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Secretary Blinken Outlines the Power and Purpose of American Diplomacy in a New Era in Speech at Johns Hopkins SAIS
Today, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken delivered a speech at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) sharing the Biden Administration’s view of the power and purpose of American diplomacy at this historic inflection point — the end of the post-Cold War era and the early days of fierce competition to define what comes next.
The Secretary shared the Biden Administration’s vision of a free, open, secure, and prosperous world and described how our efforts to reimagine and revitalize our unmatched network of allies and partners have put us in a position of strength to meet the defining tests of our era while delivering for the American people.
There are four key elements of this approach:
- First, we’re renewing and deepening our alliances and partnerships, and forging new ones. This includes a NATO that is bigger, stronger, and more united than ever with a new member in Finland and Sweden joining soon. It also includes a G7 that we’ve transformed into the steering committee for the world’s most advanced democracies and critical bilateral relationships with countries from around the world that we’ve taken to the next level.
- Second, we’re weaving together our alliances and partnerships in innovative and mutually reinforcing ways across issues and continents. It’s been on vivid display in the coalition we’ve built to support Ukraine and ensure Putin’s aggression remains a strategic failure. And we’ve shaped and translated strategic convergence into consequential actions — from AUKUS to the Quad to the announcements made with Japan and the Republic of Korea at Camp David.
- Third, we’re building new coalitions to tackle the toughest challenges of our time. We’ve mobilized hundreds of billions of dollars with the G7 to close the global infrastructure gap, rallied dozens of countries to respond to the immediate and long-term drivers of the global food crisis, are shaping the rules of the road for AI, and addressing the global synthetic drugs epidemic. We are working not only with governments, but also civil society, the private sector, academia, and citizens, especially young leaders.
- Finally, we’re bringing our old and new coalitions together to strengthen the international institutions that are vital to tackling global challenges. We’ve offered an affirmative vision for the UN, including expansion of the UN Security Council to incorporate more geographically diverse perspectives; we’re making a push to revitalize and reform Multilateral Development Banks to deal with the perfect storm of climate change, COVID, inflation, and crushing debt; and we’re running and winning seats to leadership positions across the multilateral system to ensure we’re at the table advancing our interests and values.
Fellow democracies will always be our first port of call, but we are determined to work with any country – including those with whom we disagree on important issues – so long as they want to deliver for their citizens, contribute to solving shared challenges, and uphold the international norms we’ve built together.
We are leading with diplomacy in this new era — humble about the scale and scope of our challenges at home and abroad, but confident about the resonance of our affirmative vision, our enduring and unique capacity to do big, hard things and build broad, inclusive, and effective coalitions. And most of all, we are confident in the power and purpose of American diplomacy.
ANTONY BLINKEN: THE POST-COLD-WAR ERA IS OVER
https://washingtondc.jhu.edu/news/antony-blinken-the-post-cold-war-era-is-over/
SEPTEMBER 13, 2023
SECRETARY OF STATE, IN ADDRESS AT THE JOHNS HOPKINS SCHOOL OF ADVANCED INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, SAYS WE ARE LIVING IN A NEW DIPLOMATIC AGE
Key Takeaways
- The world order has been fundamentally transformed in recent years.
- The U.S. is embracing “diplomatic variable geometry”—bringing together diverse coalitions to solve discrete problems.
- Success will rely on collaborating with new partners and untraditional allies.
The world order that has stood largely unchanged since World War II has been transformed by the rise of autocratic leaders, the growing power of international crime syndicates, and the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a recent address at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, D.C.
“Any single one of these developments would have posed a serious challenge to the post-Cold War order,” Blinken said. “Together, they’ve upended it.”
“So we find ourselves at what President Biden calls an inflection point,” he added. “One era is ending, a new one is beginning, and the decisions that we make now will shape the future for decades to come.”
The United States is responding to this new era with what Blinken calls “diplomatic variable geometry,” a strategy focused on building diverse coalitions of countries, local governments, nonprofits, the private sector and academia that collaborate to solve a specific problem, such as providing aid to displaced Ukrainians.
Critically, this approach has led the U.S. to work with untraditional allies.
“On certain priorities, if we go it alone, or only with our democratic friends, we will come up short. Many issues demand a broader set of potential partners, with the added benefit of building stronger relationships with more countries,” Blinken said to a full auditorium. “So we’re determined to work with any country—including those with whom we disagree on important issues—so long as they want to deliver for their citizens, contribute to solving shared challenges, and uphold the international norms that we built together.”
Blinken pointed to climate change, energy, and the global food crisis as examples of problems broad coalitions will work to address, as well as emerging issues such as the rise of artificial intelligence and synthetic drugs.
Nora Bensahel, a visiting professor at SAIS, said the variable geometry strategy that Blinken outlined is a departure from the black-and-white mentality that defined the Cold War.
“During the Cold War, it was the West versus the East. It was clear, simple and defined. The world just doesn’t work that way anymore,” Bensahel said. “You have to be more flexible and adaptable in international diplomacy.”
