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After President Biden announced Sunday that he would not seek reelection, national security experts are keeping their eye on America's main adversaries as Sen. Kamala Harris enters the race for the White House.
The sudden change in the Democratic presidential front-runner is raising concerns that leaders of authoritarian countries such as Russia, China and Iran could exploit the chaos for their own gain as Democrats scramble to craft an agenda to counter Republican nominee Donald Trump.
On the surface, countries like Russia and China have revealed little about how they will react to the certainty of a Biden administration and the changes it may bring to America's military posture overseas.
President Biden signed the executive order alongside Vice President Harris during an event in the East Room of the White House on Oct. 30, 2023. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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“There are still four months until the elections and a lot can change in that time. We need to be patient and closely watch what happens. The top priority for us is the special military operation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Sunday about Russia's war in Ukraine.
He also told reporters on a conference call that Moscow was “not that surprised” by Biden's withdrawal from the presidential race.
“What has been happening in the United States in recent years has taught us not to be surprised by anything,” Peskov said, according to Reuters.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning was even more coy, saying “the presidential election is America's own matter.”
“I can't comment on that,” she added at a press conference on Monday.
Over the past 24 hours, questions have been raised about Harris' qualifications regarding U.S. national security as global tensions continue to rise to levels not seen since the Cold War.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (Getty Images/File)
“Now that President Biden has dropped out of the race, Russia is paying close attention to whether Kamala Harris will indeed become the Democratic nominee,” Rebecca Koffler, a former State Department intelligence officer and author of “The Putin Play,” told Fox News Digital.
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Some reports citing U.S. intelligence officials have suggested in recent weeks that Russian President Vladimir Putin would back Trump, but international security officials, when asked by Fox News Digital, expressed skepticism that Moscow is truly backing either candidate.
“Putin and the Kremlin have no particular preference for who becomes the US president, because US policy has been consistent for the past 40 years. [of whether] “A Republican or a Democrat has taken the White House,” she said.
Experts are already looking at how any sudden changes to the 2024 presidential election could be exploited by his arch adversary, with Kofler saying, “The Russian press is seething with reports about Vice President Kamala Harris that Russia portrays as incompetent, vapid and clueless.”
Heino Klinck, a former assistant secretary of defense for East Asia and military attaché in China, similarly noted that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is also likely to use the sudden change to intensify anti-democratic discourse at home.
“Harris' sudden quasi-coronation only strengthens the Chinese Communist Party's narrative of undermining American democracy,” he said. “Harris' lack of national security and defense experience will not inspire confidence among our partners and allies.”
Some reports have said that Harris's relative lack of foreign policy experience means she may rely heavily on her advisers and is therefore unlikely to take a significantly different approach to Biden on major international issues such as the Ukraine war.
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Where Harris differs from the current president is with regard to the relationship between the United States and Israel.
It is unclear what Harris' stance on the Middle East issue will be and how it will affect U.S. policy if she is elected. As vice president, Harris has taken a stronger stance than Biden on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, but her strong criticism of Israel is likely to be unpopular even among moderate Democratic supporters.
“It's unclear how key issues in the region, from Iran to Israel, will change under a Harris administration,” Behnam Ben Taleb, an Iran expert and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital. “But the way Harris and other national security officials around the Democratic Party think about the region seems to be that less is more when it comes to the region. But that thinking has paved the way for the Islamic Republic to rise to power.” [of Iran].
“The transition period can be a turbulent time even for democracies,” Taleblu said, adding that Iran could use Biden's election withdrawal to its advantage.
Iranian pro-government protesters wave Palestinian flags in Tehran as they celebrate an early morning Iranian attack on Israel on April 14, 2024. (Hossein Berris/Middle East Images/Middle East Images via AFP)
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“My concern is that while the change in the top Democratic presidential candidate may have been made to appease domestic audiences, there are real questions about what the chaos will look and sound like overseas,” he added.
Iranian security experts pointed to Tehran's expanding nuclear program, its increasing reliance on militant groups to fight a proxy war in the Middle East and its rapidly developing ties with countries such as Russia as examples of growing security threats from Iran.
“If the administration appears disorganized and distracted, these situations could easily escalate,” he said.
While Harris never led efforts to address major international security threats as vice president, she served on the Senate Intelligence Committee as a senator and was familiar with White House policy strategy and top-level intelligence.