International Relations

Travis L. Adkins, deputy assistant administrator for Africa at USAID and lecturer of African and security studies at the Walsh School of Foreign Service and in the Prisons and Justice Initiative at Georgetown University, and Brenda Gayle Plummer, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, led a conversation on race in America and international relations. FASKIANOS: Welcome to the first session of the CFR Fall 2021 Academic Webinar Series. I’m Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach at CFR. Today’s meeting is on the record, and the video and transcript will be available on our website CFR.org/academic if you would like to share it with your colleagues or classmates. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We’re delighted to have Travis Adkins and Brenda Gayle Plummer with us to discuss race in America and international relations. Travis Adkins is deputy assistant administrator in the Bureau of Africa at USAID, and lecturer of African and security studies at the Walsh School of Foreign Service, and in the Prisons and Justice Initiative at Georgetown University. As an international development leader, he has two decades of experience working in governance, civil society, and refugee and migration affairs in over fifty nations throughout Africa and the Middle East. Mr. Adkins was a CFR international affairs fellow and is a CFR member. Dr. Brenda Gayle Plummer is a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research includes race and gender, international relations, and civil rights. Dr. Plummer has taught Afro-American history throughout her twenty years of experience in higher education. Previously she taught at Fisk University, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the University of Minnesota. And from 2001 to 2005, Dr. Plummer served on the Historical Advisory Committee of the U.S. Department of State. So, thank you both for being with us today. We appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts with us. Travis, I thought we could begin with you to talk about the ways in which you’ve seen race relations in America influence U.S. foreign policy. ADKINS: Sure. Thank you so much, Irina. And welcome to everyone. Thank you for joining. The first thing I would say is that America’s long history of violence, exclusion, and barbarism towards Black people and indigenous people and Asian communities and immigrant communities in the United States have worked to give the lie to the notion of who we say we are in terms of freedom, in terms of democracy, in terms of the respect for human rights. And these are the core messages that we seek to project in our foreign policy. And we’ve not been able to resolve those contradictions because we have refused to face this history, right? And we can’t countenance a historical narrative in which we are not the heroes, not the good guys, not on the right side of history. And the challenge that we’ve had is that we’ve seen that play out in so many ugly ways domestically. But it also has resonance and relevance in our foreign policy, because what it ends up doing is essentially producing a foreign policy of platitudes and contradictory posturing on the issues of human rights, on the issues of racial justice, on the issues of democratic governance when the world can see not only this history but this present reality of racial discrimination, of police brutality, of efforts to suppress the political participation of specific groups of people inside of America. They can see children in cages at the Southern border. They can see anti-Asian hate taking place in our nation, and they can hear those messages resounding, sometimes from our White House, sometimes from our Senate, sometimes from our Congress and other halls of power throughout the United States. And that works against the message of who we say we are, which is really who we want to be. But the thing that we, I think, lose out on is pretending that where we want to be is actually where we are. And I think back a couple weeks ago Secretary Blinken came out saying to diplomats in the State Department that it was okay for them to admit America’s flaws and failings in their diplomatic engagements with other countries. But I would—I do applaud that. But I also think that saying that we would admit it to the rest of the world—the rest of the world already knows. And who we would have to need to focus on admitting it to is ourselves, because we have not faced this national shame of ours as it relates to the historical and the present reality of White supremacy, of racialized violence and hatred and exclusion in our immigration policy, in our education policy, in our law and customs and cultural mores that have helped to produce ongoing violence and hatred of this nature in which our history is steeped. I think the other part of that is that we lose the opportunity to then share that message with the rest of the world. And so, what I like to say is that our real history is better than the story that we tell. So instead of us framing ourselves and our foreign policy as a nation who fell from the heavens to the top of a mountain, it’s a more powerful story to say that we climbed up out of a valley and are still climbing up out of a valley of trying to create and produce and cultivate a multiracial, multiethnic democracy with respect for all, and that that is and has been a struggle. And I think that that message is much more powerful. And what it does is it creates healing for us at home, but it also begins to take away this kind of Achilles’ heel that many of our adversaries have used historically—the Soviet Union, now Russia, China, Iran—this notion that democracy and freedom and the moral posturing of America is all for naught if you just look at what they do at home. Who are they to preach to you about these things when they themselves have the same challenges? And so I think that we would strengthen ourselves if we could look at this in that way. And I would just close by saying that we often speak of the civil rights movement and the movement for decolonization in the world, and specifically in Africa where I mostly work, speak of them in the past tense. But