Joe Biden has emerged as the new President-elect in the electoral firmament of the United States and unarguably will take a star and striped avatar in the larger international ecosystem and the political sphere of the American homeland as the most powerful man on the Earth. We are not biding for a superhero but in a way we are referring to the tumult and the histrionics which accompany quintessential American Presidential elections. The million dollar question is that how deftly and quickly New Delhi can change its loyalties as a true blue ally from the heady days of President Donald Trump to a much sombre looking Joe Biden, whose creditworthiness is further augmented as he supported the Indo-US Nuclear deal in 2008 during the times of President George Bush Jr.

The remarkable was the incumbent President’s resentment, “I had such a big lead in all of these states late into election night, only to see the leads miraculously disappear as the days went by. Perhaps these leads will return as our legal proceedings move forward!” over losing Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia, after a surprising victory in Florida and North Carolina. As the voting lead of 37,000 votes from the electoral hustings and buntings from Pennsylvania began filtering in, the American Vice President-elect, Kamala Harris, gleefully posted on her Facebook wall, “Congratulations, Joe, we have done it, You are going to be the 46th President of the US.”

Biden has attempted to move away from the quintessential American Dream dreamt of by American historian John Truslow Adams as he reiterated in his acknowledgement speech in Delaware that the pained American soul would be reinstated during his term as the American President in January 2021 as he stressed upon the context of the United States of America requiring a re-building and reorientation in a larger international system which reeks with reformed multilateralism.

Joe Biden has been anointed as the 47th President-elect of the most powerful nation-state in the broader international system. Subsequently, the incumbent President, Donald Trump, declaring to cooperate with the transition process despite his misgivings about the “rigged elections,” the road to the White House looks clear for Biden and his Vice Presidential mate, Kamala Harris.

Antony Blinken is the new Secretary of State designate, who boasts of a diplomatic family background and has been a Deputy National Security Adviser to the President years back. He has gone on record with the official verbiage that the Joe Biden ameliorative measure to “Bring America Back” is all slated to repudiate the Trump myth and lore of “America First and Make America Great Again (MAGA).” This can serve as a stately change which the nomenclature which the context of US policy will receive under the suzerainty of Biden.

The seat of the Secretary of Defense might go to Michelle Foulrony, who, along with Antony Blinken, worked at a consultancy firm called West exec. Thus, the masterminds and experts of the previous democrat’s tenure under Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama will be leveraged in the Biden cabinet. Also, still, one aspect is a certainty that the left-centre leaders of the order of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are not being considered for the Biden cabinet as the chiefly centrist orientation of the White House has been strengthened. To place the Biden Presidency in an early days’ dilemma, Bernie Sanders, who was also a strong candidate for the position of Democrat’s nomination for the Presidential elections, has railed against the President-elect’s nomination decisions.

Biden has decided to go stealthy on China, but the cooperative idiom rolled into the administration’s policy towards the taloned dragon appears to be inclined towards engagement than containment. Biden had declared in his informal acceptance speech that on the first day of his Presidency, he would reverse the Trumpism of a proposed withdrawal from the World Trade Organization, World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Change Pact, and strengthen the ties with European allies. Biden has emphasised that “American Global outreach” will receive a fillip, and the grandiloquent American retreat, as a policy, will witness a sea change. The President-elect has contended that the partnership between India and the United States would definitely sail through as one of the most valuable bilateral trysts in the times to come. Thus, India is all set to gain diplomatically but the human rights conundrum which is often associated with the Democratic posturing can cause a flutter as far as the internal security issues are concerned. The question that will soon be answered is whether we are going all the way back to the Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama days.

Biden has had to match up to the myriad challenges as have been posed by the legal challenges unleashed by the Republican machinery led by the grudgingly outgoing President. The US District Judge, Linda Parker, has contended that she rejects the legal challenge launched by President Trump as a matter of questioning the fungibility of the electoral process being part of the quintessential Democratic process and such imagined barbs at the system do not behove well for the tradition and the seat of power at the White House. President Trump has lost nearly all the legal challenges at the states while he gloats over the victory in Florida and Ohio. The decisions of the State assemblies are deemed to be full and replete with finality and the Democrats are raising the theme that outgoing President is not conceding defeat at the hustings and is attempting a situation, where in, he is not relinquishing power with grace and honour.

Anyway, it seems to be the fact that India soon needs to mend its ways and Prime Minister Narendra Modi needs to initiate quick bridge-building with Biden. Maybe, Modi would be well placed to activate the phalanx of diplomatists to the Capitol Hill and the White House in a full throttled PR exercise which they had done so diligently during the Trump era. The manner in which success was achieved at the Nuclear Supplier Groups and the momentum generated during the global debate to usher in a new definition of terrorism at the United Nations need to be replicated with the utmost zeal as India is partnering with the United States to solve the “troubles” of the twilight zone that Afghanistan is since the initiation of the great game two in South and Central Asia.

The advent of Biden augurs as advantageous to the larger international system, still a forecasted soft policy vis a vis the recalcitrant People’s Republic of China tethered on the brink of being labelled as a rogue state. Biden has ounces of political and diplomatic quantum to prove as the American President and a mere Trump bashing will only leave the high pedestal of the White House pulpit tarred and marred. Authenticity in leadership and political discourse in the aftermath of the Trumpism is what Biden will be tested and tried for!

