Names that can guide Benden's foreign policy

Try to remember four years ago when Biden worked at the White House as vice president.

There are about 4,000 political appointments that each new administration must make, in foreign policy and others.

Beden, who has served for decades on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and has led him for years, has people in his orbit from the time of President Barack Obama's administration. Many have governmental experience and first - rate knowledge.

Biden and his assistants have been trying to make it clear that, although many of his key foreign policy figures are expected to be administration veterans Obama, this does not mean simply a continuation of Obama's policies.

Russia, China, Iran, NATO: All these are issues that will be addressed differently, obviously in some cases.

Beden could face obstacles if the runoff elections in January left the Republicans in control of the Senate, which has constitutional authority to confirm many foreign policy and national security positions.

These are some of the names that circulate for the most important foreign policy positions in the future Benden administration:

State Secretary

The position of the American diplomat is one of the most important in the cabinet.

President Donald Trump had two.

The first, Rex Tillerson, who has been constantly confronted with Trump's governing style, has been dismissed by the president in March 2018, after just over a year in office. CIA Director Mike Pompeo took the job.

Now, at least two democratic senators seem interested in the job. Chris Coons currently serves on the Committee of the Justice Senate and the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Last month, Coons was author of a long article in the magazine Foreign Affairs, entitled “A two-party foreign policy is still possible”. This is seen as his attempt to portray himself as someone who wants to work with the Republicans.

The other senator, Chris Murphy, is currently a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. He has also portrayed himself as a person willing to cooperate and as progressive lawmakers.

Murphy has spoken strongly against Russia and in support of Ukraine and other Eastern European countries. He was co-authored of a project to finance energy projects in Eastern Europe, to reduce the region's dependence on Russian oil and gas, REL.

The appointment of a senator in the position of the secretary of State would probably mean the loss of a democratic country in the Senate, which is currently controlled by the Republicans.

Other candidates include Antony Blinken, who has long experience in Washington's foreign affairs. He served as a staff member at the White House National Security Council under President Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

From 2009 to 2013, he has served as Biden's main adviser for national security. He was also the number two official in the State Department, under Secretary Hillary Clinton in her last few years. And he was one of the main advisers during Beden's presidential campaign.

At a security forum in August, Blinken has said the upcoming Benden administration would face the most challenging and complex security environment in decades”.

Who's Joe Biden?

Nicholas Burns is also seen as a potential candidate. Now Professor of Kennedy School at Harvard and foreign adviser to the Benden campaign Burns served at the White House of the Democrat President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. But he has also served in the administration of Republican President George W. Bush, as ambassador to NATO and senior State Department official.

In recent interviews, Burns has called for the reconstruction of US-European relations, which, according to him, are in the worst situation since the end of World War II.

Defence Secretary

In recent years, several presidents have chosen a member of the other party to head the Pentagon. William Cohen, Robert Gates, and Chuck Hagel were Republicans who served under democratic presidents.

Trump's first defence secretary, Jim Mattis, is considered independent, but is later separated from Trump, publicly criticising him and supporting Biden.

Michele Flournoy, who has served as deputy secretary of defence for two different secretaries during the Obama administration, is seen as the top candidate for the Pentagon leadership. She would be the first woman in that position.

Before joining the Obama administration, she co-founded an institute in Washington called the Center for New American Security.

During discussions at a security forum in August, Flournoy has called on the United States to invest more in new technologies to prevent the malicious acts of Russia and China.

Derek Chollet, senior adviser to two defence secretaries in Obama's administration, is also on the close list of the Beden administration for the post of defence or foreign policy. Chollet, now at the German Marshall Foundation, was also a senior official in Secretary Hillary Clinton's department.

National Security Councilman

Founded at the beginning of the Cold War to help coordinate foreign, economic, defence and intelligence issues for the presidency, the influence of this post has undoubtedly reached its climax under Henry Kissinger, who served President Richard Nixon in the 1970s.

Trump had four national security advisers. Last one was Robert O'Brien.

Obama, by comparison, has had three, including Susan Rice, who is seen as a strong candidate to return to the same position, in the Biden administration.

Rice, who has also been ambassador to the United Nations during the Obama administration, is known in Washington for his sharp language and as a fierce inter-institution fighter.

Antony Blinken is said to be a candidate for this position as well. So is Tom Donion, a longtime assistant of Beden, who has served as Obama's adviser for national security in front of Rice.

Donillo has also been the spokesman for the Obama Council for National Security and CIA officer for 11 years, who has publicly resigned from the agency after Trump took office in 2017.

The controversial candidate is Michael McFaul, who has been adviser to Russia at the Obama Council for National Security. Now professor at Stanford University, McFaul was Obama's ambassador to Russia.

Another Beden assistant who can take a key post is Michael Carpenter, who now heads an institute at the University of Pennsylvania. Carpenter has been a senior Pentagon official, overseeing politics for Russia, Ukraine, Euro-Asian and the Balkans. He, too, has been a vocal critic of Trump and his policies and staunch support of Biden.

Ambassador to United Nations

The fact that this post is considered a high - ranking position often surprises people. But it is a diplomatic position that can easily rival him as secretary of State in visibility. During the Iraq war, in 2003, Ambassador John Negroponte has exploited his position to help build the issue of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Obama's ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, is also considered one of the most influential ambassadors, mainly because of his closeness to Obama. Now professor at Harvard, Power is also the adviser to the Biden foreign policy campaign. Some observers speculate it could return to government. It is unclear if she would like to return to New York as a UN ambassador.

Susan Rice is another name that circulates here, but, again, there is a post confirmed by the Senate, which can cause trouble for her.

CIA Director

After Mike Pompeo has left the U.S. top intelligence agency to become Secretary of State, Gina Haspel has been elected director.

Although Haspel is widely backed by agency personnel and many others in the intelligence community, many Democrats suspect her involvement in interrogation policies following the 11 September terrorist attacks. Those techniques are considered to have been tormenting.

For this reason, many observers suspect the Benden administration will keep him in office.

Among the top candidates for the position is Avril Haines, deputy director of the CIA during the Obama administration, the first woman in history to hold that position.

Haines, who was a Biden campaign adviser, has also served as deputy adviser to the Obama Council for National Security.

Other Locations, Other Staffs

These are some of the prominent foreign policy positions in the United States government, but there are many others that play a role in determining US international policies: from Treasury Secretary to second-level positions in the State and Defence Departments.

Other prominent figures of the Obama administration, which will compete for these or other positions, include Wendy Sherman, who has been deputy secretary of state for political affairs and an architect of the nuclear agreement with Iran, and Jake Sullivan, assistant to national security in the Obama administration and senior official of the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016.