This week, U.S. President-elect Joe Biden announced the nominees for his national security team. All are familiar faces, experts in their fields, with extensive experience in the bureaucracies that they will soon lead.
It is a capable and competent group, one that will serve U.S. national interests and reassure allies that the new administration understands its roles and responsibilities and takes them seriously. The rest of the world and the Republican opposition may not cooperate in that endeavor, however, and whatever return to normalcy that candidate Biden promised may prove beyond his and his team’s reach.
First and most important, it is composed of foreign policy traditionalists who believe that the U.S. must be engaged in the world, endeavor to lead and should do so through the multilateral institutions that previous administrations worked so hard to build. Their instincts are to consult and do so first with allies and longtime partners.