(The writer teaches at International Relations and International Organisations, IIPA, New Delhi)

Joe Biden has emerged as the new President-elect in the electoral firmament of the United States and unarguably will take a star and striped avatar in the larger international ecosystem and the political sphere of the American homeland as the most powerful man on the Earth. We are not biding for a superhero but in a way we are referring to the tumult and the histrionics which accompany quintessential American Presidential elections. The million dollar question is that how deftly and quickly New Delhi can change its loyalties as a true blue ally from the heady days of President Donald Trump to a much sombre looking Joe Biden, whose creditworthiness is further augmented as he supported the Indo-US Nuclear deal in 2008 during the times of President George Bush Jr.

The remarkable was the incumbent President’s resentment, “I had such a big lead in all of these states late into election night, only to see the leads miraculously disappear as the days went by. Perhaps these leads will return as our legal proceedings move forward!” over losing Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia, after a surprising victory in Florida and North Carolina. As the voting lead of 37,000 votes from the electoral hustings and buntings from Pennsylvania began filtering in, the American Vice President-elect, Kamala Harris, gleefully posted on her Facebook wall, “Congratulations, Joe, we have done it, You are going to be the 46th President of the US.”

Biden has attempted to move away from the quintessential American Dream dreamt of by American historian John Truslow Adams as he reiterated in his acknowledgement speech in Delaware that the pained American soul would be reinstated during his term as the American President in January 2021 as he stressed upon the context of the United States of America requiring a re-building and reorientation in a larger international system which reeks with reformed multilateralism.

Joe Biden has been anointed as the 47th President-elect of the most powerful nation-state in the broader international system. Subsequently, the incumbent President, Donald Trump, declaring to cooperate with the transition process despite his misgivings about the “rigged elections,” the road to the White House looks clear for Biden and his Vice Presidential mate, Kamala Harris.

Antony Blinken is the new Secretary of State designate, who boasts of a diplomatic family background and has been a Deputy National Security Adviser to the President years back. He has gone on record with the official verbiage that the Joe Biden ameliorative measure to “Bring America Back” is all slated to repudiate the Trump myth and lore of “America First and Make America Great Again (MAGA).” This can serve as a stately change which the nomenclature which the context of US policy will receive under the suzerainty of Biden.

The seat of the Secretary of Defense might go to Michelle Foulrony, who, along with Antony Blinken, worked at a consultancy firm called West exec. Thus, the masterminds and experts of the previous democrat’s tenure under Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama will be leveraged in the Biden cabinet. Also, still, one aspect is a certainty that the left-centre leaders of the order of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are not being considered for the Biden cabinet as the chiefly centrist orientation of the White House has been strengthened. To place the Biden Presidency in an early days’ dilemma, Bernie Sanders, who was also a strong candidate for the position of Democrat’s nomination for the Presidential elections, has railed against the President-elect’s nomination decisions.

Biden has decided to go stealthy on China, but the cooperative idiom rolled into the administration’s policy towards the taloned dragon appears to be inclined towards engagement than containment. Biden had declared in his informal acceptance speech that on the first day of his Presidency, he would reverse the Trumpism of a proposed withdrawal from the World Trade Organization, World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Change Pact, and strengthen the ties with European allies. Biden has emphasised that “American Global outreach” will receive a fillip, and the grandiloquent American retreat, as a policy, will witness a sea change. The President-elect has contended that the partnership between India and the United States would definitely sail through as one of the most valuable bilateral trysts in the times to come. Thus, India is all set to gain diplomatically but the human rights conundrum which is often associated with the Democratic posturing can cause a flutter as far as the internal security issues are concerned. The question that will soon be answered is whether we are going all the way back to the Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama days.

Biden has had to match up to the myriad challenges as have been posed by the legal challenges unleashed by the Republican machinery led by the grudgingly outgoing President. The US District Judge, Linda Parker, has contended that she rejects the legal challenge launched by President Trump as a matter of questioning the fungibility of the electoral process being part of the quintessential Democratic process and such imagined barbs at the system do not behove well for the tradition and the seat of power at the White House. President Trump has lost nearly all the legal challenges at the states while he gloats over the victory in Florida and Ohio. The decisions of the State assemblies are deemed to be full and replete with finality and the Democrats are raising the theme that outgoing President is not conceding defeat at the hustings and is attempting a situation, where in, he is not relinquishing power with grace and honour.

Anyway, it seems to be the fact that India soon needs to mend its ways and Prime Minister Narendra Modi needs to initiate quick bridge-building with Biden. Maybe, Modi would be well placed to activate the phalanx of diplomatists to the Capitol Hill and the White House in a full throttled PR exercise which they had done so diligently during the Trump era. The manner in which success was achieved at the Nuclear Supplier Groups and the momentum generated during the global debate to usher in a new definition of terrorism at the United Nations need to be replicated with the utmost zeal as India is partnering with the United States to solve the “troubles” of the twilight zone that Afghanistan is since the initiation of the great game two in South and Central Asia.

The advent of Biden augurs as advantageous to the larger international system, still a forecasted soft policy vis a vis the recalcitrant People’s Republic of China tethered on the brink of being labelled as a rogue state. Biden has ounces of political and diplomatic quantum to prove as the American President and a mere Trump bashing will only leave the high pedestal of the White House pulpit tarred and marred. Authenticity in leadership and political discourse in the aftermath of the Trumpism is what Biden will be tested and tried for!

(The writer teaches at International Relations and International Organisations, IIPA, New Delhi)