“Curious Passivity”: Underbalancing Behaviour In The United States’ Foreign Policy Response To Covid-19

Abstract

In 2020, the United States experienced a multifaceted threat environment. Not only was the United States one of the states worst impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is also engaged in the ongoing Sino-American competition over the global distribution of power. The United States was therefore simultaneously faced with a traditional and a non-traditional security threat. However, the United States’ response to COVID-19 during a power challenge did not trigger the significant mobilisation of state resources that theories expect. This research addresses the puzzle of why the United States did not appropriately respond to the multifaceted threat environment in 2020. To answer this question, this study applies underbalancing theory and adopts a process tracing methodology to empirically examine three of the United States’ foreign policy decisions made in 2020; the decisions to restrict PPE exports, withdraw from WHO, and not participate in COVAX. The adverse political environment in the United States in 2020 impeded foreign policy decision-making, which led to underbalancing behaviour. This research scrutinises the recent and puzzling phenomenon of American policymaking in the last year of the Trump administration, the response to COVID-19 during a period of global power transition, and confirms that neoclassical realist theories of power can be usefully applied to the contemporary, multifaceted threat environment. It also affirms theories of protracted American decline in global influence, which is a trend that transcends the Trump administration.