What is the Kamala Harris Doctrine?

In her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Vice President Kamala Harris mentioned foreign policy and national security in brief, broad, general themes: support for Israel and for Palestinian self-determination, and work toward a ceasefire of the ongoing conflict in Gaza; support for Ukraine in its war against Russia; support for border security but welcoming immigrants; ensuring America has the “strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world”; support for NATO; and waging tech competition with China. Eventually, someone will need to put some flesh on the bones collected in her speech.

On foreign policy, Harris has not yet separated herself from Joe Biden. As vice president, she carried water for the Biden administration in meetings with foreign leaders, in speeches, and in interviews. Her foreign policy and national security positions presumably required White House clearance, so it would be a mistake to conclude from them that as president she will necessarily continue adhering to those positions. If there is to be a “Harris Doctrine,” the Biden administration’s policies are one area to look at, but two others are probably more telling: her record in the U.S. Senate, and the record and views of her chief national security adviser Philip Gordon.

Based on her brief remarks about foreign policy in her acceptance speech, we know Harris favors a Palestinian state (“self-determination” for the Palestinian people) and a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, i.e., Israel stopping its offensive in Gaza. We know she favors continuing to provide military aid to Ukraine. She said nothing about Taiwan, and next to nothing about China. The latter is a glaring omission because the U.S. and China, as Niall Ferguson and others have explained, are waging Cold War II against each other. As Elbridge Colby and others have noted, China poses a far greater threat to U.S. national security interests than Russia does. Does Harris believe we are in Cold War II with China? What steps as president would she take to deter China from attacking, invading, or blockading Taiwan or the Philippines? Does she support a substantial increase in the number of warships for the U.S. Navy? Does she support the deployment of tactical and intermediate range nuclear missiles in the western Pacific to help offset China’s geographical and conventional military advantage in the region?

In her acceptance speech, Harris promoted the neoconservative globalist agenda. She talked about the importance of America waging the “enduring struggle between democracy and tyranny,” and pledged to hold autocrats “accountable.” She also spoke of the importance of “advancing our security and values abroad.” Holding all autocrats accountable and advancing our values abroad is a recipe for more endless wars and more needless injuries and deaths of American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines. The only exception she made to the neoconservative globalist agenda was in the Middle East; more about that later.   

Harris in her acceptance speech lauded her efforts at border security, a key national security issue given the unprecedented influx of illegal aliens who subsequently crossed the border and were transported to locations throughout the country by the Biden administration. As a U.S. Senator, the first piece of legislation Harris introduced was the Access to Counsel Act, which sought to ensure access to counsel for anyone held or detained while trying to enter the United States at a border or port of entry. She had previously sent a letter to the Secretary of Homeland Security in which she demanded that Customs and Border Patrol officials grant persons detained at ports of entry throughout the U.S. “timely and unfettered access to legal counsel.” On January 30, 2017, Harris co-signed a letter to President Trump expressing her “outrage” at Trump’s Executive Order designed to prevent foreign terrorists from entering the United States. Trump’s order suspended for 90 days the issuance of visas to nationals of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, and Libya. She labeled it a “Muslim ban” and called it “fundamentally un-American,” and urged the president to revoke the order. Harris issued a statement calling Trump’s order “broad brush discrimination against refugees and immigrants from Muslim-majority countries,” and called for “opening our doors to those fleeing war and oppression.” Harris also announced that she would be voting against the confirmation of Gen. John Kelly as head of the Department of Homeland Security because he failed to provide assurances that so-called “Dreamers” and their families will not be deported. Harris also co-sponsored legislation to rescind President Trump’s Executive Order directing Homeland Security to prioritize the deportation of illegal aliens, and condemned the Trump administration for considering using the National Guard to enforce immigration laws at the border. In March 2017, Harris introduced a bill to rescind President Trump’s executive order that would build a border wall, and increase detention and deportations of illegal aliens. She also co-sponsored legislation that would prevent federal agents from enforcing immigration laws at schools, hospitals, and religious institutions. In June 2018, Senator Harris staged a visit to a border detention facility in California, where she spoke out against the Trump administration’s harsh  “zero-tolerance” immigration policies that result in “tearing families apart.” In July 2018, Harris and other senators wrote a letter to the Secretary of Homeland Security expressing concern over the “ongoing practice of arresting undocumented immigrants at United States citizenship and Immigration Services offices.” She called Trump’s border security efforts “disastrous and cruel.” Harris’ efforts at enabling more illegal immigration and promoting amnesty for illegal aliens continued throughout her senate career.

