2023 severely tested America’s diplomatic and strategic skills. The Biden administration worked hard to strengthen its international partnerships and America’s long-term economic prowess in the face of new conflicts, resistance from rivals, and skepticism from others. The US team held ground, adjusted tactics, and pressed ahead on key priorities despite the serious challenges, including polarization at home and abroad. At year’s end, however, the outlook is uncertain. 

President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and others have described this time as an “inflection point,” a historic changing point, for the United States and the world. They add—correctly, in my view—that many of the fruits from US and partner country initiatives and investments at home and abroad will likely not be evident for years or decades to come.

To get to the longer-term potential for a renewed American role in the world, the US needs to soldier on persistently and effectively through a series of difficult tests.

It is not clear yet whether 2023 will be seen in retrospect as part of an inflection point in the evolution of the international order in the direction that the US would prefer, but so far, the US is maintaining vigorous efforts to reshape that order, working with likeminded partners.

2024, however, promises more challenges, especially as a bruising US election campaign questions the current policy directions and as world crises test US resolve. US domestic debates are already sending flashing red lights to friends, partners, and rivals, as highlighted by sharp divisions over year-end supplemental budget requests for Ukraine, Israel, and the border.  

Uncertainty may well be the predominant message from 2023. 2024 will bring more testing of America’s ability to revitalize its international leadership, capacities, and strength.  

When he came to office, President Biden and his team proposed an aggressive policy of rebuilding partnerships and alliances, standing up to strategic rivals, supporting democracy, and investing at home to make the US more competitive economically for the years ahead. 

In 2022, the invasion of Ukraine tested US diplomacy and its military industrial base. America responded by effectively rallying partnerships with NATO, the EU, and others to help Ukraine stop Russia.

However, 2023 has seriously tested America’s priorities and America’s global standing. Russia rallied its own partners to support its military campaign in Ukraine, with support from Iran, North Korea, and China in what some labeled as a new “axis of evil,” and throwing substantial resources into the fight to achieve what currently looks like a stalemate on the ground. The US is working hard to rally allies, partners, and domestic support. 

Beyond Ukraine, the US continued to construct a wide-ranging latticework of cooperative agreements and mechanisms covering an impressive range of issues and countries. These stretch far beyond traditional partners. 

In 2023, the US executive also consistently pushed ahead on its long-term agenda to strengthen the US economy by incorporating new technologies, strengthening supply chains, and making substantial domestic investments to build a twenty-first century economy, all of which are fueled by three major pieces of legislation passed in 2021-22. The Biden team subsequently found ways to include and engage international partners from North America, Europe, and the Indo-Pacific in this “competitiveness” agenda. 

However, these efforts confronted serious headwinds beyond the Ukraine war in the form of a new conflict to address, other confrontations with rivals and competitors, hesitancy from a skeptical “Global South,” resistance from Congress, and polarization among the US public.

The October Hamas attack on Israel thrust another dangerous conflict on the world and put the US at center stage in an emotionally-charged crisis, as it tries to support a long-time partner led by a problematic Prime Minister while simultaneously searching for acceptable ways to end the fighting, save lives, and get to a sustainable peace. 

As 2023 ends, the Ukraine/Russia and Israel/Hamas conflicts are dividing partners and domestic US politics. The conflicts are complex, perilous tests of the US’s ability to lead and to find consensus on charged, strategically important issues internationally and at home. The outcomes will impact the effort to reshape America’s international role.

One can’t neglect China as the focus of serious US concerns and internal debates over how to deal with its aggressive behavior in the South China Sea and threats to Taiwan as well as China’s successful efforts to spread its global influence using its economic, commercial, and technological prowess. The Biden administration wisely pivoted this year to reinitiate dialogue and ease tensions with China in recent months, but how Washington will manage the competition and rivalry with China remains to be seen.

Many countries, including the so-called “Global South,” are trying hard not to getting caught up in these big power rivalries. Yet the competition already involves them. The US worked hard in 2023 to extend its diplomatic presence and to seek agreements deepening relations in previously neglected countries driven by geostrategic or geoeconomics rationales, including securing resilient supply chains for critical materials.

The world’s broader work agenda did not slow down in 2023. Local conflicts and global issues such as climate, health, crime, and migration have pressed the US to stay engaged and help lead the ways ahead.

Two of these global issues—migration and drug trafficking—deserve specific mention because they directly batter the US body politic.  

The world seems to have entered a new era in which mass migrations are persisting. Wars, failed states, criminal violence, autocratic regimes, economic failures, and climate change are pushing millions to flee their home countries. The US is one of the migrant magnets, and the US has not been able to forge a set of policies to manage well the massive migration flows, fueling bitter internal US debates.

In a similar vein, the trafficking of deadly fentanyl into the large market of US consumers led to over 100,000 US overdose deaths in recent years. Enforcement efforts, diplomacy, and supply-reduction programs has so far fallen short. These are multi-year challenges at best, but they are, for example, sparking sharp proposals for action that could significantly raise tensions with Mexico—America’s largest trading partner and the bilateral relationship that touches more US daily lives than any other in the world. 

Migration and fentanyl highlight how many issues today are divisive domestically and challenging internationally. 2023 underscored that reality. 2024 will highlight it even more. 

In every region of the world, such issues also fuel polarization and threats to democratic practices. Echoing a series of related studies, the October 2023 Rule of Law Index reports that for the sixth year in a row, a majority of countries, representing 76 percent of the world’s population, experienced declining rule of law, driven by authoritarian trends and struggling justice systems. Defending democracy at home and abroad will remain very challenging in 2024.

2023 saw impressive international actions and agreements among the US and its partners, but the outcomes are far from clear. The international competition, rivalries, and challenges will remain demanding. The American and other publics remain seriously divided, critical, unsure of the best direction, and, in general, grumpy about the challenges of recent years. 

2023 leaves us uncertain and with a difficult agenda. 2024 will demand more intense work to overcome divisions, to solidify partnerships, to forge mutual understandings, to defend core values, and to craft solutions. Hopefully, 2024 will yield us more satisfying outcomes and a clearer sense of what kind of an “inflection point” we are experiencing.

Ambassador Earl Anthony Wayne is a Distinguished Diplomat in Residence at SIS. Ambassador Wayne served as a US diplomat from 1975 to 2015, including as Ambassador to Argentina (2006-2009), Coordinating Director for Development and Economic Affairs and Deputy Ambassador in Kabul, Afghanistan (2009-2011), and Ambassador to Mexico (2011-15). The U.S. Senate confirmed him as a Career Ambassador, the highest rank in the US Foreign Service, in 2010.