Can be accessed HERE:
November 2, 2021 | FDD Tracker: October 7, 2021-November 2, 2021
Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: October
David Adesnik
Senior Fellow and Director of Research
John Hardie
Research Manager
David Adesnik
Senior Fellow and Director of Research
John Hardie
Research Manager
Trend Overview
Edited by David Adesnik and John Hardie
Welcome back to the Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker. Once a month, we ask FDD’s experts and scholars to assess the administration’s foreign policy. They provide trendlines of very positive, positive, neutral, negative, or very negative for the areas they watch. Testifying before the Senate, a top Pentagon official revealed the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that the Islamic State in Afghanistan may be able to attack the United States in as little as six months, while al-Qaeda could do so within a year or two. On this and other fronts, the era of relentless war did not appear to give way to an era of relentless diplomacy, as President Joe Biden forecast in his first address to the UN General Assembly. Iran took further steps to limit UN inspectors’ oversight of its nuclear program and was likely behind a drone attack on an American base in eastern Syria. North Korea showed off its newest missiles while rebuffing a U.S. offer to negotiate without preconditions. Russia continued to block inquiries regarding its illicit chemical weapons program while escalating its harassment of independent journalists. Chinese leader Xi Jinping rejected an invitation to the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, a sign that Beijing plans to withhold cooperation until the United States dials back criticism on human rights and other issues. Regardless, the White House continued to advocate for Taiwanese membership in multilateral organizations. The apparent lesson for Biden is that relentless diplomacy does not elicit cooperation from adversaries when Washington does not build the leverage necessary to put a price on intransigence.