Foreign policy was barely a blip on the 2020 presidential primaries or general election, which were (justifiably) dominated by talk of the pandemic and Donald Trump’s incompetence. It may not be a focus of the early days of the Biden administration either, with the pandemic still raging and with much of the political world focused on structural racism and climate change.
But the Biden administration will have to juggle a number of pressing issues on the world stage even if it would prefer to prioritize domestic affairs. And as it happens, it’s on foreign policy where Joe Biden and the more progressive factions of the Democratic Party have some of their most obvious disagreements—how to handle Israel, how to view military intervention, and what to do with the Pentagon’s massive budget. Progressives want a less militaristic United States with reduced defense spending and a foreign policy that emphasizes diplomacy, doesn’t support authoritarian regimes, and doesn’t try to interfere too much with the internal politics of countries like Venezuela.
None of that will be an easy sell under Biden, who has been staffing his administration with veterans of the national security establishment—appointees that critics say are part of a so-called "Blob" of bipartisan insiders that's long called the shots on foreign policy with disastrous results.
Here are some of the groups that will be pressuring Biden in the months and years ahead:
J Street
The progressive “pro-Israel, pro-peace” group is the most prominent Jewish organization on the Democratic side of the aisle, and its emergence has shown that Democrats no longer reflexively support all the Israeli government’s policies. During a 2019 J Street conference, Bernie Sanders called the Netanyahu government “racist” and earned an ovation. But Biden is no Bernie when it comes to the Jewish state—in a message to that 2019 conference, Biden emphasized Israel’s ties to the US and said he wouldn’t allow the nation to become a “political football.”
J Street endorsed Biden (it would have done the same for any Democratic nominee) and Biden in turn heaped praise on J Street, cementing the group’s status as a political powerhouse. In broad strokes, they share the same goals, which is a two-state solution that ends the Israel-Palestine conflict. But it remains to be seen whether Biden will invest energy in trying to broker the sort of peace deal that has eluded the last several American presidents, especially if that process would involve trying to check the Netanyahu government in a way that Biden doesn’t seem inclined to do. Biden’s nixing of language in the Democratic platform that referred to an Israeli “occupation” may indicate that he’s not going to go as far as J Street would like.
IfNotNow
IfNotNow is J Street’s younger, more radical cousin—a collection of Jewish activists who are harsh Israel critics unafraid of engaging in direct action. Unlike J Street, the group has been harshly critical of Biden, at one point during the primary shutting down his South Carolina headquarters and being arrested to protest his decision to attend AIPAC. IfNotNow is not likely to be embraced by Biden or members of the Democratic establishment—it’s viewed as too far out on the fringes, too willing to be anti-Israel in a way that makes most politicians uncomfortable.
But IfNotNow does have some supporters on Capitol Hill, most notably Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Though the organization won’t have any influence within the Biden administration, it has enough juice to be taken seriously and to give some Democrats headaches—elected officials will have to choose between condemning IfNotNow’s anti-Israel perspective, inspiring the left’s ire, or taking a stand against the Netanyahu government.
Win Without War
This project of the Center for International Policy was founded in the lead-up to the Iraq War. Though matters of war and peace seem less urgent to most members of the public today, Win Without War (a coalition of a bunch of left-leaning organizations) is still actively pushing several progressive foreign policy positions. In the Trump era, it reliably denounced pretty much every move the president made. In the upcoming Biden era, Win Without War will most likely be a voice against mainstream Democrats who are less hawkish than Republicans but still reliable friends to the military-industrial complex. For a preview of how combative the group will be under a Democratic administration, look at the language from its statement condemning a $740 billion Pentagon budget passed by the Democratic House this year: “The House has voted to put the interests of weapons manufacturers and war hawks over the wellbeing of people here and abroad.” The question is whether this message finds much traction.
Quincy Institute
This 501(c)(3) is a brand new think tank founded last year to be an anti-interventionist, and it’s debatable whether it really counts as “progressive.” But there aren’t a whole lot of players in the anti-militarism front, and it has a budget in the $5 million range, according to a 2019 profile in the Nation, making it one of the best funded institutions devoted to fighting the US’s long-standing military interventionism.
The catch is that conservative megadonor Charles Koch provided half a million dollars in seed money to the Quincy Institute (an amount that was matched by liberal megadonor George Soros). It’s intended to be a “transpartisan” project that can attract support from libertarian-ish people, who have long been skeptical of interventionism, and liberals. Will the Quincy Institute be able to wrest much influence from the foreign policy establishment that gets derisively referred to as the “Blob”? Probably not. But it may be able to help in building a bench of foreign policy experts that can provide guidance to members of Congress with anti-Blob inclinations.
Just Foreign Policy
For the past several years, this 501(c)(3) has been focused on two high-profile issues: Ending US involvement in the Yemen conflict, which has become one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, and ratcheting down tensions with Venezuela. Biden has pledged to end US support for the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen, but his position on Venezuela is less clear. Progressives like those at JFP have long held that the sanctions imposed on the South American country, intended to force Venezuelan Nicolás Maduro into stepping down or holding fair elections, are inflicting too much hardship on ordinary Venezuelans. Biden has called Trump’s policies on the country an “abject failure,” but it remains to be seen whether he’ll leave the sanctions in place. That uncertainty means that it will remain a major hot-button issue for JFP and allied groups, even if the debate over Venezuela doesn’t generate the same heat as the debate over Israel.
The “Squad”
Think tanks and advocacy organizations like the ones above aren’t going to have much power without allies in Congress. In the past, the foreign policy left hasn’t just suffered from a lack of institutions, but also a shortage of House and Senate members who are willing to stick their necks out and embrace progressive foreign policy principles.
But even as many centrist Democrats lost seats in the 2020 elections, the lefty "Squad" increased its ranks, with Missouri's Cori Bush and New York's Jamaal Bowman unseating longtime incumbents—and in Bowman's case, winning despite $1.6 million spent against him by the pro-Israel lobby. Politicians like Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, unlike many of their colleagues, are willing to be sharply critical of Israel. They’re also happy to publicly disagree with leadership on issues like the Pentagon budget, sure to be the source of debate in coming years.
Could progressive members with national followings not just break with their party on foreign policy, but convince their fans to care about foreign policy? For a progressive foreign policy to win the day, activists and voters will need to be more passionate about these issues and the establishment will need to feel pressure on questions around sanctions and foreign aid. It’s an open question whether that pressure will be generated any time soon.
