Values and U.S. Foreign Policy in a New Age of Strategic Competition
Image: Chip Somodevilla / Shutterstock
By Mieczysław P. Boduszyński and Holden Tsai
For those who think that values should play a role in U.S. foreign policy, the second Donald Trump presidency is viewed with doom. The first Trump administration largely deprioritized the support of democracy and human rights overseas, and the second Trump administration will almost certainly do the same.
Yet, Trump notwithstanding, there is an inherent tension between the promotion of values overseas and a U.S. foreign policy that has increasingly focused on great power competition.
This tension was cast in sharp relief during the administration of Joe Biden, which initially vowed to put values at the center of his foreign policy, claiming that the objective of countering China and Russia should be entirely compatible with the goal of supporting democracy and upholding human rights around the world. Both countries, after all, espouse expansive authoritarianism. The resulting logic is that limiting China and Russia’s global influence by cultivating allies and partners helps support a rules-based world order, thereby bolstering the global reach and appeal of democracy. However, the reality is that–much like during the Cold War–great power competition sometimes leads the United States to seek closer ties with undemocratic governments.
President Joe Biden’s 2022 National Security Strategy anticipated and attempted to justify the tension between wanting to support democracy on one hand and the alliance-seeking logic of great-power competition on the other. After framing the current world order as a grand contest between autocracy and democracy, the document declared that the United States “will work to strengthen democracy around the world” because it “encourages a peaceful world order.” But just one paragraph later, the Biden NSS offered a caveat, suggesting that in seeking to strengthen democracy, the United States should be concerned primarily with nondemocratic regimes which “layer authoritarian governance with a revisionist foreign policy.”
The implication was clear: when it comes to its democracy and human rights policy, the United States will make an exception for regimes who are partners and allies, even if the regimes in question undermine democracy and human rights at home. This recalled the “Kirkpatrick Doctrine” of the Reagan era, which held that non-communist authoritarian allied regimes were far less a threat to the United States than those in the Soviet sphere of influence. In Biden’s approach, there would be an implicit deal with certain autocratic and backsliding partners and allies: Washington would mute its criticism of abuses in exchange for cooperation in the struggle against Chinese and Russian influence. Such a transactional approach is likely to feature in the second Trump term as well.
While Biden’s failure to use U.S. leverage to hold Israel accountable for its violations in Gaza received the most attention by human rights advocates and the media after the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, the gap between the Biden administration’s word and deed in terms of upholding values was evident in many regions of the world. To be sure, there were countries–from Senegal to Guatemala–where the Biden administration stood up for democracy and democrats. However, in certain Asian countries on the frontlines of strategic competition with China–India, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam, among others–the administration remained silent in the face of abuses.
India, Thailand, and the Philippines are notable in this regard because they are longstanding U.S. partners and allies with recent democratic histories. They are all countries where Washington has supported democracy in the past and continues to have the leverage to continue to do so. Yet, in all these cases the Biden administration was willing to deprioritize human rights abuses and democratic backsliding. India, an especially important partner in the goal of checking Chinese influence, stands out. As Sarah Yager of Human Rights Watch recently noted, “The White House rolled out the red carpet for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2023, even after U.S. intelligence had implicated Indian government agents in a conspiracy to kill a Sikh separatist activist on U.S. soil. At home, Modi’s government has discriminated against and stigmatized religious and other minority groups, leading in some cases to communal violence and the bulldozing of Muslim family homes. Yet Modi has faced little public criticism from U.S. officials.” In the Philippines, the Biden administration worked tirelessly to improve joint military capabilities despite a growing crackdown on freedom of expression. In Thailand, opposition leaders from neighboring countries have been murdered with little reaction from Washington.
But it is not only in Asia that an emphasis on geopolitical competition has come into conflict with U.S. values. In countries such as Serbia, the Biden administration seemed to go out of its way to coddle the increasingly authoritarian and corrupt regime of President Aleksandar Vučić with the goal of keeping Russia at bay. As of this writing, there are massive ongoing protests against that regime. Fearful of losing lines of access and security cooperation that China would ostensibly replace, the Biden administration said little publicly about growing repression and refused to meaningfully cut military assistance to Egypt, instead emphasizing the strategic value of Washington’s partnership with its autocratic regime.
