Harris Hit a Home Run on Foreign Policy Last Night in Chicago

Harris had just the right amount of details on foreign policy in her acceptance speech to clarify her fundamental differences from Trump.

In 2007, well before most Americans had heard of Barack Obama, Susan Rice and Tony Lake called me and asked me to join a handful of others involved in working groups to provide foreign policy advice to Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. I was asked to chair the group on Russia and Eurasia. By the way, Phil Gordon, now Vice President Harris’s national security advisor, chaired our group on Europe.

Our Russia and Eurasia team was small but eager. We produced press briefings every day for the campaign, wrote dozens of policy memos on everything from energy security to Nagorno-Karabakh, and held countless internal discussions to sharpen the lines between our policies and those of our opponents, first with Senator Clinton in the primaries and then with Senator McCain in the general election. Over the course of the campaign, we produce hundreds, maybe even thousands of pages filed with policy ideas.  For most of the campaign, however, it seemed like no one was reading all our brilliant if sometimes overly detailed, proposals. Only snippets of our work appeared in Obama's speeches or campaign documents. 

That changed after Russia invaded Georgia in August 2008, when our opponent John McCain, declared that “we are all Georgians.” We now needed our candidate to look and sound ready to deal with Putin. However, even after this major global event, Obama only mentioned Georgia once in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August 2008. I remember it well. I was there. I was pushing hard for it to be included and cheered loudly from the stands in the outdoor stadium when I heard Obama mention Georgia. But no one sitting next to me seemed to notice the phrase. In fact, the foreign policy sections of Obama’s speech that night didn’t generate the same applause that other segments of his speech did.

Last night, I was listening closely again for the foreign policy elements of Vice President Harris’s acceptance speech. (I had planned to be in the audience for that one, too, but COVID forced me to watch from home.) That part of her speech came late and did not last long. But it was perfect – not too little, not too much – to give voters a clear sense of where she stands on the major foreign policy debates of our time and demonstrate how her vision for American engagement with the world radically differs from that of Mr. Trump.

Kamala Harris Speaking at the 2024 Democratic National Convention: Day 4, August 24, 2024. Source: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Image

On the big philosophical issue of the purpose of American power, Harris positioned herself squarely in the established American tradition of seeking to advance both American interests and values. She stated bluntly, “As President, I will never waver in defense of America’s security and ideals. Because, in the enduring struggle between democracy and tyranny, I know where I stand—and where the United States of America belongs.” Like most American presidents, she purposely rejected the false dichotomy of “realism” versus “liberalism,” popular in some academic and think tank circles. (Candidate Obama, by the way, did too. We had a long discussion about these oversimplistic, distorting labels on a flight in August 2008). 

In contrast to Harris, Trump has departed from that tradition much more so than any president or presidential candidate in a hundred years. As President and a candidate today, Trump has demonstrated no interest in promoting democratic values abroad. Instead, he has embraced autocrats, including most disturbingly Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un. Last night, Harris underscored this core difference between her and Trump. She pledged “not [to] cozy up to tyrants and dictators like Kim-Jong-Un, who are rooting for Trump. Because they know he is easy to manipulate with flattery and favors. They know Trump won’t hold autocrats accountable—because he wants to be an autocrat.”

On the question of American engagement with versus isolation from the world, Harris made clear last night that she’s a joiner, not a loner. She stated, “We [want to] strengthen—not abdicate—our global leadership.” She reiterated her commitment to NATO and Ukraine, reminding listeners that “Five days before Russia attacked Ukraine, I met with President Zelenskyy to warn him about Russia’s plan to invade. I helped mobilize a global response— over 50 countries—to defend against Putin’s aggression. And as President, I will stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies.”

On this foreign policy approach, Trump again has a fundamentally different view. As president, he pulled the United States out of several international treaties and organizations and even threatened to quit alliances critical to our security, like NATO. As Harris reminded us last night, “Trump [...] encouraged Putin to invade our allies. Said Russia could—quote—‘do whatever the hell they want.’”  Again, in one short but definitive passage, Harris underscored another dramatic difference in foreign policy between herself and Trump. 

Harris also explained her approach to the war in Gaza. She stated emphatically, “I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself.” At the same time, she also said that, together with President Biden, they are working “around the clock [...] to get a hostage deal and ceasefire done [now],” emphasizing the devastating loss of civilian life and heartbreaking suffering in Gaza over the past 10 months.

Harris also underscored the enduring objectives of the current administration’s diplomacy in the region: “to end this war such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination.” Harris also warned that she “will never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to defend our forces and our interests against Iran and Iran-backed terrorists.” 

Again, the contrast in positions between Harris and Trump on this issue was very clear from her speech last night. Trump has rightly defended Israel’s right to self-defense against terrorist attacks, but he has never talked about the security, freedom, and self-determination of the Palestinian people.  On this foreign policy as well, American voters in November have a well-defined choice.          

Harris also made clear a commitment to enhancing the security of our southern border, reminding listeners that “Joe and I brought together Democrats and conservative Republicans to write the strongest border bill in decades. The Border Patrol endorsed it. But Donald Trump believes a border deal would hurt his campaign. So he ordered his allies in Congress to kill the deal.” She promised that her new administration would bring this bill back and sign it into law.  Again, in a few short sentences, Harris spelled out the obvious policy differences between Trump and herself on this issue as well.

Harris gave us only two sentences on the great power competition with China. She said, “We lead the world into the future on space and Artificial Intelligence; that America—not China—wins the competition for the 21st century.”  On this issue, there has not yet been a distinct articulation of policy differences between Harris and Trump. But maybe that’s because there’s general agreement.

She also emphasized her commitment to America’s armed forces, pledging as Commander-in-Chief to “ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.” She said, “I will fulfill our sacred obligation to care for our troops and their families. And I will always honor, and never disparage, their service and their sacrifice.” Such language should be axiomatic for any U.S. presidential candidate. Yet, Trump’s insulting comments about our fighting forces and veterans have made even this topic a partisan issue. 

The community of foreign policy experts won’t be satisfied with Harris’s speech. They will want more details on specific policy issues and clamor for more information on the dozens of topics and continents she didn’t mention yesterday. Like past presidential campaigns, journalists covering national security, foreign policy analysts, and diplomats worldwide will continue to scour every Harris’s speech and reread every word published by her current national security team to figure out the details of the “Harris Doctrine.” I am sure the sales of books written recently by her foreign policy advisors, including Philip Gordon’s Losing the Long Game: The False Promise of Regime Change in the Middle East and Rebecca Lissner and Mira Rapp-Hooper’s An Open World: How America Can Win the Contest for Twenty-First-Century Order, have gone way up. (I’ve read both, by the way, and they’re great books.) And I have no doubt that the Harris/Walz campaign will eventually publish more policy statements on a broader range of national security issues than covered last night.

But right now, the purpose of Harris’s statements on foreign policy, including her speech last night, is to win the election, not to convince foreign policy specialists that she has a grand, detailed strategy for American foreign policy. In this election, unlike some others, highlighting in clear terms the contrast between her approach and Trump’s worldview is critical. Her speech last night brilliantly achieved that goal.