With Biden out of the election, can US foreign policy be Trump-proofed?

In his 1924 novel The Magic Mountain, the German writer Thomas Mann used an idyllic alpine sanatorium as a metaphor for the torpor and self-delusion of the European elite in the years leading up to the cataclysm of World War I.

I couldn’t help but think about the book a little while attending this year’s Aspen Security Forum, which was held in the tony Colorado mountain town during one of the busiest and most destabilizing news weeks in recent memory, one that included the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, the selection of arch-populist Sen. J.D. Vance as Trump’s running mate, and polls showing the increasing likelihood that Trump will return to office.It took place just before President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, though questions about the future of the ticket were a constant backdrop to the conference.

Unlike Mann’s somnambulant Europeans, of course, the international government officials, military officers, and corporate executives attending the annual gathering in the Rockies weren’t just there for their health and the mountain air, but for discussions on a range of pressing security topics from Gaza and Ukraine to the militarization of space and the role of AI in war.

Still, as attendees watched the sessions with one eye on their iPhones to keep up with developments from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, it was hard to avoid the assessment that the future trajectory of many of the issues under discussion hinges significantly on the election’s outcome in November — an election that, with Biden out, is more uncertain than ever before.

President Biden had premised his case for reelection significantly on the sort of accomplishments promoted and celebrated at gatherings like Aspen: the expansion of NATO, the multilateral response to the invasion of Ukraine, and the building of a network of alliances in the Pacific to counter China. Vice President Kamala Harris enters the race with less foreign policy experience than Biden, though she has been involved in the administration’s diplomatic efforts in the Middle East and Central America, and would presumably draw her circle of advisers from either Biden’s current team or other names that Aspen attendees and speakers are very familiar with. A major shift from Biden’s approach in Europe, China, and the Middle East seems unlikely with a Harris presidency.

Trump, by contrast, has promised to quickly end the war in Ukraine — a pledge celebrated on placards waved in Milwaukee — most likely by pressuring Kyiv to negotiate away territory to Moscow. He is also a longtime skeptic of European security alliances, including NATO, and recently suggested Taiwan should “pay us for defense” against an invasion by China, which sent the stock price of the island’s vital semiconductor manufacturers falling. Vance, Trump’s new running mate, is one of Congress’s leading skeptics of efforts to defend the “liberal international order,” particularly when it comes to the war in Ukraine.

From the stage in Aspen, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) pushed back on the idea that the GOP has taken an isolationist turn, describing the recently adopted Republican platform as a “Reaganesque peace-through-strength” document that emphasizes building the US defense industry and modernizing the military.

But Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), a close ally of Biden, told me on the sidelines of the conference on Thursday (in between media appearances discussing Biden’s then-undetermined fate)that “in his time as president, Trump showed an unevenness and erratic nature in his foreign policy that can make it really hard to persuade our close and trusted allies that we were still a reliable partner.”

While administration officials and allies abroad have been discussing what can be done to Trump-proof US foreign policy, there is a limit to those efforts. Even as he touted the Biden administration’s record on support for Ukraine and work to strengthen NATO, Secretary of State Antony Blinken conceded, “Every administration has an opportunity to set its policies. We can’t lock in the future.”

For the most part, the foreign officials who spoke at the conference refused to take the bait when asked if they were concerned about Trump’s return. Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, whose country is likely to be the one most directly impacted by the outcome of the election, told the Aspen audience, “We believe in American leadership and we believe that the American people want their partners and allies to be strong as well … Whatever will be the outcome, we’ll work with America.”

There was a sense from several officials that a Trump presidency was a movie they’d seen before, and they were more prepared for it this time. Singapore Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen told the crowd, “I would remind you that we worked with the Trump administration for meetings in Singapore” — likely a reference to the 2018 summit between the former president and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “He was very happy with Singapore because we have a trade surplus with you … I’m not so concerned.”

Even less concerned about a new Republican administration were representatives of the defense and technology industries — also heavily represented at Aspen.

“I think it could potentially be positive to have a Trump administration for a tech company trying to work with” the Department of Defense, said Tara Dougherty, CEO of the defense software company Govini. “They’re already talking about Manhattan Projects for [artificial intelligence] which shows they’re serious about the development and adoption of AI for military purposes.” She added that in Vance, Trump had chosen “a running mate who comes from this space.”

As with last week’s NATO summit, attendees frequently argued that one of Trump’s main complaints about US allies — that they free-ride on American security guarantees and don’t pay for their own defense — is less applicable today than it was during his term, with defense budgets increasing globally in the wake of the war in Ukraine and concerns about China’s growing power.

“This is a different Europe than the Europe we complained about for years,” said Gen. Christopher Cavoli, commander of the US military’s Europe Command. “This is a Europe that recognizes what the burden is and that it’s got to be shared … This is exactly the moment when American interests will be advanced most by continued participation” in Europe’s defense.

Cavoli’s remarks (he didn’t specifically refer to Trump or the election) were met with applause in a room that didn’t need much convincing of the value of America’s global commitments. But Vance would likely argue that’s precisely the problem.

In a speech at this year’s Munich Security Conference, a gathering that draws a similar crowd to Aspen, the now-VP candidate described his view that continued military support to Ukraine is a dead end as representing “the majority of American public opinion, even though I don’t represent the majority of opinion of senators who come to Munich.” (For what it’s worth, recent polls show a majority of Americans still support continuing or increasing aid to Ukraine, though there’s a stark partisan divide.)

Speaking to Vox, Coons dismissed the notion that an internationalist foreign policy might be a tough sell to voters. “The strength of our alliances around the world have been the linchpins of our security and our prosperity for decades,” he said.

But on stage, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, an exemplar of a previous generation of globally-focused Republicans who have now all but vanished, was a bit contrite. “Those of us who were internationalists and believed in globalization” didn’t always take into account the impact it would have on some American communities, she said. “There are unemployed coal miners and unemployed steelworkers and kids who can’t get a decent education who really do wonder why we are doing what we’re doing internationally.”

At gatherings like Aspen, there’s always discussion about the importance of winning over international partners to American foreign policy priorities. Increasingly, there’s a sense in these conversations that America itself also has to be won over, whoever is at the top of the Democratic ticket. But as anyone who has read Mann’s book knows, the Magic Mountain can be a tough place to get down from.