The most important thing to know about the Biden administration’s foreign policy so far is that it is structurally identical to the foreign policies of every US president since World War II. It is, simply put, a foreign policy organized around the principal of world domination. Under Biden’s leadership, the United States will continue to do what it’s done for the duration of the so-called “American Century” announced by the publisher Henry Luce in 1941: control the world through a combination of economic and military means.

Biden’s underlings will ensure that the US dollar remains the world’s global reserve currency; that the US Armed Forces retain access to the nation’s approximately seven hundred fifty overseas bases; and that the government continues to spend a grotesque amount on the military. We’re sure to hear about various tactical changes that Biden makes — and even see matter-of-fact statements that “his administration’s commitment to human rights [is] a pillar of its foreign policy” — but US imperialism will remain the governing reality for most human beings on Earth.

The US left, meanwhile, is in a strange position. The Bernie Sanders campaign and the success of left politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib have demonstrated that there’s a real hunger for criticism of the status quo. Simultaneously, however, Sanders’s defeat and the relative weakness of AOC, Omar, and Tlaib suggest that socialists need to step back and think through our general approach to the US state and power itself.