After Harris announced her candidacy for president in 2019, she tweeted that as president she would reinstate DACA, protect families from deportation, and establish “a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers.” At one of the Democratic primary debates, Harris reiterated her support for protecting illegal aliens from deportation and easing asylum regulations. In July 2019, Harris criticized “ICE raids” as a “political stunt designed to break up families and spread fear.” In October 2019, Harris co-sponsored the Homeland Security Improvement Act, and alleged that DHS committed “human rights abuses against immigrant children,” and described conditions in DHS detention centers as “abhorrent.”

As a senator, Harris issued her first issue position on foreign policy in January 2016. She emphasized fighting terrorism and countering governments who support terrorism. She mentioned the need to “reduce nuclear threats” and engage in arms control. She indicated her support for President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. Harris also identified climate change as an “existential threat to humanity.” She recommended using the “smart power of diplomacy and rallying the world to act.” She claimed to be a staunch supporter of Israel. Other than that, her foreign policy position record in the Senate is sparse.

In May 2017, Sen. Harris co-signed a letter to President Trump urging him to keep the U.S. in the Paris Climate Agreement. In June 2018, Harris issued a statement explaining that she was voting against the National Defense Authorization Act because she does not support the development of a low-yield nuclear weapons program. At the September 12, 2019 Democratic Party presidential debate, Harris talked about “partnering with China” on climate change and North Korea. During the vice presidential debate on Oct 7, 2020, Harris criticized Trump’s trade war with China. Harris co-sponsored the Hong Kong Human rights and Democracy Act of 2019. She also served as a co-sponsor of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020.

Sen. Harris has a bit more of a record when it comes to the Middle East. She voted against the Strengthening America’s Security in the Middle East Act of 2019, which provided for partnership with, and military assistance for, Israel. In June 2019, Harris voted to approve a joint resolution that would prohibit the issuance of export licenses to the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and Australia for defense systems and programs intended for UAE armed forces. She also favored the joint resolution that would prohibit the sale of aircraft, engines, weapons, publications, and technical documentation to Saudi Arabia. She also voted for a resolution directing the removal of U.S. armed forces from participating in hostilities in Yemen, where the Saudis were battling Houthi rebels. On January 7, 2020, Harris issued a statement criticizing the Trump administration’s strike against Qasem Soleimani, claiming that it “has further enflamed tensions and further destabilized the region.” Two days later, Harris noted her support of the No War Against Iran Act, claiming that the Trump administration was risking war with Iran. Harris also co-signed a letter to the Customs and Border Patrol Commissioner criticizing the detention at the border of Iranian nationals.         

Harris has received a 100 percent rating from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group whose leader said, according to a report in the New York Times, that he was happy to see Palestinians break out of Gaza on the day Hamas attacked Israel. The Simon Wiesenthal Center accuses CAIR of “spreading radicalization through the country through its ties to the Muslim Brotherhood--including Hamas.” Other Jewish organizations have also criticized CAIR for what they characterize as its anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic activities. Harris also received in 2018 and 2020, a 100 percent rating from the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), which has been described by Kaveh Shahrooz, a lawyer and human rights activist, as Iran’s de facto lobby in the West. NIAC, he writes, “run[s] cover for the Islamic regime, advances its views, and undermines its opponents.” In January 2020, Sens. Tom Cotton, Mike Braun, and Ted Cruz asked the Justice Department to investigate NIAC and its sister organization NIAC Action for potential violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. NIAC also recently praised Harris for selecting Tim Walz as her running mate. Sen. Cotton and Rep. Elise Stefanik recently sent a letter to Harris demanding answers about her national security adviser’s alleged connections to an Iranian influence operation.

