Trump, Biden and American responses to international crises and conflicts, 2017-2024

The four years with Donald Trump in the White House were characterized by incoherent and erratic responses to international crises. With Joe Biden as president, it was anticipated that reason, predictability, and international cooperation were going to characterize US foreign policy. Recent research using contrafactual reasoning strongly suggests that the role of personality can play role in American foreign policy. A comparison between the two presidencies with special focus on the influence and limitations on their foreign policy actions is nearby. It only took half a year before the Biden administration was confronted with its first foreign policy crisis following the American withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan. The decision appeared to be the outcome of Joe Biden’s personal influence following his own agenda which looked confusingly much like Donald Trump’s policy. The same seemed to be the case when shortly after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the United States pushed aside the France in a huge submarine deal with Australia and the subsequently entered into the AUKUS alliance with the UK and Australia. The pattern of Joe Biden taking and maintaining crucial foreign policy decision was repeated even more clearly when the United States decided uncritically to back Israel’s strikingly aggressive response to Hamas’ terrorist attack on October 7, 2023. The examples and also the American response to Russia’s assault on Ukraine in February 2022 raise several questions of the role and influence of the president and not least, it puts spotlight on the possible limitations on the influence of president Joe Biden. The paper applies a neo-classical realist model analyzing current US foreign policy decision-making. With inspiration from liberal IR thinking which stresses the role of individuals in foreign policy, the paper launches the argument that President Joe Biden has played a surprisingly influential role in American foreign policy making during the past 3 years also when compared to the four years under Donald Trump’s presidency. The neo-classical realist model suggests that possible limitations on the influence of Joe Biden and Donald Trump may stem US strategic culture, public opinion and finally from bureaucratic inertia, in particular resistance from Congress. The analytical framework promotes a comparison between the two presidencies.