Biden team rolls out ‘Axis of Upheaval’ plan

US President Joe Biden is using the waning weeks of his presidency to highlight his road maps on national security and the economy, along with warnings to help his successor avoid pitfalls.

On Wednesday, his administration issued a new national security document for the incoming Trump team. It aims at countering what the Biden White House sees as growing cooperation among China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.

They have been dubbed the new “Axis of Upheaval,” or the “Quartet of Chaos.”

Twenty-four hours earlier, Biden appeared at a prominent Washington think tank to discuss his economic success and remind President-elect Donald Trump of the global value of a strong and stable United States economy.

At that event, he raised his customarily whisper-soft voice – which he said was throttled by a cold – to make a point. He asked:

If we’re not leading the world, who does?

The classified national security document aims to “provide a road map for the US government to tackle this challenge moving forward,” an administration official, who was not named as is common practice, said in briefing reporters.

Maximum effect

Its exact contents are not publicly available because White House officials pointed out that it lays out classified military and technical details. But officials outlined four goals:

• Improving cooperation among US government agencies. 
• Faster sharing of information among allies.
• Improving preparation. 
• Using diplomatic and economic tools, like sanctions, to maximum effect.

Officials stressed that they began work on this document well before the presidential election. One of them who briefed reporters said:

We see this as something we’re bequeathing that will hopefully be helpful. And, you know, they’re free to do their own NSM [National Security Memorandum] if they want to do it in a different way.

American intelligence officials have testified that, for now, the quartet has yet to harmonize into a cohesive threat to US security.

“They’re not acting as a bloc,” Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, said, speaking earlier this month at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The unnamed official outlined the motivations of each of the four actors. 

Russia’s main goal, the official said, is “to meet its wartime needs for materiel and manpower” on the Ukraine battlefield, a conflict that has accelerated this cooperation.

Complex challenge

North Korea, the so-called Hermit Kingdom, seeks to diversify its alliances while weaning itself from China and sidestepping its mountain of sanctions.

Iran, also under the weight of heavy Western sanctions, seeks to bolster its economy.

And China, the heavyweight of the group that national security adviser Jake Sullivan identified as the single biggest foreign policy challenge to the United States, poses the most complex challenge. The official said:

China is in a little bit of an unusual position, though, because it’s also, more than the others, economically interdependent with the rest of the world. And so, I think this realignment sort of raises for China the question about what kind of future it wants to see, and if it wants to be all in with this grouping.

So far, Trump has not responded publicly to these overtures.

Analyst Anna Borshchevskaya told VOA that Trump’s strategy for dealing with this threat is “unclear,” though his team has indicated that “they’re looking to split Russia from China.” Trump has also vowed to swiftly end the conflict in Ukraine.

Borshchevskaya, a Russia analyst at the Washington Institute, said:

Trump never actually articulated what his plan is. Even in the last several days, when he’s started discussions about talks with [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy … we still don’t know what the plan is.

Transition teams

As for whether Trump will consider Biden’s advice, she said, “he does have a tendency to change his mind, and again, we don’t know what that might look like,” adding: 

But at this point, based on what I’ve seen, this document looks fairly bland. There’s nothing that I see in it that is potentially polarizing, so it is possible that he might take that into consideration.

The new administration’s transition teams have only begun to land at federal agencies that are tasked with the actual work. Getting up to speed takes time, according to David Berteau, the chief executive of the Professional Services Council. 

In an interview aired on the Federal News Network on Tuesday, the veteran observer of eight presidential administration handoffs said:

We’ve all had our own taking new jobs in new organizations. Takes a while to figure them out – some agencies more than others. I would think the Pentagon is more of a labyrinth, although I have gotten lost in the Energy Department building, as well.

Anita Powell is Voice of America’s White House correspondent.

This edited article is republished courtesy of Voice of America. Read the original article here.

The views and opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the official policy of China Factor.