For Foreign Policy, CIC's James Traub breaks down what a Biden presidency would mean for U.S. foreign-policy and the Middle East.
"The Middle East would almost certainly be demoted under a President Biden—but how far? One senior advisor—who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the campaign—predicts that the Middle East would be “a distant fourth” in the order of priorities, after Europe, the Indo-Pacific, and Latin America."
In the third Foreign Policy column of his series about a possible Biden presidency, CIC senior fellow James Traub details Biden's attitudes toward China.
"Biden has simply learned that beating up on China has become a cost-free way to prove your toughness. That wasn’t true even when he left office; his new bellicosity demonstrates how very quickly the consensus on China has shifted both in the broad public and among policymakers."
In this Foreign Policy column, CIC senior fellow James Traub writes about what a Biden presidency could mean for neoliberalism as a dogma in foreign-policy.
"Some elements of a Biden foreign policy would almost certainly move left as a dependent variable of domestic policy. Biden uses the expression “a foreign policy for the middle class” to express the idea that trade and international economic policy must be guided by the benefits they will bring to average Americans—rather than to American multinationals."
For the first column of a Foreign Policy series about Joe Biden’s foreign-policy vision, CIC's James Traub talked with Biden's team members to learn more about their perspective.
"What would it mean to rally democracies without fighting a new cold war, and without pretending to the status of undisputed leadership the United States had 70 years ago? The first order of business, as Biden notes in his Foreign Affairs essay, is 'renewing democracy at home.'"
In his latest piece for Foreign Policy, CIC senior fellow James Traub discusses Democratic candidate Joe Biden's experience with U.S. foreign policy.
"Should he win, Biden will know the world beyond the United States’ borders better than any president since Richard Nixon, or perhaps Theodore Roosevelt," Traub writes.
In a new column for Foreign Policy, CIC senior fellow James Traub writes about the post-pandemic struggle for global prestige and economic dominance, and argues that both the U.S. and China are losing the fight.
"If some model has emerged as the winner of this dreadful sweepstakes, it is not China’s authoritarian one but rather that of the democracies that share China’s 'Asian values' of collective discipline, deference to authority, and faith in the state," Traub said.
In this op-ed for Foreign Policy, CIC's James Traub and Paul Von Chamier reflect on whether the spirit of solidarity in response to COVID-19 will translate into new policy choices.
"It is precisely the deep-seated inequality of Western societies that makes the imagery of solidarity look so hollow—even though, for once, we are all in this together," Traub and Chamier argue. "Thanks to the very unequal suffering we have begun to experience, the coronavirus is likelier to deepen than to alleviate our social divisions. But it does not have to be so."
In a new column for Foreign Policy, Non-Resident Fellow James Traub argues changing US policy on Syria is forcing an overdue conversation about America's role in the Middle East.
Traub draws on Democratic presidential candidates' debate statements about President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from Syria to explore the emerging "dogma of restraint" and its implications for the future.
In Foreign Policy, Afghanistan-Pakistan Regional Project director Barnett Rubin calls on the US to maintain aid to Afghanistan to keep the peace process alive amid the impact of COVID-19.
"The impact on Afghanistan of coronavirus in the United States may rival or exceed that of the breakup of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991," Rubin writes."A complete drawdown of U.S. aid and military support for the Afghan government could well lead the country to collapse."
A US withdrawal has opened the door to a possible political settlement in Afghanistan, but success will depend on regional powers and the country’s neighbors.
Under Biden, the Middle East Would Be Just Another Region
For Foreign Policy, CIC's James Traub breaks down what a Biden presidency would mean for U.S. foreign-policy and the Middle East.
"The Middle East would almost certainly be demoted under a President Biden—but how far? One senior advisor—who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the campaign—predicts that the Middle East would be “a distant fourth” in the order of priorities, after Europe, the Indo-Pacific, and Latin America."