The deprioritization of values when it comes to countries on the frontlines of great power competition rests on certain mistaken assumptions about the potential of U.S. leverage vis-à-vis U.S. security partners and the willingness of those actors to turn to the Chinese or Russian alternative. Some actors within the U.S. national security bureaucracy–especially the Department of Defense and parts of the State Department–often underestimate U.S. leverage while overestimating the readiness of partners and allies to turn to China or Russia as alternative sources of military and political support. When arguments to condition security assistance on human rights are made in Washington interagency policy discussions, the specter of Chinese influence is often deployed to shut down debate and the status quo prevails. At other times, these same actors mistakenly believe that refraining from public criticism or pressure over abuses will help keep China or Russia at arm’s length. Yet, there are numerous cases where countries have moved closer to China or Russia despite strategic U.S. silence on abuses: Serbia is a case in point. So is India, which has continued trading closely with Russia since the latter’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is February 2022.
When great power competition overwhelms other foreign policy priorities in a bilateral relationship that does not uphold its values, ruling autocrats are sent a clear message: U.S. support will be forthcoming if you steer clear of closer relations with China or Russia, your human rights record notwithstanding. In practice, of course, democracy and human rights issues may still be raised by U.S. officials, but the autocrats understand that they are hardly a priority for Washington.
At the same time, understanding that Washington is preoccupied with Chinese and Russian influence, America’s autocratic allies use the threat of seeking closer relations with geopolitical competitors to countervail and neutralize any U.S. pressure on their democratic and human rights records. Meanwhile, U.S. diplomats in the field reporting on political developments often mistake domestic corruption for malign foreign influence. Yet, from the Balkans to Asia, democratic backsliding has been driven by local factors and autocrats, and not Russian or Chinese influence. If anything, the Chinese or Russian involvement came only after the grip of autocrats was strengthened.
Moreover, the deemphasizing of democracy and human rights in the pursuit of strategic partnerships undermines U.S. leverage and credibility more generally because it reinforces the idea among genuinely democratic U.S. partners and global public opinion more generally that any talk by Washington about universal principles is just thin cover for America’s pursuit of narrow geo-strategic interests. This, in turn, alienates and demotivates democratic opposition movements and activists around the world. It also disincentivizes and demotivates America’s democratic allies and partners from supporting Washington on democracy and human rights initiatives in multilateral fora.
Given that great power competition is likely not only to be a focus of the second Trump presidency but also its successor, the tension between seeking to counter China and Russia on one hand and values on the other is likely to feature in U.S. foreign policy debates for the foreseeable future.
While the goal of keeping Beijing or Moscow at bay will necessarily continue to animate U.S. foreign policy approaches, turning a blind eye to abuses and political repression in allied countries is unlikely to foster stability in partner regimes or Washington’s bilateral relationships with those regimes in the longer term. In other words, there are costs to abandoning U.S. values in the pursuit of great power competition, and upholding America’s values should be seen as Washington’s major strategic advantage. If anything, the experience of the Cold War suggests that unconditional U.S. support for allied autocrats lowers U.S. credibility and has long-term strategic costs. Memories are long, and perceived U.S. support for political repression can fosters resentment among publics that are also vital to the maintenance of America’s alliances and partnerships. This, in turn, plays into the hands of China and Russia. An American foreign policy untethered from values is a recipe for a world without rules and without defenders of those rules, which serves neither American interests nor global stability and peace.
This commentary piece previews Mieczysław P. Boduszyński’s forthcoming book, on which Holden Tsai is a research assistant.
Mieczysław P. Boduszyński is a Pacific Council member and Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations at Pomona College. He is a former U.S. diplomat, and in 2022-2023, served as a Policy Advisor at the Pentagon. Holden Tsai is an undergraduate student at Pomona College.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Pacific Council.