I would argue that both of them are movements and histories that are continuously unfolding, that are not resolved, and that haven’t brought themselves to peaceful kinds of conclusions. And this is why when George Floyd is killed on camera, choked for nine minutes and loses his life, that you see reverberations all over the world, people pushing back because they are suffering from the same in their countries, and they are following after anti-Asian hate protestors and advocates, Black Lives Matter advocates and protestors, people who are saying to the world this is unacceptable. And so even in that way, you see the linked fates that people share. And so I think that the more we begin to face who we are at home, the more we begin to heal these wounds and relate better in the foreign policy arena, because I think that it is a long held fallacy that these things are separate, right? A nation’s foreign policy is only an extension of its beliefs, its policies and its aspirations and its desires from home going out into the world. So I will stop there. And thank you for the question. FASKIANOS: Thank you very much. Dr. Plummer, over to you. PLUMMER: Well, your question is a very good one. It is also a very book-length question. I’ll try to address that. First of all, I would like to say that I find Mr. Adkins’ statement quite eloquent and can’t think of anything I disagree with in what he has said. There are a couple of things that we might consider as well. I think there are several issues embedded in this question of the relationship between race relations in the United States and it’s policies toward other countries. One of them is, I think there’s a difference between what policymakers intend and how American policy is perceived. There is also the question of precisely who is making and carrying out U.S. foreign policy. Now there was a time when that question I think could be very readily answered. But we’re now in an age where we have enhanced roles for the military and the intelligence community. We have private contractors executing American objectives overseas. And this really places a different spin on things, somewhat different from what we observe when we look at this only through a strictly historical lens. I think we also need to spend some time thinking about the precise relationship between race and racism and what we might call colonial, more of imperialist practices. You might look, for example, at what is the relationship between the essentially colonial status of places like Puerto Rico and the Marianas and the—how those particular people from those places are perceived and treated within both the insular context and the domestic context. Clearly, everybody on the planet is shaped to a large degree by the culture and the society that they live in, that they grew up in, right? And so it is probably no mystery from the standpoint of attitudes that certain kinds of people domestically may translate into similar views of people overseas. But I think one of the things we might want to think about is how our institutions, as well as prejudices, influence what takes place. People like to talk, for example, about the similarities between the evacuation of Saigon and the evacuation of Kabul and wonder what is it called when you do the same thing over and over again and expect different results? We might want to think about what is it, institutionally, which creates these kinds of repetitions, creates situations in which diplomats are forced to apologize and explain continually about race and other conflictual issues in American society. We might also think about what you perhaps could call a racialization process. Do we create categories of pariahs in response to national emergencies? Do we create immigrants from countries south of the United States as enemies because we don’t have a comprehensive and logical way of dealing with immigration? Do we create enemies out of Muslims because of our roles in the Middle East and, you know, the activities and actions of other states? There’s some historical presence for this—the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, for example. So it seems to me that in addressing I think, you know, some of this very rich question, there are a number of ways and facets that we might want to look at and discuss more fully. FASKIANOS: Great. Thank you very much. And now we’re going to go to all of you for questions and comments. So you can either ask your question by raising your hand, click on the raised hand icon and I will call on you, or else you can write your question in the Q&A box. And if you choose to write your question—although we’d prefer to hear your voice—please include your affiliation. And when I call on you, please let us know who you are and your institution. So the first question, the first raised hand I see is from Stanley Gacek. Q: Yes, thank you very much. Thank you very much, Professor Plummer and Mr. Adkins, for a very, very compelling presentation. My name is Stanley Gacek. I’m the senior advisor for global strategies at the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, representing 1.3 million working women and men in the United States and Canada in the retail, wholesale, food production, healthcare, and services industries. Practically all of our members are on the frontlines of the pandemic. I also served as deputy director and interim director of the ILO mission in Brazil in 2011 to 2016. And my question is this. I wonder if the speakers would also acknowledge that an issue for the United States in terms of its credibility with regard to racial justice, human rights, and of course labor rights, is a rather paltry record of the United States in terms of ratifying international instruments and adhering to international fora with regard to all of these issues. One example which comes to mind in my area is ILO Convention 111 against discrimination in employment and profession, which could—actually has gone through a certain due diligence process in former administrations and was agreed to by business and labor in the United States but still the United States has failed to ratify. I just wondered if you might comment more generally about how