Antony Blinken's Diplomatic Variable Geometry
The Secretary of State detailed his and President Biden's assessment of this era's growing dangers -- and what they are doing about them.
Earlier this week I was on a phone call with the State Department’s communications team. They gave a group of writers (including me) a preview of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s speech today on “The Power and Purpose of American Diplomacy in a New Era.” Frankly, based on the briefing, I expected a boring speech.
Instead, Secretary Blinken detailed a powerful, persuasive and balanced strategy for confronting our core global challenges. Sure, it was savvy self-promotion. It was somewhat idealized. It represents the aspirations of the Biden administration and a best-case view of their practices. It ignored the divisions within the administration, particularly with its more hawkish officials (who, for example, are currently blocking arms control efforts with Russia), and the great damage that some American corporations do around the world.
But, for me, this vision helps tell us, as Blinken said (quoting Paul Nitze), “how do we get from where were are, to where we want to be without being struck by disaster along the way?”
The Balance of Power
Blinken began, as all good assessments should, with the global strategic balance. He reminded us of how the end of the Cold War more than thirty years ago “brought with it the promise of an inexorable march toward greater peace and stability, international cooperation, economic interdependence, political liberalization, human rights.”
Remember that? A lot of that actually happened. There was remarkable progress for many years. “More than a billion people lifted from poverty. Historic lows in conflicts between states. Deadly diseases diminished – even eradicated,” he noted.
But, as he said, “not everyone benefited equally from the gains of this period.” There were wars in the former Yugoslavia, genocide in Rwanda, 9/11 in the United States, the disasterous Iraq War, the 2008 financial collapse and more. Overall, the great gains in wealth from globalization were siphoned off unequally. A few got enormously wealthy. Billions of people were left behind. And they are pissed.
As a result, the new order did not last. “What we are experiencing now is more than a test of the post-Cold War order,” says Blinken, “It’s the end of it.”
Decades of relative geopolitical stability have given way to an intensifying competition with authoritarian powers, revisionist powers. Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine is the most immediate, the most acute threat to the international order enshrined in the UN charter and its core principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence for nations, and universal indivisible human rights for individuals.
Meanwhile, the People’s Republic of China poses the most significant long-term challenge because it not only aspires to reshape the international order, it increasingly has the economic, the diplomatic, the military, the technological power to do just that.
And Beijing and Moscow are working together to make the world safe for autocracy through their “no limits partnership.”
This is why President Biden has said from the beginning of his presidency that we are at an inflections point. This idea is enshrined in the National Security Strategy of the United States and Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and other top officials embrace this assessment in their statements. I think they are correct. What we do over the next few years will likely determine the global order for decades to come.
The Hole We Are In
Blinken doesn’t shy away from the mammoth scale of the global problems, from climate change to food insecurity, and the shattering of any global governance consensus. He said:
Countries and citizens are losing faith in the international economic order, their confidence rattled by systemic flaws:
A handful of governments that used rule-shattering subsidies, stolen IP, and other market-distorting practices to gain an unfair advantage in key sectors.
Technology and globalization that hollowed out and displaced entire industries, and policies that failed to do enough to help out the workers and communities that were left behind.
And inequality that has skyrocketed. Between 1980 and 2020, the richest .1 percent accumulated the same wealth as the poorest 50 percent.
The longer these disparities persist, the more distrust and disillusionment they fuel in people who feel the system is not giving them a fair shake. And the more they exacerbate other drivers of political polarization, amplified by algorithms that reinforce our biases rather than allowing the best ideas to rise to the top.
More democracies are under threat. Challenged from the inside by elected leaders who exploit resentments and stoke fears; erode independent judiciaries and the media; enrich cronies; crack down on civil society and political opposition. And challenged from the outside, by autocrats who spread disinformation, who weaponize corruption, who meddle in elections.
Any single one of these developments would have posed a serious challenge to the post-Cold War order. Together, they’ve upended it.
Digging Out
To counter these trends, to build a new consensus, and to forge a world of greater freedom, opportunity and equality for individuals and nations, Blinken lays out a sound strategy of American leadership to strengthen existing alliances and forge new ones.
