Beware false doctrines

ANDREI GROMYKO, the Soviet Union’s pre-eminent America-watcher, remarked that the object of his study had so “many doctrines and concepts proclaimed at different times” that it was unable to pursue “a solid, coherent and consistent policy”. And that was during the cold war, a period of relatively cool-headed American policy analysis. How much more applicable does Gromyko’s observation seem to the first eight months of Joe Biden’s presidency. Half a dozen different versions of the Biden Doctrine had been outlined by foreign-policy commentators before the president had even given a major foreign-policy speech.

Parsing the president’s campaign statements, some suggested the alleged doctrine was a return to the pre-Trump status quo, with a warm embrace of allies and the international order. Other prognosticators, focusing on Mr Biden’s scepticism of military intervention and his party’s protectionism, foresaw a more diplomatic version of Donald Trump’s scattergun nativism. Some pinpointed the president’s interest in shoring up democracy; or his rhetoric about prioritising policies beneficial to American workers. How to make sense of all this? “Biden’s everything doctrine” was the verdict of an essay in Foreign Affairs.

An alternative response might be to question the utility, as Gromyko did, of the...