With the US Presidential election rapidly approaching, an assessment of US foreign policy is in order. The Trump administration has undertaken conceptual shifts that see China as an adversary and Russia as a fading power, and it has deprioritized the Middle East and Europe. Without robust diplomatic and military engagement, these new policies risk ceding those regions to Chinese domination. In contrast, evidence suggests a Biden administration would largely return to the policies of the Obama era that accommodated Chinese imperialism.

Foreign policy issues only rarely play a major role in American presidential elections, and when they do, it is usually at times of acute international crisis or warfare. Such matters had received little attention in the 2020 debates among the Democratic presidential hopefuls—until the targeting killing of Qassem Soleimani and the reentry into the news cycle of Trump’s peace plan. The leading Democratic candidates have since made statements about the role of the US in the world, deployment and use of force, the nuclear deal with Iran, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. There are differences among the candidates, but they all promise to radically change American foreign policy.