Harris’ national security adviser is Philip Gordon, who previously served in foreign policy and national security positions in the Clinton and Obama administrations. He was and is a leading proponent of NATO enlargement, which many foreign policy and Russia experts (George Kennan, Richard Pipes, Edward Luttwak, Jack Matlock, Jr, Paul Nitze, John Mearsheimer, Susan Eisenhower, Owen Harries, Arthur Hartman, Fred Ikle, Sam Nunn, Marshall Shulman, Robert Bowie, William Burns. to name just a few) opposed, predicting that it would bring forth the worst aspects of Russian nationalism and imperialism.

Philip Gordon was on the national security council staff in the late 1990s at the Europe desk and presumably was involved in providing advice to Clinton’s national security adviser on the wisdom of NATO enlargement. In 2001, he wrote a Brookings Policy Brief supporting NATO enlargement and opining that Russia under Putin would “find a way to accommodate a development that it does not like but knows it cannot stop.” He testified in 2008: “I believe that the process of NATO enlargement, begun in the early 1990s, has contributed to security and prosperity in Europe.” He urged support for the admission into NATO of Albania, Croatia, and the Republic of Macedonia. He noted that the question of bringing Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was more controversial, acknowledging that Russia was strongly opposed, but opined that their process of admission into the alliance should proceed. This, despite George Kennan’s statement many years before that Russia  views Ukraine the way the United States views Pennsylvania. This despite George Kennan’s New York Times article in 1997 that predicted that NATO expansion would be “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era.” Gordon, apparently, thought he knew Russia better than Kennan and all the other foreign policy and Russia experts that opposed NATO enlargement.

Just as Gordon was tragically wrong about the consequences of NATO enlargement, so, too, was he wrong about Middle East policy in the Obama administration, where he was one of the architects of the Iran nuclear deal and one of Obama’s top advisers on Middle East policy. Gordon himself recognized that, as he wrote in 2015, the Middle East under Obama went from bad to worse. He cited Yemen’s humanitarian disaster, the disintegration of order in Libya, and Ramadi’s fall to ISIL. The so-called Arab Spring turned out to be an Arab Winter, but Gordon assured us that it wasn’t Obama’s or his fault. He wrote about the “collapsing prospects for Middle East Peace,” and mostly blamed the Netanyahu government and Israeli settlements on the West Bank.

What about China? In 2020, Gordon wrote an essay for War on the Rocks, criticizing Trump’s “failed China policy,” and recommending the return to “engagement” with China. Trump, he wrote, was wrong to get tough on trade with China. Trump was wrong to tighten visa policies for Chinese students who want to enter the United States. Trump was also wrong, Gordon wrote, to focus “on the costs of strategic and economic engagement with China while neglecting its benefits.” We need to cooperate with China on climate change, preventing nuclear and biological weapons proliferation, managing pandemics, and avoiding war, he wrote. Gordon, of course, mentioned the need for deterrence and a pivot to the Indo-Pacific, but also urged the avoidance of an “open-ended arms race.” The problem, however, is that China is the only one racing. Gordon would return us to the engagement/competition dual policy that led to China’s rise in the first place. It is detente all over again, except unlike Nixon and Kissinger’s version, Gordon does not advocate policies designed to exploit possible fissures in the China-Russia strategic partnership. As he recently tweeted, “@VP pledged enduring support for Ukraine and noted Russia’s aggression is ‘not only an attack on the lives and freedom of the people of Ukraine’ but also ‘an attack on international rules and norms an principles embodied in UN Charter.” It is as if Gordon believes that nothing had changed in China since Deng Xiaoping was its ruler.

When you combine Harris’ remarks during her acceptance speech, her votes and positions as a senator and presidential candidate with the policy prescriptions of her top national security adviser, a Harris foreign policy would likely continue the Biden administration’s open border policies, continue to fuel the war in Ukraine and possibly wage wars against other  “autocrats,” soften our approach to the Mullahs in Iran, pressure Israel to make more concessions in the Middle East, and be less confrontational than Trump was, or Biden has been, with China.