that affects our credibility in terms of advocating for racial justice, human rights, and labor rights throughout the world. Thank you very much. FASKIANOS: Who can address that, would like to address that? PLUMMER: Well, I have very little immediate knowledge of this, and I have to say that labor issues and labor rights have been kind of a missing element in terms of being heavily publicized and addressed. I think it has something to do with the fact that over the course of the decades the United States has been less responsive to the United Nations, to international organizations in general. But in terms of the specifics, you know, precisely what has fallen by the wayside, I, you know, personally don’t have, you know, knowledge about that. ADKINS: And I would just say more generally, not to speak specifically in terms of labor, where I’m also not an expert, but there is, of course, a long history of the U.S. seeking to avoid these kinds of issues in the international arena writ large as Dr. Plummer was just referring to. I just finished a book by Carol Anderson called Eyes Off the Prize, which is a whole study of this and the ways in which the U.S. government worked through the United Nations to prevent the internationalization of the civil rights movement which many—Malcom X and Martin Luther King, Fannie Lou Hamer, and others—sought to frame it in the context of human rights and raise it into an international specter, and that was something that the U.S. government did not want to happen. And of course, we know that part of the genius of the civil rights movement writ large was this tactic of civil disobedience, not just to push against a law that we didn’t like to see in effect but actually to create a scene that would create international media attention which would show to the world what these various communities were suffering inside of America, to try to create pressure outside of our borders for the cause of freedom and justice and democracy. And so there is that long history there which you’ve touched on with your question. Thank you for that. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to go next to Mojubaolu Olufunke Okome. Q: Good afternoon and thank you for your presentation. I just wonder about U.S. foreign policy, how it lines up with the domestic politics, you know, in terms of race relations, because if one was to believe U.S. propaganda, you know, this country is doing good in the world, it’s the country to emulate. But you know, the events of—well, I guess the George Floyd case brought into graphic relief what most astute observers of the U.S. know, that race relations of the U.S. do not line up very well with the constitutional aspirations of the U.S. So what’s going to change now, you know? And then there’s also this pandemic and the way which race and class is showing us about the real serious inequalities in the U.S. So what’s going to change in terms of lessons learned? And then moving forward, is also multilateralism going to come back into U.S. foreign policy in some way? That’s it. PLUMMER: I think—I’m getting kind of an echo here. I don’t know if other people are. I don’t think anyone is—you know, who is thinking about this seriously doubts that the United States is in a crisis at the moment—a crisis of legitimacy not only abroad but also domestically. We have a situation in which an ostensibly developed country has large pockets, geographic pockets where there are, you know, 30, 40, 50 percent poverty rates. We have people who are essentially mired in superstition, you know, with regard to, you know, matters of health and science. And you know, I don’t think anyone is, you know—is, you know—who is, you know, thinking about this with any degree of gravity is not concerned about the situation. Once again, I think we’re talking here about institutions, about how we can avoid this sort of repetitive and cyclical behavior. But one thing I want to say about George Floyd is that this is a phenomenon that is not only unique to the United States. One of the reasons why George Floyd became an international cause célèbre is because people in other countries also were experiencing racism. There—other countries had issues with regard to immigration. And so really looking at a situation in which I think is—you know, transcends the domestic, but it also transcends, you know, simply looking at the United States as, you know, the sort of target of criticism. FASKIANOS: Do you want to add anything, Travis, or do you want to—should we go to the next question? ADKINS: Go on to the next question. Thank you. FASKIANOS: OK, thank you. Let’s go to Shaarik Zafar with Georgetown, and our prior questioner was with Brooklyn—teachers at Brooklyn College. Q: Hey, there. This is Shaarik Zafar. I was formerly the special counsel for post-9/11 national origin discrimination in the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division—sorry, that’s a mouthful—and then most recently during the Obama years I was a special representative to Muslim communities. So this—I first applaud the presentation. These issues are very near and dear to me. I think it’s clear, you know, we have to own up and acknowledge our shortcomings. And I think, you know, I was really sad to hear that we actually worked against highlighting what I think is really an example of American exceptionalism, which is our civil rights movement and our civil rights community. When I was at State during the Obama years, we had a very modest program where we brought together U.S. civil rights leaders and connected them with European civil rights leaders. And the idea wasn’t that we had it all figured out but rather that, you know, in some respects the United States has made some advances when it comes to civil rights organizing and civil society development in that respect—and perhaps more so than other countries. I was just thinking, I would love to get the panelists’ thoughts on ways that we can continue to collaborate and—you know, on a civil society level between civil rights organizations in the United States and abroad and the way the U.S. government should actually support that—even if it means highlighting our shortcomings—but as a way to, you