WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th November, 2020) Domestic tensions will likely hinder projected US President-elect Joe Biden from achieving many of his foreign policy objectives including those related to arms control pacts and Russia, analysts told Sputnik.
All major US media outlets have projected Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election, although President Donald Trump has refused to concede. Biden, who as of Tuesday is ahead overall by nearly 5 million votes (3.3%), has won enough of the most critical statewide contests to win the Electoral College. However, Trump is filing legal challenges claiming voter fraud to overturn the results in 3 decisive battleground states where he lost by a combined 100,000 votes.
On Tuesday, new polling revealed that 70% of Republicans believe - as Trump does - that Biden did not win a fair election. Trump's lawsuits have also disrupted the transition process because the General Services Administration (GSA) has not yet ascertained a winner due to the court proceedings. The GSA must ascertain a winner to free up funding and resources to ensure a transition.
Although Biden may have won the presidency, it appears the Democrats might lose in their bid to take control of the Senate while their majority in the House will be smaller as a result of the election.
Former Canadian Diplomat Patrick Armstrong warned that Biden would be increasingly consumed by the dilemma that almost half the population of the country regarded him as an illegitimate president for whom the election was stolen by vote counting manipulation in not only one but several major industrial states.
"Whoever is actually resident in the White House, my expectation is that the US domestic situation will become very tense because half the American population will regard the vote as stolen from them and the sitting president illegitimate," Armstrong told Sputnik. "This resulting condition of rioting [and possible] incipient civil war combined with uncertainty over Biden's future, recrimination inside the Democrat Party over their poor performance and a power struggle inside a Biden administration will reduce the amount of energy devoted to foreign affairs."
Biden and his senior officials instead would take refuge in falsely accusing Russia of sinister machinations against the United States to distract public attention from their own failings, Armstrong advised.
"'Russiagate' will be confirmed as absolutely true ...and investigations [into it] will cease. Biden has promised to be tough on Russia and relations will get worse. So, it appears we are in a competition [or] a race between the internal decay of the United States into chaos and the warmongering tendencies of the Obama administration," he said.
Some Biden supporters have suggested he would save the 2011 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) and bring the United States back into the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal with Iran.
University of Pittsburgh Professor of International Affairs Michael Brenner said this was unlikely and envisioned "no change of consequence except in style" on foreign policy matters.
"On Iran, [Biden] will not immediately go back to the 2015 treaty but instead will set some conditions. On [New] START, he will accept [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's offer of a one year extension, but will not immediately agree to an open-ended renewal," Brenner told Sputnik.
Biden on the campaign trail made it clear he did not intend to improve relations with Russia and has previously criticized Trump on his treatment of US and NATO allies.
"I expect Biden and his appointees to be anti-Russia," former Department of Defense analyst and retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski told Sputnik. "This leads to more NATO funding, as well as reinvigoration of the European side of the Pentagon spending and programs."
Biden's orientation would lead to an expansion of US military programs and activity across Eastern Europe, the middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, Kwiatkowski warned.
"This means AFRICOM (US Africa Command) grows and intervenes more aggressively, the United States stays in the various fronts against Russia in the Baltic and Black Seas, and maintains military focus on Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan - lest Russia stage an imperial comeback," she said.
Russia House Director Professor Edward Lozansky, who is also President of the American University in Moscow recalled that Biden had published an article in "Foreign Affairs' magazine where he claimed he would make America WLA - World Leader Again and put Russia in its place.
"These might be just words and pre-election rhetoric so I think we should give him some time to understand what happened and get someone to explain to him what to do. In three words: God Save America," Lozansky said.
