Bob Beck's Foreign Policy Blog

This is the sixth, and penultimate, in a series of articles on key foreign policy challenges for the next U.S. president.  The articles will continue between now and the general election on 5 November 2024.

The focus of this series of articles has been on specific foreign policy challenges – China, Russia, the Middle East, etc. – which are, to some extent, predictable.  What happens when the next resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is faced with a totally unexpected foreign crisis, or crises, affecting core U.S. national security interests?  

Lest we easily forget, the Arab Spring demonstrations that shook the Middle East to its core in 2011 were spawned by the tragic protest of one disaffected fruit vendor in a provincial town in Central Tunisia.  More recently, a pandemic that swept across the globe, killing north of seven million people, began in a city in eastern China that most of us didn’t even know existed. Consider the following “out of the blue” crises and what they might mean for America.  

A massive 7.8 earthquake strikes Mexico City, flattening much of the metropolis of over eight million inhabitants.  Furthermore, the quake awakens the nearby volcano, Popocatépetl, from its peaceful slumber, spewing deadly ash over an ever-widening area of central Mexico.  Not surprisingly, Mexican authorities are incapable of coping with the scale of the catastrophe and upwards of two million refugees head for the U.S. border, a mere 600 miles to the north.  What will the president do? 

As the Russian casualties mount in a seemingly endless war in Ukraine and President Putin’s health continues to deteriorate, Chechen warlord-turned politician Ramzan Kadyrov launches a coup to wrest power in Moscow.  Putin is incapacitated in the attack but many in Russia’s political and security leadership – the Siloviki – actively resist Kadyrov’s gambit.  Red Army loyalties are split and the country descends into a brutal civil war. Washington lacks a reliable Russian interlocutor while who controls the Kremlin’s nuclear arsenal is unknown.  What will the president do? 

Following an extended period of apocalyptic flooding across much of the Indus Valley in Pakistan, the government in Islamabad collapses and the nation plunges into chaos.  Radical elements of the Pakistan army seize control of the country’s nuclear arsenal, issuing threatening rhetoric against any Indian moves to take advantage of the crisis. New Delhi responds by placing its nuclear forces on high alert while Beijing pledges support to its allies in Pakistan.  A region of the world containing more than three billion people hangs on the precipice of armageddon. What will the president do? 

Turkey’s bitter, aging president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, under growing domestic pressure due to a failing economy, initiates a surprise attack on Greek military installations across the Aegean Sea, throwing the region into a NATO on NATO war.  The Mediterranean basin, the soft underbelly of the European Union, previously protected by Greek/Turkish immigration cooperation, is suddenly open to waves of refugees fleeing drought and instability in Africa and the Middle East. In support of Turkish war aims, Erdogan closes the Dardanelles Strait, effectively cutting off the majority of Ukrainian grain exports, dealing the government in Kyiv a potentially fatal economic blow.  What will the president do? 

While the above examples may seem a bit far-fetched, none are out of the realm of possibility.  Ponder also a resumption of the 1950s Korean war – albeit with nuclear weapons in the mix, another worldwide pandemic, this time a completely unknown pathogen emanating from Central Africa, or a cyber attack of unknown origin that disables water utilities across America, sending the populace into utter panic. What will the president do?

Is it any wonder that the holders of the highest office in this land look a lot younger at their inauguration than they do when they leave the friendly confines of the White House?  It is a dangerous world out there and, often, the threats not expected are the most challenging.

Note: This article was published both the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript and the Brattleboro Reformer in late October 2024.