequences on the United States. Such utterances are of a piece with the president declaring at least four times that the United States would send troops to defend Taiwan: The policy isn’t the problem, but the disconnect between the statement and procuring the military force to achieve it, and the lack of a campaign of public education to prepare Americans for a war against China, is. Given the precedent of obsequious capitulation—as when Biden officials discovered that Saudi Arabia was actually important to U.S. objectives in the Middle East, could affect the U.S. economy, and had the option of cooperation with China—the likeliest Biden reaction to China calling his bluff would have been a failure to carry out his stated policy.

This is the central failure of Biden’s foreign policy: the expansive chasm between brave pronouncements and what the administration was actually willing to risk or commit to achieve its goals. In theory, Biden’s policy toward Iran was that unless Tehran forswore developing nuclear weapons and committed to a longer and stronger nuclear deal, the United States would destroy the country’s nuclear infrastructure. Yet it is impossible to imagine a president so committed to reducing U.S. involvement in the Middle East, and broadly skeptical about the use of military force, carrying out that policy.

This is the central failure of Biden’s foreign policy: the expansive chasm between brave pronouncements and what the administration was actually willing to risk or commit to achieve its goals.

Nowhere is the gap between objective and risk more evident or damaging than Ukraine. Biden officials repeatedly said the United States would support Ukraine “as long as it takes,” committing more than $100 billion in assistance, but they provided that assistance more slowly than needed, without consideration of the costs in blood and momentum from their fear of escalation. Their hesitance to commit to Ukraine regaining its internationally recognized territory even produced the unusual circumstance of America’s European allies initiating transfers of weapons that Washington had hesitated on providing. Only then was the Biden administration reluctantly shamed into matching the courage of smaller, more at-risk allies.

The administration wasn’t wrong to be cautious early in the Russian invasion; its fearfulness of a regional war becoming a world war was justified. But its approach to telegraphing that fearfulness emboldened Moscow and other adversaries to adopt strategies that threatened escalation, as Russia did recently in amending its nuclear doctrine when the United States finally allowed Ukraine to employ ATACMS missiles  against targets inside Russia. And despite numerous Russian threats and red lines as Western support expanded, the war has not widened beyond Ukraine or escalated to nuclear weapons use. That suggests a greater appreciation in Moscow than in Washington of the fundamental power equation favoring the United States and its allies. Yet the Biden administration remained overly cautious to such an extent that it has not only prevented Ukraine’s success but also reduced U.S. support for continuing to aid Ukraine.

The Biden administration also averted its eyes from mushrooming problems such as the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs. In early 2020, Iran’s breakout time was a year; it’s now likely one to two weeks. In 2021, experts estimated that North Korea had assembled between 10 and 20 nuclear warheads; it now has roughly 50, with fissile material for 70-90 more. Biden’s team didn’t appear to have a North Korea policy until 2023; North Korea didn’t even merit a subtitle in the National Security Strategy, as food insecurity and climate and energy security did. Instead, there was just a passing reference to the threat of the North Korean nuclear and missile programs. The Biden administration simply ignored the provocations of an expanded nuclear weapons arsenal, repeated missile and satellite launches demonstrating improved ability to target the United States, repudiation of Korean unification by Pyongyang, and provision of artillery and other weapons to Russia.

The commitment of at least 10,000 North Korean soldiers to Russia’s war in Ukraine provoked such alarm among allies in both Europe and Asia that the administration finally had to respond. Biden declared Pyongyang’s behavior “dangerous and destabilizing” and said something must be done, but he didn’t do anything beyond ineffectually encouraging China to restrain North Korea and claiming that he would now belatedly allow Ukraine to begin using some U.S. weapons at their effective ranges—but only in the vicinity of one part of the battle, once again telegraphing Washington’s anxieties to the aggressor. Deterrence doesn’t work that way. Instead of creating uncertainty and fear in its adversaries about how the United States would use its strength to prevent or penalize their malign actions, the Biden administration projected the constraints it put on U.S. behavior.

Brian Stauffer illustration for Foreign Policy

Another major deficiency in the Biden administration’s foreign policy was the absence of meaningful trade initiatives. Allies in Asia hoped the Biden administration would rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership; what they got were belated empty vessels in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework and the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity, neither of which provided market access provisions. The Biden White House privately said it would vigorously pursue bilateral and narrow sectoral trade agreements, but it didn’t accomplish much. The president added insult to injury at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in November 2023 by pulling a deal already negotiated with 13 other countries.

That dearth of opportunity has been coupled with retaining Trump tariffs on allies, “Buy America” restrictions, and subsidies to U.S. businesses, making U.S. international economic policy regressive. What allies want is a vision for mutual prosperity without having to rely on China, and what they have gotten from the Biden administration is further restrictions on their businesses and threats of sanctions against doing business with China.

