Antony Blinken – the Washington insider picked by Biden to rebuild US foreign policy

For those who don’t follow Washington politics particularly closely, the announcement that Antony Blinken will become Joe Biden’s Secretary of State will likely prompt a basic question: who is he? Compared to most of the recent figures appointed to the post – Mike Pompeo, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton – Blinken has never pursued a high-profile political career.

Nonetheless, he is a prototypical insider of the Washington foreign policy establishment who has been involved in helping shape US foreign policy for over two decades after serving in both the Clinton and the Obama administrations. Blinken’s appointment by Biden is a strong statement of the President-elect’s desire to restore US foreign policy to the status quo ante Trump – at least, so far as that is possible. 

For many US allies this will be reassuring to hear. Trump’s foreign policy often seemed erratic, leaving them scrambling to adjust to his latest on the hoof proposal. At the same time, Trump’s approach was guided by a firm scepticism towards traditional US alliances and commitments, from NATO to the United Nations. With Blinken, a more committed and cooperative approach to these institutions will be back in fashion. 

There are, however, some exceptions. Boris Johnson will, doubtless, be a little anxious about the appointment of a man who once compared Brexit to “the dog that caught the car and the car goes into reverse and runs over the dog”. He has also previously compared Brexit to the rise of the extreme right Marine LePen in France and expressed concerns about its impact on peace in Ireland, a sentiment which matches Biden’s own concerns. 

Still, Blinken also has a reputation as a moderate and as a consensus-builder able to reach across ideological divides. When Biden won the Democratic nomination, it was Blinken who helped lead the successful outreach to the radical, Bernie Sanders wing of the party – consequently, Sanders’ chief foreign policy adviser quickly tweeted his endorsement of Blinken’s rumoured appointment. 

Equally, when Boris Johnson was serving as foreign secretary under Theresa May there seemed little open friction between him and Blinken when they met at the 2016 OSCE summit.  

In terms of foreign policy priorities, climate change and the environment provide obvious areas of cooperation between the UK and a Biden administration, something Boris has already adroitly suggested. Biden’s apparent plan to build stronger links between the world’s democracies to balance growing autocratic forces worldwide may be complicated by Brexit. But, it also provides a strong incentive to keep the UK – a nuclear power with well-developed military and intelligence capabilities as well as a large economy – onboard. 

Other US allies, such as Saudi Arabia, have far greater cause to worry. In 2018 Blinken, signed an open letter admitting that the Obama administration’s initial support for Saudi intervention in Yemen had been mistaken. Though, again, these views do not diverge too far from Biden’s own and the President-elect, like most of the Democratic mainstream, has grown increasingly sceptical of Saudi foreign policy, even as Trump gave the country more of a carte blanche in its own neighbourhood. 

In many ways Blinken seems to be an extension of Biden. The two have long been close. Blinken has served as Biden’s chief foreign policy adviser since 2002, helped run his failed 2008 presidential bid, and took the post of National Security Advisor to the Vice President in the Obama administration. When Biden took charge of Middle Eastern policy for Obama, it was Blinken who apparently drafted Biden’s controversial – and consequently unfulfilled – plan to partition Iraq. 

However, one key area of difference did emerge in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, when Blinken was apparently more open to military interventions than his patron. In 2011, for example, he surprised many in the administration by breaking with Biden to advocate for US military intervention in Libya to remove Colonel Muammar al-Gadafi. 

Apparently, Obama, who ultimately did intervene in Libya through US-led airstrikes, liked what he saw. After that, Blinken continued to rise: he became Deputy National Security Advisor in 2013 and Deputy Secretary of State in 2015. Still, despite Blinken focusing on the Middle East in these roles, he proved unable to convince Obama to intervene in Syria. In an interview, he admitted that to this day he remains deeply troubled by what he sees as US failure to act at a crucial moment in the country’s, still-ongoing, Civil War. 

Here, Blinken’s outlook will likely play a key role. Early on in his foreign policy career, after leaving journalism to take a job in the Clinton administration, he worked on the US government’s intervention to prevent genocides from taking place in Bosnia and Kosovo. Blinken’s step-father – Samuel Pisar – was also a  Holocaust survivor and is said to have helped mould his convictions that the US has a duty to prevent atrocities worldwide. 

His family background has likely informed his views in other ways as well. Born to Jewish parents in New York in 1962, he was born into a social circle that was wealthy and internationalist. His father, Donald Blinken, was a successful investment banker who, in his twilight years, served as the US Ambassador to Hungary under President Clinton. Around the same time his uncle, Alan, served as Ambassador to Belgium. Even before this, Tony knew Europe well. When Tony’s mother, Judith, divorced his father and remarried, he moved with her to Paris, where he attended the elite École Jeannine Manuel.  To this day, Blinken remains bilingual in French. 

With a wealthy family involved in philanthropy, Blinken also developed artistic interests. He briefly flirted with going into the film industry, even earning an associate producer credit on a 1995 vampire film. Today the only public sign of these artistic inclinations are two love songs that Blinken has posted to his Spotify profile. These are apparently a touching gesture for his wife Evan Ryan, who is also a Washington insider.  

He is mostly known for his service record and a reputation for competence, experience, and discretion, all qualities that the new President will need in abundance in a Secretary of State as he seeks to move beyond Trump’s legacy.