Recently, the MENA Research Center had the opportunity to engage in a conversation with Joshua Burgin, Director of the New Security Leaders (NSL) program at the Warsaw Security Forum, delving into the worsening circumstances in the Middle East and exploring the American stance on various regional and global issues. The interview was conducted by Denys Kolesnyk, a French consultant and analyst.
In his State of the Union speech, Joe Biden recently discussed various issues, but Israel and Ukraine were the most mentioned countries, largely surpassing China, Iran, and Russia. What could this possibly mean? And what is your general reading of Biden’s administration’s foreign policy?
Thank you for this invitation, for the purposes of this interview, I am speaking in my personal capacity and not on behalf any other person or organisation.
To answer your question, sometimes, the US has a hard time walking and chewing gum simultaneously. Ukraine and Israel current funding priorities, and the president is attempting to get Congress to move those issues; I believe those were the key focal points, primarily because they are issues at the top of the president’s legislative agenda.
That said, I do not read that to mean that the Biden administration is unconcerned about China, Iran, or other global issues. But I do think that he was prioritising _those themes, those topics, as perhaps means to put pressure, either gently or firmly on the Congress, and on the Senate, to go ahead and get those appropriations passed to support our longstanding ally, Israel, and Ukraine as it’s fighting for its independence.
And what’s your general reading of Biden’s administration’s foreign policy? What are the main priorities?
If we look at Biden as a man and Biden as an administration, his signature line when he came to office was America’s back. By that, he meant that he wasn’t Trump and that he won’t be lecturing foreign countries overseas, making leaders like Angela Merkel feel bad. I give the administration some plaudits for being steady, focused, and not creating drama. However, if I look at how they’ve staffed, the administration is a bit timid, particularly around the national security.
In candour, I don’t understand, and this is not just the Biden administration but the Obama administration before it. The two national security advisers are very comfortable on Ivy League campuses and in mainstream media newsrooms. They don’t have the requisite experience beyond rolodex to advance complex national security issues. I don’t think that Ben Rhodes or Jake Sullivan genuinely understand the mentality of the Russian leadership, and therefore, there’s a tendency to overanalyse and see only risk where they should be bold.
Again, I understand that the situation, particularly in Ukraine, is complex, as in the Middle East, but sometimes I scratch my head. I mean, if I’m looking for a national security adviser, I’m thinking of someone who spent two decades in the military and another decade and a half crisscrossing the world, doing business relations or business development, experiences that gives them strong nose for the culture and the mentality, the thought processes of, I don’t want to say adversaries per se, but let’s say, competitive opponents.
I think too many of our Western and certainly Washington-based foreign policy heads have truly internalised the language of negotiations taught at Harvard, where everything’s mutually beneficial and it’s never zero-sum. Sit on a Harvard campus, go to the Fletcher School or Yale, and you’re going to hear over and over again in negotiations coursework, never zero-sum, zero-sum is terrible. But I’m convinced that the Kremlin only views the world through zero-sum. To that end, I think it shortchanges or limits the options of the Western foreign policy teams when they’ve eliminated the notion of zero-sum thinking from their structural frameworks.
Indeed. We can observe the same in Western Europe, particularly in France, where the strategic culture sees the world through compromise, and things have only recently started to evolve. However, when dealing with Moscow, the Kremlin sees compromise as a weakness.
In theory, I don’t disagree with that line of logic or with the notion of win-win situations. But the Kremlin is not thinking that way and will never be. And frankly, they view the West as foolish for thinking that way.
So, to wrap up that question, because of this inability to fully understand the opponents, I think the Biden administration’s ability to prosecute conflict with them is hampered. And as a result of some internal issues, the issues with the Congress — I mean, I just watched the State of the Union address, which felt like a campaign speech. Let’s look at Reagan and his era’s State of the Union address. Look at a Carter-era State of the Union address. I can’t throw shades purely at the Democrats because, you know, Republicans in recent years have done similar sort of grandstanding in the State of the Union addresses. But, I don’t think this approach benefits America.
And again, coming back to the notion of the Biden administration, I think they’re reactionary instead of proactive on many fronts, whether that’s Russia, China, the Middle East, or Iran.
Talking about Iran and its proxies – the Houthis – that have been disrupting international maritime cargo navigation in the Red Sea. The US has responded with an airstrike campaign and mobilised an international coalition of more than a dozen countries to protect maritime navigation in that area. How does the US see the resolution of this crisis?
If the US has any priority there, it’s clearly focused on freedom of navigation. I don’t think the US particularly cares about what’s happening on the ground in Yemen. That said, it is also worth noting that the Houthis are, from what we’ve seen so far, a fairly disciplined, organised group, but they do not exist in a vacuum. They’re not projecting power from their own internal capacity. They’re being animated by, in my view, some parts Iran, some parts Russia to be disruptive, to create yet another distraction point in the globe.
