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As the U.S. presidential election looms, many questions still remain about how either Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris or Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump will handle issues related to national security or foreign policy. The following discussion outlines some of the issues that the new president and her or his administration will have to grapple with in order to establish clearer understandings of America's role in the world and its connection to U.S. domestic politics.
First, there is much discussion among political office holders, media commentators and others about the return of a new Cold War resembling the geopolitical rivalries among the U.S., the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China from the end of World War II until the collapse of the Soviet Union. On the other hand, a more complicated picture looms ahead than a retro Cold War. We are heading into a post-post Cold War system that is partly reminiscent of the past but partakes of a new economic, technological and military constellation of factors influencing policy and strategy.
The present global geopolitical system is a work in progress involving at least two different ad hoc coalitions of states. The first is a collaborative coalition of countries working to resolve international problems through transnational cooperation in areas such as climate change, pandemics, international peace and security, failed states and human trafficking. This coalition has some fluidity in its membership, depending on the issues involved, but it includes most of the world's larger democracies and wealthier states, as well as selected other actors in the Global South. We can think of this grouping as the "Problem Solvers" coalition.
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The second coalition consists of those states that object to most of the structure of the present rules-based international order centered on the U.S. and its Western allies. Some of the leaders in this "Dissatisfied Doubters" coalition want to return to the days of imperialism, autocracy and ideologically driven foreign policy characteristic of the previous two centuries. Leaders of this coalition include Russia, North Korea and Iran. Others in this coalition feel that the present international system has too many structural inequalities, including in wealth and military power.
This sub-grouping also includes a number of states whose leaders feel that they are insufficiently respected despite their rising regional political and cultural influence. For example, Russia has tried to reach out to countries in the Global South that might be interested in joining the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) coalition, which -- despite some disagreements on other issues -- share a sense of malaise and resentment about the present international system.
Some leading powers want to maintain influence in both of these camps; China and India are two examples. China's Belt and Road initiative is among its economic efforts to dominate global infrastructure and thereby increase its international influence without resort to war or imperialism. At the same time, China is also building up its conventional and nuclear military power in order to rival the security status of the U.S. and Russia.
China supports Russia's war against Ukraine but also seeks to engage with the collaborative coalition of Problem Solvers on trade, finance and other issues. India is the world's largest democracy and prizes its role of nonalignment with bloc politics. But India also lives in a dangerous neighborhood and cannot ignore its rivalries with Pakistan and China. India is one of the cornerstone members of BRICS but also has considerable diplomatic influence on transnational economic, political and social policies.
The Nuclear Threat
The second set of foreign policy issues related to the 2024 election is the potential for nuclear proliferation and the possibility of nuclear first use. In the case of nuclear first use, Russian President Vladimir Putin has irresponsibly interjected this threat into public statements since the beginning of his war against Ukraine in February 2022. Putin has been pushed into this cul-de-sac by the failure of his military campaign to defeat Ukraine and impose regime change despite Russia's overwhelming superiority relative to Ukraine in manpower and military-industrial resources.
As well, Putin's war of aggression has revived and solidified NATO, adding to its membership the formerly nonaligned states of Finland and Sweden. With respect to nuclear nonproliferation, this has been a relative success story from the onset of the nuclear age to the present. However, the near-term possibility of an Iranian bomb hangs over the Middle East, and is especially troublesome, given the already roiling regional war between Israel and Iranian proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah. The possible spread of nuclear weapons in Asia cannot be ruled out, either, especially if U.S. allies' faith in American extended nuclear deterrence is subjected to doubt.
The Fate of Democracy
Another set of foreign and security policy issues related to the 2024 election might be entitled "Democracy at Bay." It seems that lessons learned in the 20th century about the fragility of democracy when it is threatened by forces within states or by outside aggressors have been forgotten in too many quarters. Obviously, states with little historical experience in political democracy must always be on guard against domestic or foreign influences that would subvert democratic procedures and safeguards. But even states with considerable experience in democratic governance are not immune from the dangers that undermine political stability.
The list of democracies under siege includes the U.S. and Western Europe. What was learned by means of hard experience and education during the Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment, with respect to the foundations and purposes of government, has now been pushed aside by some elites in supposedly advanced democracies. Instead, citizens are subjected to an unrelenting diatribe of psychobabble substituting for analysis, creating an information space of self-imposed political defeatism. For example, with respect to the U.S. role in the world, no longer are we the "shining city on a hill"; now we are just another country. Instead, American international leadership is derided by some as "globalism," and national security is thought to be based on splendid isolationism.
Human Rights and Migration
A fourth set of issues for the U.S. presidential election related to foreign policy is human rights. Simply put: The world's leading democracies have a responsibility for leadership in this regard, both within their national boundaries but also in the global commons. The issue of mass migration is an example of how states must cooperate to resolve the problems that otherwise drive economically disadvantaged and politically persecuted people across state boundaries.
Even the U.S., with its tradition of welcoming the dispossessed and distressed from abroad, found itself unable to cope with the numbers of migrants crossing its borders between 2020 and 2024. Major cities such as New York and Chicago were inundated with new arrivals that strained their budgets, and many critics of U.S. immigration policy charged that the wave of migrants increased crime rates and siphoned economic resources from other needs. Border controls became a contentious issue in the 2024 presidential campaigns, as Republicans charged Democrats with deliberate attempts to redefine the demography of the U.S. and to increase the numbers of potentially Democratic voters. But the U.S. was not alone in facing challenges caused by international migration: Since 2014, countries in Western Europe have also experienced rising numbers of challenges to their social and economic fabrics posed by growing numbers of immigrants.
The challenge of mass migration in the 21st century is not going away, and it cannot be resolved by any single country's draconian border controls. People who live in failed states where governments are hopelessly inefficient or corrupt, and where economic opportunities for them and their children are dead ends, will not simply sit down and die. They will move or revolt.
Failing these people is not only unjust, it is also self-defeating for advanced democracies. Democracy, in order to last across generations, must assimilate both native-born and immigrant contributors to a body politic that rewards compromise among competing interests within a shared framework of expectations about public policy. The U.S. has succeeded at this in the past, and it can continue to do so in the future with courageous leadership, educated voters and continuing recognition that persons with different political views are not enemies but friends with different opinions.
-- Stephen Cimbala is a distinguished professor of political science at Penn State Brandywine and the author of numerous books and articles on international security issues.
-- Lawrence Korb, a retired Navy captain, has held national security positions at several think tanks, and served in the Pentagon in the Reagan administration.