Trade policy was not the only major regression in the levers of U.S. power during the Biden administration: Defense spending looms even larger. The U.S. defense budget failed to keep pace with inflation in any of the four years of his term. The U.S. military has lost ground rather than gained it in those four years. In the first year of the Biden administration, Congress on a bipartisan basis added $25 billion to the president’s budget request. In the second year, Congress added $45 billion to the president’s budget request. Currently, Congress is deciding between adhering to the president’s budget caps (in the House of Representatives) and raising his request by between $21.5 billion (Senate Appropriations Committee) and $37.4 billion (Senate Armed Services Committee). 

Meanwhile, Russia has increased its defense spending to record levels, such that it will make up a third of the country’s budget in 2025, and China has more than doubled its budget since 2015 (and that’s just using Chinese government figures—calculating China’s defense spending as the United States calculates it brings it to more than $700 billion, approaching parity with U.S. spending). The Biden administration describes China as the “pacing challenge,” and it has allowed the country to outpace the United States on virtually every metric of defense and defense industrial capability.

A humiliating retreat from Afghanistan, allowing deterrence to corrode, adopting a risk-averse approach to adversaries, persisting in an unsuccessful approach to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, trade policy missing in action, and inadequate defense spending—those are all big things to get wrong in national security policy. There were lesser disappointments, too, such as the 2021 Summit for Democracy designed to “bolster democratic governance at home and abroad,” which exacerbated tensions with excluded allies and produced nothing.

There was also a major missed opportunity in the consolidation of North America as a labor platform, an energy production and distribution grid, and a supply and manufacturing base. If the United States and its immediate neighbors could find ways to deepen their cooperation, they would have the economy of scale to confront China, secure supply chains, and reduce immigration by both increasing standards of living in Mexico and giving the United States strategic depth to manage the flow of immigrants at Mexico’s southern border. It would be an enormous lift for the three governments, but the alternative is Mexico sinking into criminality and China getting a back door into the U.S. economy and expanding its influence in Latin America. The Biden administration didn’t even attempt it. In fact, one of Biden’s first official acts was to cancel the U.S.-Canada Keystone XL pipeline project.

The administration prioritized threats, with China paramount, expanding both cooperation and the tools to deal with them. It joined AUKUS, a tripartite arrangement with Australia and the United Kingdom for cooperative military development. It deepened defense cooperation with the Philippines and supported Manila’s maritime claims and has started trilateral Japan-Philippines-U.S. consultations. It encouraged Japan’s initiative for rapprochement with South Korea and institutionalized it with the Camp David agreements. It expanded cooperation through the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue with Australia, India, and Japan. It gained support from NATO allies for China as an alliance concern. It brought creative economic statecraft into play, with the U.S. Commerce Department taking a leading role in determining what to prohibit and how. It returned attention to neglected small states across the Pacific being intimidated or seduced by China.

Under the able leadership of Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and CIA Director William Burns (with a uniformed assist from Gen. Paul Nakasone at the National Security Agency until his retirement last February), the Biden administration restored the reputation of the U.S. intelligence community, with accurate assessments, increased transparency, and expansive intelligence sharing. Not only was it right, but it was right early enough for allied governments to align their policies in advance of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. It repeatedly showcased remarkable penetration of the Russian government without exposing its sources. It appears to have recovered from China’s decimation of its network of agents, doubling resources and establishing a CIA mission center focused on China.

If the United States and its immediate neighbors could find ways to deepen their cooperation, they would have the economy of scale to confront China, secure supply chains, and reduce immigration.

The Biden administration has held the NATO alliance together through its greatest test since the 1956 Suez crisis. Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine could have shattered the alliance (and may yet). Instead, the Biden administration not only reassured allies but led them to a strong and unified stance on defense of the NATO area and provision of material support to Ukraine. And allies have continued to increase their defense spending, an upward trend that began with Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine: 23 allies now meet the agreed-on 2 percent of GDP committed to defense. Successful negotiation of Sweden’s and Finland’s accession to the alliance required painful interactions with Turkey and would have been impossible without sustained effort from the Biden administration.

The administration also organized a colossal international effort to provide military aid to Ukraine. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin corralled more than 50 counterparts to meet monthly with Ukrainian officials for updates on the war and needed assistance. The Ukraine Defense Contact Group is a reminder of what U.S. leadership can accomplish and how much it is needed in a dangerous time.

Many of these achievements are likely to be squandered by the Trump administration. Donald Trump is temperamentally ill-suited to multilateral or institutionalized cooperation, preferring personal bilateral dealings that maximize U.S. leverage and center attention on him. His record is decidedly mixed on deterring aggression, and no one knows what he will propose budgetarily. He is deeply distrustful of the intelligence community and military leadership. His cabinet appointments so far are long on wrecking balls and short on construction crews.

A reflection by the great 19th-century short-story writer Washington Irving seems applicable to the recent U.S. election: “There is a certain relief in change even though it be from bad to worse! As I have found in travelling in a stage-coach, that it is often a comfort to shift one’s position, and be bruised in a new place.” America, and the world, is about to be bruised in a new place.