It didn’t seem that the US was responding for a time, even though the shipping lanes had closed. Only once had the Houthis effectively created a media effect by either sinking or impeding; I think it was a British vessel a few weeks ago and a couple of British vessels now. I think US credibility probably appeared to be on the line because we have historically protected freedom of movement on the seas for the past 60 or 70 years.
Perhaps you follow Peter Zeihan – he argues that the world will compartmentalise as the United States pulls away from being the sole guarantor of freedom of movement on the seas and the protector of shipping. We’re going to see a sort of renewed regionalisation as shipping will cease to be long haul and will tend to stay closer to home from the point of origin to the point of destination.
However, it’s unclear whether that is ultimately the long-term outcome. At this moment, I think that the US has a somewhat limited set of options between Ukraine, Israel, and other areas of interest. There have been some strikes. I suspect there may be more. I think that some sort of kinetic message being sent or directed towards the clear supporters of the Houthis as opposed to the Houthis themselves is probably a correct secondary approach.
Should there be plausible deniability in that effort? Maybe. Should it be a direct? Recall when Trump authorised the elimination of Qasem Soleimani? There was all the media drama around that action, but that was an incredibly strong statement at that time, and I’m certain that the Iranians took note of that and would in the case now if someone at that level were to taken off the playing field.
But what does this current administration do — would it be willing to be that forceful? I suspect we will continue to see more of the same — limited airstrikes and patrolling the Red Sea.
And since you’ve mentioned the world’s compartmentalisation, and I agree with you, the interesting thing is that we must always remember about the Chinese naval base in Djibouti. They’ve carried out tremendous work there, and from what I’ve read recently, they can host many soldiers there right now; they have an airfield, and they also have the ship listening to this Western communication because several Western countries have a presence in that area. It would also be interesting to see what would be the Chinese response to this because Beijing is not happy either with the actions of Houthis and backed by Iranians. What are your thoughts on it?
I think that’s a good point you’re making, and to some extent, the US resolve comes in two parts. Over the past 60 to 70 years, the US has been advancing a liberal foreign policy and liberalisation in economic trade, resulting in the highly globalised world we’re currently living in.
And right now, there is a declining resolve for globalisation. Those at home who question the cost of globalisation in the short-term benefits we had from it, were the benefits worth the long-term costs, the loss of manufacturing jobs, and the loss of national autonomy in certain cases around agriculture worth it? In other words, there seems to be some weakening resolve on the part of the electorate and now skepticism that didn’t exist in the past, and then the sheer cost of maintaining free trade for the world.
The notion that the Chinese would put a stop to the Houthis, I suspect, would be welcomed by the US and probably Europe as well, in that the Houthis are a fairly isolated problem, acting on behalf of a specialised set of interests, and the costs are to a much wider subset of the world, the US, the EU, and China. All of these actors are interested in stopping the Houthis as well. Is it solely America’s problem? Some would argue that if the Chinese stepped up, it would be an adult or mature step for them to take.
But that said, I think the Chinese are going to act primarily on their own interests as opposed to a more collective interest, whereas the US, over the past 60-70 years, has worked on behalf of the wider world. Of course, Washington benefited, but it was always understood that there were downstream benefits to other partner countries that were also participating in a range of multilateral initiatives.
Let’s talk about another important country — the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. One year into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the US tried to leverage support from Riyadh but didn’t manage to do so. How could you explain this?
I believe Saudi Arabia has a very long history with the United States. Sometimes troubled, sometimes quite strong, it’s a lengthy relationship, and I don’t see that waning, no matter what stresses and strains happen.
That said, I do think the Saudis were perhaps as perplexed as the Israelis about the Biden administration’s attempts to renew the agreements with Iran — its historic adversary. Suppose we want to look even beyond this administration. In that case the decision-making of George W. Bush and the Iraq war and all the sort of spillover effects that came from that, ultimately the Obama administration engaging with Iran the way that it did, I have my theories as to why they may or may not have done that at the time. Still, there was an enormous protest from Israel at the time and to my understanding, the Saudis weren’t happy about that engagement with Teheran at the time.
The Trump administration withdrew. The Europeans weren’t particularly happy about the withdrawal. Still, it was on the table, and effectively, the moment the Biden administration came back in, it went to renew and re-enable those agreements, leading to increased funding by the elimination or suspension of sanctions, allowing Iran re-access to funds that had previously been embargoed.
