For a foreign policy veteran, the real danger is at home

Everywhere he has gone as president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard N. Haass has been asked the same question: What keeps him up at night? He has had no shortage of options over the years: Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, climate change, international terrorism, food insecurity, the global pandemic.

But as he steps down after two decades of leading America’s most storied private organization focused on international affairs, Mr. Haass reached a disturbing conclusion. The biggest threat to the world’s security right now? The threat that is costing him sleep? The United States itself.

“It’s us,” he said ruefully recently.

That was never a thought this global strategist would have had until recently. But in his mind, the unraveling of the American political system means that for the first time in his life, the internal threat has surpassed the external threat. Instead of being the most reliable anchor in an unstable world, Mr Haass said, the United States has become the deepest source of instability and an uncertain example of democracy.

“Our domestic political situation is not the only one others don’t want to emulate,” he said in an interview ahead of his last day at the Council on Foreign Relations on Friday. “But I also think it has introduced a level of unpredictability and a lack of reliability that is really toxic. For America’s ability to function successfully in the world, I mean, it makes it very difficult for our friends to rely on us.

The challenges at home have prompted a man who has spent his entire career as a policymaker and student of world affairs to turn his attention inward. Mr. Haass recently published a book titled “The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens,” which outlines how Americans can help heal their own society, such as “Be Informed,” “Remain Civil,” “Put Country First” – all admittedly bromides yet somehow often elusive these days. In addition to his work as a consultant, he plans to spend much of the next chapter of his life promoting the teaching of civics.

“My own trajectory has changed,” he noted during a pair of interviews that recap two decades with the council. “This new book is not something I would have predicted five or 10 years ago, but I actually think it’s almost a realignment of American democracy. Now it has become a national security issue. And that is different.”

Both his position and his temperament make Mr. Haass, 71, a reputable member of the establishment disgraced in the Donald J. Trump era, a voice of the largely bipartisan “realist” consensus that favors better or worse defined America’s place in the world for most of the three-quarters of a century since World War II. It’s a clubby world, of course, one that invariably leads to accusations of elitist groupthink or even conspiracy theories. Before his last appearance as chairman of the board last week, Mr. Haass interviewed Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken on stage and online, the 27th Secretary of State to appear before the council.

“It’s hard to think of anyone who has done more to make this institution what it is today,” Mr. Blinken praised his host.

“I want to thank him for that,” Mr. Haass replied with a smile. “But I’m going to ask him some tough questions.”

Haass, a veteran of four administrations, a Democrat and three Republicans, has nevertheless transcended the insular world of think-tank policy wonks by regularly appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” where he depicts in measured but unmistakable terms the political polarization and excesses of recent years and tried to understand it all.

From the set in New York’s Rockefeller Plaza, Mr. Haass went about 20 blocks north most mornings to the council’s Upper East Side headquarters. His relatively unassuming fourth-floor office was exactly what you’d imagine the cluttered office of the president of the Council on Foreign Relations would look like, filled with literally thousands of books, dozens of globes, piles of paper, honorary degrees from various universities. and photos featuring family members, presidents, and colleagues from previous administrations.

It will be difficult to imagine the council without him. The longest-serving president in the history of the century-old organization, he is proud to maintain his place in the firmament as he grows and diversifies his membership, opens an expanded office in Washington, focuses on education and maintains a bipartisan approach, she it’s not one that embraces America First Trumpism. He will be succeeded by Michael Froman, the US trade representative under President Barack Obama.

Born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island, Mr. Haass at Oberlin College, where he made a documentary about student reaction to the Kent State shootings. After graduating in 1973, he became a Rhodes scholar. He worked for Rhode Island Democrat Senator Claiborne Pell on Capitol Hill, where in 1974 he met a young Senator named Joe Biden.

Mr. Haass went on to serve in the Pentagon under President Jimmy Carter, the State Department under President Ronald Reagan, and the National Security Council under President George HW Bush. Under President George W. Bush, he was director of policy planning at the State Department eventually left in 2003, disenchanted with the war in Iraq, which he later mentioned “a bad choice badly implemented.”

As a young man, Mr. Haass opposed the Vietnam War and considered himself a liberal, but then became inspired by the writings of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the rise of Margaret Thatcher and the Reagan-Bush view of American leadership abroad and a reticent government in their own country. He was a Republican for over 40 years, although he sometimes voted for Democrats. But by 2020, he renounced the party which was captured by Mr. Trump and after the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 and publicly declared itself unaffiliated.

In the past century, America has experienced other periods of division and discord – Jim Crow, McCarthyism, Vietnam, civil rights, Watergate. The murders, riots and war of 1968 often come to mind as a particularly miserable year in the nation’s life. But Mr. Haass sees this moment as even worse. “These were not threats to the system, the structure,” he said. “That’s why I think this is more important.”

Mr. Haass, who agreed to meet with Mr. Trump in 2015 to advise him on foreign affairs, just like any presidential candidate, admitted that he had misjudged the bombastic real estate developer.

“Where I was dead wrong was I assumed the weight of the office would moderate or normalize him, whichever word you want to use – that he would be more respectful of traditions and legacies,” Mr Haass said. “And that’s where I was wrong. In any case, he became more radical. He doubled.”

The question is whether America has changed for the long haul. “I should have a penny,” he said, “for every non-American, every foreign leader who said to me, I don’t know anymore which is the norm and which is the exception. Is the Biden administration a return to the America I took for granted and will Trump be a historic blip? Or is Biden the exception and are Trump and Trumpism the new America?”

After spending most of the past half century exploring other countries, Mr. Haass ready to explore his own country. He put aside his foreign policy hat for now, saying he wants to expand the message of his book and help the country refocus its focus on the core values ​​embodied in the Declaration of Independence as the document’s 250th anniversary approaches in three years. .

Despite all his worries, he insists that he is not pessimistic. “When I speak on this subject, people know there is something wrong with American democracy,” he said. “They know things are getting out of hand. And we may not necessarily agree on how to fix it. But there is a real openness to the conversation.