Vice President Kamala Harris will be stepping on to a fracturing world stage as a “novice” foreign policy tactician should she win the 2024 presidential race, which experts warned would pose a serious risk to U.S. national security.
Harris has quickly become the presumptive Democratic nominee in the 2024 presidential race, having captured major endorsements and roughly $80 million in new campaign donations since President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he would not be seeking reelection. But Harris’ inexperience and policy stances make her unqualified to conduct serious national security and foreign policy, raising the risk that she will be comparably poor or worse than Biden on such critical issues, former U.S. officials and defense experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“Kamala Harris was a foreign policy and national security novice in 2021 and still is, even after a concerted effort to beef up her credentials on the international stage,” Michael Bars, former White House senior communications advisor and National Security Council official, told the DCNF. “Things will only get more perilous for the U.S. and our allies with Harris in the Oval Office.”
Since becoming vice president in 2021, Harris has mostly been in lockstep with Biden’s approach to foreign policy and national security, according to multiple reports.
In an open letter with over 350 signatories, as obtained by The Washington Post on Tuesday, former foreign policy and national security officials applauded that Harris had met “with more than 150 world leaders” and represented the U.S. on a global stage on international trips during her tenure as vice president.
Among the signatories on the letter were former secretaries of state Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, former national security adviser Susan Rice and former intelligence official James Clapper, who declared that Harris was the “best-qualified person” to serve as the 47th president of the U.S.
“Absolutely not,” Victoria Coates, senior defense executive at the Heritage Foundation and former White House national security advisor, told the DCNF when asked if Harris could conduct competent foreign and national security policy, pointing to Harris’ “failure” to address the root causes of illegal immigration even after being specifically tasked to do so in 2021. “Biden at least had decades of dealing with these issues and was a known quantity. Harris’ default mode appears to be extreme progressive policies that are damaging to our standing abroad.”
“Politically, I suspect she will be unburdened by what has been,” Justin Logan, director of defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, joked to the DCNF, referencing a frequently-used line by Harris.
Logan told the DCNF that Harris’ potential national security and views on foreign affairs may shift depending on what is politically favorable should she be elected in November, noting that he did not anticipate that she would dramatically “break” from what has typically been seen under the Biden administration. “With a few exceptions, she governed like a replacement-level Democratic senator and then a replacement-level Democratic vice president… Where you stand depends on where you sit. Presidents differ from presidential candidates, who differ from senators.”
On the Russia-Ukraine war, Harris has vocally promoted Biden’s continued military support to Ukraine, of which there has been roughly $175 billion since 2022, according to Politico. Former U.S. officials and defense experts have expressed concern that the Biden administration does not have a plan to peacefully end the war and ensure the security of the Ukrainian people, as Russian forces continue to dig in and make small territorial gains despite Ukraine being equipped with Western weapons.
Harris said at the Munich Security Conference in February that she would support Ukraine’s fight against Russia “as long as it takes,” according to CBS News. She also reinforced during the February conference her “ironclad” commitment to NATO, a transatlantic defense alliance that some experts fear is dragging the U.S. further into conflict with Russia.
Harris made her position on the Russia-Ukraine war clear in the early days of the conflict in 2022.
“Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia,” Harris said during a radio interview in March 2022. “Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine. So, basically, that’s wrong, and it goes against everything we stand for.”
On the Israel-Hamas war — which started on Oct. 7 after Hamas invaded Israel and killed roughly 1,200 people — Harris has largely stood by Biden in calling for an end to the conflict, which neither Israel nor Hamas have thus far agreed to. Harris has issued strong calls for an “immediate” ceasefire in the war and has reportedly privately pushed the administration to be more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and harsher on the Israeli government as the death toll in Gaza continues to rise.
Harris said in a July interview with The Nation that pro-Palestinian protesters are “showing exactly what human emotion should be,” noting that she rejected some of what they were saying but understood “the emotion behind it.” Pro-Palestinian protests have consumed the country since Oct. 7, with some turning into displays of antisemitism or violence.
As for the broader Middle East region, Harris has been supportive of the Biden administration’s diplomatic efforts to contain Iran and revive the Obama-era nuclear deal that aimed to curtail the country’s nuclear program, albeit unsuccessfully, according to Al-Monitor. These efforts have appeared to largely fail as Iran has raked in billions of dollars under the Biden administration’s sanctions relief while orchestrating its terror network to attack U.S. and allied forces throughout the region.
In the Asia-Pacific, Harris has reinforced the U.S. commitment to fair competition with China — the second largest economy in the world — while maintaining that the country must act less hostile to the West and refrain from engaging in military conflict to achieve its goals, particularly when it comes to annexing Taiwan, according to Politico. As part of her several international trips while vice president, Harris has traveled to Eastern Asia four times since 2021 and met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in September while abroad, according to ABC News and the Post.
But experts who spoke to the DCNF were doubtful that Harris could attend and add substance to international summits or hold productive meetings with world leaders on her own, especially leaders who have tense relations with the U.S.
“While not as frail or compromised as the President, Harris does not present as a serious person, and I cannot imagine her handling a difficult negotiation with a hostile foreign head of state such as Xi,” Coates told the DCNF. “There’s also no evidence she would have the tough conversations we need to have with NATO allies about Europe taking the lead on European security.”
In addition to receiving endorsements from lawmakers, media figures, Democratic operatives and Biden himself, major foreign policy officials part of the Democratic establishment have thrown their support behind Harris in recent days. Though Biden only dropped out on Sunday, Harris has already surged to the frontrunner position for the Democratic nomination.
The Democratic National Convention (DNC), where a nominee will be formally chosen, will take place the week of Aug. 19.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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