I sense that the Saudis view this with a good deal of scepticism, to the point where American foreign policy appears rather schizophrenic. Perhaps even that can be said generally, but also perhaps more localised _with this specific administration. On this particular point, I’m reminded of a passage from Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who wrote a book after his time in the Trump administration and the White House. He described many interactions with Mohammed bin Salman, with leaders from the UAE and throughout the Middle East, and sort of leading up to the Abraham Accords.
However, he described one particular interaction with a senior figure from the UAE in the context of the Saudis. The official told him, “You know, Jared, you’re an unusual American diplomat. The typical American diplomat comes in three flavours. One who can barely stay awake, one who has talking points and can’t deviate, and the third who comes in and lectures us and tells us what we must do that isn’t in our interest. You’re the first one that’s come along to talk to us, to ask us what our interests are, what we are concerned about, and what domestic issues we have to balance when considering our foreign policy issues.”
I’m paraphrasing a bit, but it’s worth reading the book to see both that passage. And as Kushner describes this, and based on my interactions with State Department officials, it’s not hard to imagine those three scenarios. The one falling asleep, the one sort of sticking to a script and being so anodyne, can’t get off of the script, and the third one being sort of the “Alright, we’re taking the power playing with a lecture, browbeat you into our position with no considerations for domestic implications or the history.”
I suspect that much, and I think there’s a sort of doctrinaire positioning on the Iran deal, which is why the administration went back and forcibly pushed that back on the table in a way that probably alienated the Saudis to an extent and caused them, as we saw, to have greater levels of outreach to China, greater levels of outreach to Russia, and let’s say less willingness to play some of the historic games. I mean, Saudi Arabia was a major part of Reagan’s strategy to weaken the Soviets by reducing the price of oil. At some point, the oil price was down to $12 a barrel when the Soviet Union desperately needed those hard currencies, and the Saudis were helpful in that.
It’s a new era. There’s less coherence within the US government from then to now, and you can see Saudi Arabia being more assertive in a changed Middle East. Again, I’m not trying to shade on the Biden administration. I think they probably have, at least from their perspective, good reasons for what they’ve done, but for those on the outside looking in, it’s a little less clear as to what that motive or that objective may be.
I mean, the freed-up money alone to Iran, we can easily argue that when you lift sanctions, and suddenly there’s $30 billion or more on the table that wasn’t there before, it’s not hard to see where the Houthis can then be animated quite easily to be a disruptive force, where before the Iranians had less play money to spend before.
There is more and more criticism coming from the West regarding the Israeli operation in Gaza following the terrorist attack of October 7th perpetrated by Hamas. What is the internal American political debate about this conflict? And how far could the US’ support for Israel go?
I’m going to come back to you with a question: what is October 7th other than the date that Hamas attacked Israel? Is there any other significance in that date? I’ll tell you — it’s Vladimir Putin’s birthday. And I think it’s quite shocking that this has not come up. I haven’t seen this in any serious post. I’ve seen nothing highlighting that it’s Putin’s birthday on October 7th.
And it is something that, in the context of Israel and Hamas cannot be ignored. And I had a conversation with a young Israeli who pointed out that Israel’s policy pre-October 7th had been very neutral towards Ukraine, Israel refused to engage. And that just recently, the Israeli defence minister had openly said that they would be sending weapons and support to Ukraine. This is a pretty big shift.
But regarding your question, I think there’s a bifurcation of debate. This is reflective of the modern world, where, once, figureheads were sitting in private boardrooms, so to speak, in Washington and Brussels and other global capitals that were sorting out foreign policy.
Now, to a much more activist base that plays out much of their engagement on social media. So there is an audience that’s sort of pro-Palestine or Palestine all the way. I mean, these may or may not be people of Palestinian, Arab, or Muslim origin. But there are certainly audiences in the West that are aggressively pro-Palestine. Then there are policymakers, generally, members of the Congress, who support Israel on a bipartisan basis.
I do believe that the administration’s instinct is to stand firmly with Israel. However, the administration also knows that Michigan is the only way to a second administration. And Michigan has a very large Palestinian population. About 13 to 15 per cent of the recent presidential preference primary electorate abstained or engaged in some form of a protest vote.
To that end, I think the administration has to play both to its foreign policy instincts and what it believes to be the correct thing on the ground and to an electorate that it critically needs in the coming presidential election. I think the US will ultimately deliver additional resources to Israel in the current appropriation round or, at large, in a defence funding bill.
Certainly, there is a need to re-equip Iron Dome with new missiles to continue to protect against rockets coming in from either Gaza or Lebanon. And I can’t imagine the US not continuing that support. We do see the current administration delivering foodstuffs and other aid to Gaza. Some could argue, probably on both sides, that this is a bit of virtue signalling or too little too late. But I do think there is a very clear attempt on the part of the administration to engage effectively with audiences in their electoral base that they need to have come Tuesday, November 12th for the coming election.
