نشریه مطالعات سیاست خارجی تهران
پیاپی 18 (پاییز 1399)

Currently, in order to understand Europe's attitude towards the 2020 United States Presidential Elections, we should, as a matter of course, gain a complete and accurate knowledge of the transatlantic relations, principally the approaches of the Germany and France (in the absence of the United Kingdom) as the driving forces of the European Union for arranging the relationships. Unlike France, Germany lacks the historical experience of non-cooperation with the NATO and therefore, we can see the difference of outlook in German officials' opinions about the quality of the transatlantic relations and also their hesitation and desperation in the decisions they make regarding their relations with the US. Emmanuel Macron is now dealing with some domestic problems and therefore prefers to maintain the current state of cooperation with the NATO despite the commercial disagreements with the US and not create another conflict in his foreign policies; he would rather advance the two ideas of "the army and the European security council" and the continuity of "Russian-French Security Cooperation Council". Germany has also explicitly expressed the it will present the plan of "the framework of the European security council" in the second half of 2021 with the presence of the United Kingdom. In the years to come, Germany would worry more about the NATO's internal conflicts but would eventually be closer to France that before. It seems that Europe's security interactions with the US in a mid-term time span would be a combination of these two factors: first, the quality of German-French cooperation, and the European Union's new team's approach.

The present article seeks to investigate and analyze the place of the 2020 United States Presidential Elections in the foreign policy of the Arab States of the Persian Gulf and also each of these states' approach to the presidential candidates, i.e. the republican Donald Trump and the democratic candidate, Joe Biden. Since what comes out of the elections impacts America's foreign policy, especially regarding the Persian Gulf region and West Asia, the results of this election, like all the previous ones, have always been of special importance to the southern states of the Persian Gulf. Due to the internal US considerations and also these countries good relations with both American parties, the Persian Gulf states can't openly exert their position and support one of the candidates, but they try to unofficially support one more and help him win the elections based on their political, security, military and economic plans and the candidate's plans, background and approaches towards each country's domestic changes and regional equations. Apparently, Donald Trump's approach –which is increasing the pressures to deter the Islamic Republic of Iran and also supporting the current rulers' domestic and foreign approaches– is more to the likings of the majority of the Southern Persian Gulf countries. However, Joe Biden's softer approach has also attracted some supporters among some leaders and powerful elements in these countries.

As a result of its geographical location, Jordan is one of the regional players in the Middles East which has seriously been involved in Palestinian conflicts and the peace process from the beginning. Consequently, the Palestinian crisis is of great significance in Jordan's foreign policy and has consumed a major part of political, economic and security capacities of this country during the last seventy years. Since Jordan has always had more or less the same attitude towards a solution to this crisis as the Western super-powers, there have always been multiple opportunities for this country to play a role in this regard. The most important factors affecting Jordan's foreign policy regarding Palestine include the geopolitical position, security concerns and the king. Due to its geopolitical position, Jordan has always had to interact with the Palestinian deal, and Palestine has inevitably turned into Jordan's first political, regional and international priority. Security concerns about Palestinian crisis and Israel's occupation of this country have also affected Jordan's foreign policy. Given the construction of Jor dan's political system and focus of power in monarchy and the king himself, the third important factor can be the king and his approaches. Interacting with Palestinian issue and its consequences is not so much a choice as a necessity and therefore Jordan has always strived to serve its national interests by decreasing the threats and increasing the opportunities.

The countries' strategic behaviors in the international arenas is formed based on the components of the national power, limitations, challenges, capacities and the mental conception of the decision-makers of all these components and their willpower to utilize them. The foreign policy patterns and trends of the countries, especially the great powers, are always continued by the changing of the governments on a platform of "stability" and "change". The governments' strategic behavioral pattern are defined and executed in a process of combining the foreign policy components and instruments. American behavioral pattern during the last decades indicates that the structure formed by the possibilities, limitations, and capacities created by integrating the components of power, instruments and the agents' conceptions has continued to exist amongst both stability and change. George W. Bush was after creating an empire, Obama was after hegemony, Trump was an exceptionalist and Biden dreams of the revival of America's leadership in the world. After Trump came to power, the rather continual trend with changes according to the circum stances and time requirements turned into the dominance of the change paradigm over continuity. Yet, it can't be interpreted as a strategic shift in the US foreign policy. Now that Biden is about to embark on the tasks of the forty- sixth American president in the White House after a controversial election and the tainted legitimacy of the government, many scholars and analysts of the American foreign policy issues both inside and outside the US are trying to decode Biden's foreign policy for the United States. The main question is this: "What principles and axes will the American foreign policy be based on?" In order to find out the answers to the main questions, a series of secondary questions will be answered during the expert panel of "Biden's Foreign Policy; Continuity or Change?" The Tehran Foreign Policy Studies Quarterly is holding this expert panel with a number of senior experts and researchers in the field of American foreign policy to examine and strategically decode Biden's foreign policy model based on the views, stances and statements of both him and his advisors. The experts taking part in the panel are as follows: Mahmood Yazdanfam (Ph.D.), American strategic policies expert, Behzad Ahmadi (Ph.D.), senior researcher of European affairs, Isa Kameli (Ph.D), senior expert in American issues and Rezadad Darvish (Ph.D.) editor of the international affairs in the Tehran Foreign Policy Studies Quarterly.