It starts with the integration of domestic and foreign policy, perhaps more than has been the case since World War II. This is what it means to have a “foreign policy for the middle class.” America’s economy and infrastructure are stronger today due to the policies of this administration. In turn, “the U.S. is in the strongest position to compete and to lead in the world,” he says.
From there, America can forge alliances that meet the challenges of global threats like climate change and geopolitical challenges like a rising China and an imperialist Russia. Biden calls it “diplomatic variable geometry.” He explains that “We start with the problem that we need to solve and we work back from there – assembling the group of partners that’s the right size and the right shape to address it. We’re intentional about determining the combination that’s truly fit for purpose.”
I won’t go into all the examples of how this strategy has played out over the past two years but by Blinken’s account and that of just about any objective observer, the progress has been remarkable. It is shows the effectiveness of a more democratic, diverse and more consensus-oriented American leadership.
NATO is stronger than ever, with two new members and the door open to more. It is more united and more capable than it has ever been.
The G7 is functioning as a viable coordinating mechanism for the world’s leading democracies.
The European Union - 40 percent of the global economy - is stronger and more cohesive.
New alliances have been forged in Asia, including the U.S.-Japan-South Korea summit, the AUKUS formation, and the Quad of India, Japan, Australia and the United States.
Individual relationships like the partnership with Vietnam have been elevated and strengthened.
Perhaps the clearest example of this is the American leadership in countering Russia’s illegal, brutal invasion of democratic Ukraine. There is a long way to go in this war and much of its success is do to the fierce resistance of the Ukrainian people and the wisdom and courage of its leadership. But it is unlikely that Ukraine’s freedom could have been preserved without U.S. military aid and diplomacy. As Blinken details:
With Secretary of Defense Austin’s leadership, more than 50 countries are cooperating to support Ukraine’s defense and build a Ukrainian military strong enough to deter and beat back future attacks.
We’ve aligned scores of countries in imposing an unprecedented set of sanctions, export controls, and other economic costs on Russia.
On multiple occasions, we’ve marshaled 140 nations at the United Nations – more than two-thirds of all the member states – to affirm Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and condemn Russia’s aggression and atrocities.
We’ve rallied donors, philanthropies, humanitarian groups to get lifesaving assistance to millions of displaced Ukrainians.
We coordinated the G7, the European Union, and dozens more countries to support Ukraine’s economy, to build back its energy grid – more than half of which Russia has destroyed.
That’s what variable geometry looks like: for every problem, we’re assembling a fit‑for‑purpose coalition.
Net Assessment
Of course, Blinken glosses over the problems. The complete failure of the administration to tackle the growing nuclear arms race is at the top of the list for me. The AUKUS arrangement is more about lucrative contracts for nuclear-powered submarines than genuine strategic partnership. But, still, the overall effectiveness of the Biden approach is hard to deny.
As my friend and colleague David Rothkopf writes in The Daily Beast today, “Blinken’s remarks were also a reminder that without fanfare and often far from the camera’s eye, the administration has compounded a record of achievement that stands out as extraordinary when compared with virtually any other modern administration.”
I didn’t read David’s piece until just now, when I was looking for one of his quotes on how impressive Biden’s record has been. I didn’t read anyone’s assessment of Blinken’s speech before I wrote this. I didn’t want to be swayed. But I am not surprised that David is as impressed as I am.
This is a very strong national security team. Perhaps the best we have had since the administration of George H. W. Bush. They have had to pull America’s national security policy out of the ditch where Trump and his band of incompetents and posers left it. In just two years, they have not only restored our international standing, they have brought it to new heights. Their accomplishments are as formidable as the challenges we face.
It is worth your while to read Secretary Blinken’s speech, or watch the video. It will make you proud.
It is not some abstract bit of fluff and self-congratulation. It is not the fantasy foreign policy of the Trump years. It is the vision of a team doing the block and tackle of diplomacy. It is a sound, workable strategy for getting us “to where we want to be.”
And for ensuring that we get through this inflection point with the curve turning decidedly upwards.
Good to see such a strong emphasis on the UN institutions rather than just a vague 'international order'.