There are some _voices, perhaps, even with those who are strong Israel supporters, _that felt concerned by the level of sort of shock and awe bombing, the aerial bombing that took place. I think virtually everyone is _uniformly behind Israel in the context of eliminating Hamas. I’ve certainly heard through the grapevine that multiple neighbouring Middle Eastern states are willing to have say this off the record while at the same time publicly castigating Israel, basically cheering them on in the background, go get Hamas, will publicly objecting for their own domestic audiences.
But I’m not able to cleanly answer your question on US policy towards Israel because I think US policy towards Israel is going to remain more or less status quo. Israel is a key ally in the region, and that will not change.
Some within the Administration and other voices within the administration’s party are playing politics at the the margins. I mean, I saw recently that Chuck Schumer was basically sort of calling for political efforts against Netanyahu. We’ve seen similar sorts of activities in the past towards Netanyahu from the Obama administration, the very sort of electoral manipulations that we cry foul on from when it’s perceived to be Russia to the United States.
It appears to me that on occasions, we have ups and downside in our Israeli relations. But again, the two states will remain strong allies at the macro level for the foreseeable future. There’s always going to be some tension there. There’s tension when the relationships are great. There’s tension when the relationships have been frayed. But I don’t see a significant shift in the policy towards Israel at the macro level. And even if this administration is signalling one way or another, there are enough allies in the Congress to provide the appropriations needed to ensure Israel can continue protecting itself against its enemies in the neighbourhood.
You’ve mentioned a lot the looming US presidential election. So, I wonder how the US — let’s speculate — how US foreign policy may evolve under a possible Trump administration if Trump wins?
First, there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge. I believe that if the election were today, Trump would win. But the context between now and November will change dramatically. The degree to which both of these men are disliked at a general level across the country cannot be overstated.
This will be a defensive, brutal contest in which I’m going to use the word voter suppression, but let’s define that to mean sort of negative messaging to the point where people undervote as opposed to not allowing people to vote. These will be the operating tactics for both campaigns, creating such high negatives on both sides that some people will just ignore the election.
As for what a US foreign policy would look like under the Trump administration, I suspect there will be a continuing pivot towards Asia. I suspect there will be even more bellicose calls for Europe to take responsibility for itself and fulfil its NATO obligations. I’m certain there will be voices in Europe advocating for strategic autonomy. But if Europe wants America’s continued partnership, I’m not sure that strong arguments for autonomy are the answer.
There should be more responsibility in Europe, common systems of armament, and common manufacturing because the notion that Russia produces 250,000 rounds of artillery shells every month is quite distressing. We not coming anywhere close between Europe and the United States to producing these numbers. This is a problem. Europe consistently can’t deliver weapon systems, whether a fighter plane or a transport plane, and we see multi-decade-long timelines in terms of potential delivery. This causes some in the US to think that Europe wants to have its cake and eat it, too. Dress up as nice soldiers and march in a parade, but having no real willingness to do what is needed when it comes to deliver force or engaging in actual defence.
I don’t think that undercuts the nuclear umbrella in any way, shape or form. But I do think Europe collectively, with some notable exceptions, talks to much and does too little, and often looks on the U.S. with a level of envy or spite. Talk of strategic autonomy and becoming a 3rd pole in the global order is so far from possible it is counterproductive. If Europe solves its own internal cooperation issues, and becomes a reliable net producer of its own defence, it will both benefit Europe and the United States.
As I’m examining European approaches to Trump, I have a hard time believing personally that Trump is going to abandon Ukraine. I hear voices all around me that say, “Oh my God, if Trump wins, then Trump is simply going to sell Ukraine out to Putin.” I don’t believe this.
I think that Trump’s ego is so big that for him to be seen as weak in the face of Putin, who at this point is certainly not as strong as he once was, I mean, the perception is in the pre-assault on Ukraine that it was the second strongest military in the world, well, that’s proven to not be so. And so the notion that Trump rolls over in the face of a diminished and weakened Putin, I think, is sort of fanciful.
That said, Trump is a spiteful guy, and I don’t think he will react well to lecturing. I suspect some will say, “Well, we’re not going to grovel to him, we’re not going to ask, these are things he should be doing.” So, the language then becomes important. For instance, suggesting that Putin owns Trump would be rather counterproductive, while speculating that Trump is weak or incapable of facing down Putin would likely do more to positively animate him.
All publishing rights and copyrights reserved to MENA Research Center.
