If Biden wins

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: If Biden wins

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

And now the CIA post has been filled, an ex-diplomat with Russia (as ambassador) and Middle East involvement. And a slight flip in roles as in the Cabinet National Intelligence, as an aggregator, has a seat and the CIA will be the 'action men' in the filed.
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: If Biden wins

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This thread will move on , from 'IFs' to the more disaggregated policy areas and the appropriate threads in about a week or so. But it might be worthwhile to try to scan ahead: what will follow from the inauguration onwards. It may not directly affect Britain's place in the world, but will certainly influence our policies.

James Mattis was still a serving USMC general (of the Mad Dog fame from Iraq) when he said this, in a congressional hearing:
“I would start with the State Department budget. Frankly, they need to be as fully funded as Congress believes appropriate, because if you don’t fund the State Department fully then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately. So I think it’s a cost-benefit ratio. The more we put into the State Department’s diplomacy, hopefully the less we have to put into a military budget as we deal with the outcome of apparent American withdrawal from the international scene.”
- Trump, rather famously, has spent the last four years hollowing out the State Dept

I think that naming a career diplomat to lead the CIA (supposedly an outward-looking part of the multitude that is called intelligence institutions, a good half dozen of them in all) also reflects this thinking while paying heed to America’s needs for a better national security set up at home - and a more unbiased aggregator of intelligence - foreign and domestic - sitting on the NSC. The past, massive investment in a new player, called the DHS, seems to have gone too much to the physical side of things. When things have come to the crunch, it seems that it is the other agencies mobilising... physically, accompanied with a frantic effort to fill the intelligence vacuum.

So shifting back to the outward policies and the agencies to execute them, Trump’s America First doctrine was disastrous as for dismantling or loosening alliances, but at the same it reflected an instinctive awareness of the problem of balance between policies domestic and those that are external in their nature
- like weaponising trade, when the 'idea' is to use it as a tool to build domestic prosperity.
- Prosperity that trickles down, too, rather than just boosting the dividends paid by multinationals.

Joe Biden’s incoming administration surely is aware of the need to rebalance the triangle of diplomacy & trade; intelligence & defence (security policies being the interim step there) and finally, lumped together, domestic policies. So that all of these are cohered (a v popular word these days) to yield both peace and prosperity.
- there is no doubt that Russia will continue its pre-eminence in the cyber 'grey zone'
- nor is there any doubt about a rising China bullying other nations, hollowing out their industries ( not a small factor in the rise of Trump-ism... or Brexit, for that matter), and actively exporting authoritarianism. Any reshuffling of US priorities must still find some balance with the ability to pay (avoiding 'imperial overreach') and deeper consultation with allies - so as not to 'go it alone' with the whisk-and-whim policies of late that anyone else, except our Boris, have found difficult so quickly (or at all) to realign with.

On a positive note (to balance what was said in the previous sentence), most of the above sounds much like :idea: the 'stuff' that our Integrated Review is to deal with. Instigated by Boris... perhaps having him in as 'the' apprentice in the FCO was productive :o , after all?
- and perhaps, too, the delaying of its publication by a couple of months was not driven just by spending priorities - indeed the financial frame within which to plan was reset :clap: :clap: - but also by the need to wait for, and possibly better align with, the policies that are just about to be announced on the other side of the Pond
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: If Biden wins

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may not directly affect Britain's place in the world
except 'no imminent' trade deal...
- joking aside, there might be more alignment in Foreign Policy than since a long time
- what would indicate that? Start with the seating order
in the West Wing, now that the Administration is in place (just about)

Looks v much like a corporate structure: The chairman having just two close aides, right next to him. His (campaign) strategist and the national security adviser
- the CEO having all the other functions (external comms and internal staff/ agenda mgt... befittingly the COO (Chief of Staff) on her right-hand side, in the next office

But form follows content? So what did Politico pick up re: foreign police drivers when the Administration was still being formed

"restructuring the NSC to make public health a permanent national security priority, Sullivan [the Advisor] said. China will also be put on notice, he added.

“The way you actually make sure this doesn't happen again is by sending a very clear message to China that the United States and the rest of the world will not accept a circumstance in which we do not have an effective public health surveillance system, with an international dimension, in China and across the world going forward,” Sullivan said. A key theme Sullivan repeatedly returns to is the restoration of alliances and partnerships that were neglected or spurned under Trump.

[...]

He is similarly optimistic about one of his loftiest goals: “to rally our allies to combat corruption and kleptocracy, and to hold systems of authoritarian capitalism accountable for greater transparency and participation in a rules-based system.”

Going back (by some time :( ) we were the leaders in launching the global anti-corruption/ money-laundering initiative. Going by some latest statements the Gvmnt seems to have found the backbone again, not just with Russia, but China as well
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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SKB
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Re: If Biden wins

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Old Joe is either senile or just totally crap at maths....

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: If Biden wins

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

You don't need a MAGA hat... if you can get it in the bag
"WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden was set to announce Tuesday that he is shaving about two weeks off his May 1 deadline for states to make all adults eligible for coronavirus vaccines."

Looks like he did not just borrow the slogan
"build back better"
but also that Easter (take or add a few days)
is the new Christmas :)
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Pseudo
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Re: If Biden wins

Post by Pseudo »

ArmChairCivvy wrote:Looks like he did not just borrow the slogan
"build back better"
but also that Easter (take or add a few days)
is the new Christmas :)
I might be wrong, but I think that it was the Johnson government that "borrowed" the slogan from the Biden presidential campaign.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: If Biden wins

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Ok, that way round. I did not follow the early phases of that campaign that much (only when it rose to a crescendo).
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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