For Biden, an awkward fight against autocracy
When Biden was inaugurated in 2021, he quickly moved to position his foreign policy as part of a larger fight against global authoritarianism. He was very clear: “autocracy or democracy” is the struggle of our time. Beyond defeating what he cast as the embodiment of that authoritarian shift in Donald Trump, he backed up this motif with strong stances on issues like Saudi Arabia, which he wished to cast as a “pariah” for their human rights record. In December, he hosted an international summit on democracy, intended to underscore the theme- though the guest list was more or less confusing.
Over the past two years, however, numerous challenges have arisen to upset and stall this agenda. Biden has been a strong supporter of Zelensky, tying Russia’s invasion to the broader phenomenon of authoritarian power-grabs in the world. But economic fallout from the war eventually led to the administration making an infamous “U-turn” on Saudi Arabia. And political victory for representatives of authoritarian or extreme-right politics in allied countries threatens to further dilute the consistency of Biden’s stated democratic hard-line.
Reports from this week encapsulate this tension. In Israel, recent elections ushered in what has widely been recognized as the country’s “most right-wing government ever.” Otzma Yehudit, which is based on the ideology of convicted ultra-nationalist terrorist Meir Kahane, now occupies key ministries as part of Netanyahu’s governing coalition, a development which has already resulted in widespread unrest.
The party’s leader, Itamar Ben-Gvir, is notorious for his remarks calling for the assassination of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin not long before a far-right assassin succeeded in his attempt. Now, the US is forced to publicly play “business as usual” with a new Israeli regime that has made haste in exerting its radical posture.
Were it only one example. The Biden administration has to contend with situations like these on several fronts. Taken together, foreign policy officials have probably been pushed close to exhaustion when it comes to triangulating interests versus pushing back on the virulent strains of politics that each of these characters represent. Administrations can attempt to explain away much through economic or strategic expediency- and the US is no stranger to working with dictators- but in the highly sensitive realm of international relations, conspicuous signals are sent through the mere act of engaging with actors on the world stage.
In May of last year, noted dictator’s son Bongbong Marcos swept to the presidency in the Philippines with a movement that outright championed his father’s world-renowned corrupt regime. Owing to the unquestionable importance of the strategic relationship here, the United States has had to awkwardly ignore every descriptive feature pertaining to Bongbong beyond the title of “Filipino president.” Meanwhile, an entire country’s modern history has been revised to recast a brutal autocrat as a hero. Kamala’s jovial photo-op with Marcos conveyed a crystal clear message: for the Biden administration, it’s “autocracy or democracy,” but see label for details.
Perhaps the most shocking situation to arise of late centers on Italy. Proudly emblazoned with neofascist imagery, the Meloni government’s overtures to both NATO and the EU have been blankly accepted, albeit at an arm’s length. The demands of present geopolitics make the necessity of maintaining relations with Italy even more of a given, but there’s no denying the permanent discomfort underlying every interaction between Meloni, her representatives, and a cadre of Western leaders- Biden, Macron, Scholz- who have honed in on nationalist revanchism as a major locus of strife in our age.
In a similar vein, Biden has shown little displeasure towards India’s Narendra Modi, who this week banned a BBC documentary lambasting him for his role in deadly riots during his tenure as Gujarat’s chief minister. Yet again, geopolitics can explain candid photographs of Biden and Modi embracing and walking together like old men heading off to play chess. In the decades to come, however, the world should brace itself for increasingly radical drift for India and its government. Major figures within the BJP, and the religious nationalist Hindutva movement affiliated with it, have called for targeting minority groups, and even for war on neighboring countries. If the US sees it as necessary to ignore domestic politics here, it may not be able to do so for long.
Perfect consistency in foreign policy is probably impossible. There are too many moving parts, and the world is too interconnected, to sustain rigid standards in terms of who and how countries form relationships. But for an administration that framed its first term as a pushback against extremism and autocracy, silence on issues like the historical revision of the Marcos regime, or the ascendancy of Italian neofascism, or mounting religious conflict in India, actually comes across as quite loud. The president who brought democracy to a summit might now be letting it sit in the basement.