know, invest in these types of linkages and partnerships to not only highlight our shortcomings but look for ways that we could, you know, actually come to solutions that need to be, I think, fostered globally. Thanks so much. ADKINS: You know, the first thing I would say, Shaarik—thanks for your question—I thought it was interesting, this idea of framing the civil rights movement as a kind of example of American exceptionalism. And I think there’s a way in which I would relate to that in the sense that folks did, at least nominally or notionally, have certain kinds of freedom of speech, certain kinds of rights to assembly. But even those were challenged, of course, when we see the violence and the assassinations and all of the machinations of the government against those who were leaders or participants in that movement. And so in that sense, perhaps I would agree. I might push back, though, in terms of American exceptionalism as it relates to civil rights, because these people were actually advocating against the U.S. government, who actually did not want them to have the rights that they were promised under the Constitution. Of course, many of us would not be free or able to speak up without the 13th and 14th and 15th Amendments. And so there’s a sense in which we celebrate them, but there’s also a sense in which they are actually indictments of the original Constitution which did not consider any of those things to be necessary elements of our society. In terms of civil society and where the U.S. government is engaged, I think that, you know, sometimes when we deal with these problems that are foreign policy related, you know, sometimes the answer is at home. Sometimes the answer is not, you know, a white paper from some high-level think tank. It’s not something that starts ten thousand miles away from where we are, because I don’t think that we would have the kind of standing and credibility that we would need to say that we believe in and support and give voice and our backing to civil society movements abroad if we don’t do the same thing at home. And so everything that we want to do somewhere else, we ought to ask ourselves the question of whether or not we’ve thought about doing it at home. And I don’t mean to suggest—because certainly no nation is perfect, and every nation has its flaws. But certainly, we would be called to the mat for the ways in which we are either acknowledging or refusing to acknowledge that we have, you know, these same—these same challenges. And so I think there still remains a lot of work to be done there in terms of how we engage on this. And you have seen the State Department come out and be more outspoken. You’ve seen the Biden administration putting these issues more out front. You have now seen the Black Lives Matter flag flying over U.S. embassies in different parts of the world. And some people might view that as co-optation of a movement that is actually advocating against the government for those rights and those respects and that safety and security that people believe that they are not receiving. And others might see it as a way to say, look, our nation is embracing civil society and civic protests in our nation as an example that the countries in which those embassies are in should be more open to doing the same kinds of things. And so it’s a great question. I think it remains to be seen how we move forward on that—on that score. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to go next to Molly Cole. Q: Hi. My name is Molly Cole. I am a grad student of global affairs at New York University. I was just curious sort of what y’all thought about what the consequences of foreign policy on punishment systems and institutions as it pertains to race relations in the United States would be, also in tandem with sort of this strive for global inclusivity and equity and just sort of, I guess, hitting those two ideas against each other. ADKINS: Can you clarify the ideals for us, Molly? So one sounded like it was about maybe mass incarceration or the death penalty or things of that nature? You’re talking about punitive systems of justice? And then the other seemed to be more about diversity, equity, and inclusion in the foreign policy space? But I don’t want to put words in your mouth. I just want to make sure I understand the question. Q: You hit the nail on the head. ADKINS: OK. Do you want to go ahead, Dr. Plummer? PLUMMER: Oh. Well, again, a great question but, you know, one of, you know, it’s—could write a book to answer. (Laughs.) Well, if you’re talking about the sort of international regime of incarceration—is that what you were referring to? Q: Yes, essentially. So when we’re—when we’re considering, you know, these punitive systems, I’m thinking in terms of, you know, the death penalty, mass incarceration, private prisons, sort of this culmination of us trying to come up with these ideals, but doing it sort of on our own, while also combatting, you know, what the nation is calling for, what the globe is calling for. PLUMMER: Yeah. I think this sort of pertains to what I had mentioned earlier about just, you know, who is making and carrying out U.S. foreign policy, or domestic policy for that matter. There’s a whole question of the state and, you know, what parts of the state are involved in this whole question of incarceration and are involved in the whole question of the death penalty. One of the things that we are aware of is that prisons have—some of the prisons are actually not being operated by civil authorities. They’re operated by private entities. We saw this again in—you know, particularly in Afghanistan, where a lot of functions which normally, you know, are carried out by civil authorities are carried out by private authorities. And so this really puts a whole different perspective on the question or the relationship of citizens to the state and, you know, to any other particular group of citizens to the state. So I think that, you know, one of the problem areas then is to tease out what in fact are the obligations and privileges of government, and how do they differ from and how are they distinguished from the private sector. Q: Thank you. ADKINS: And I would just add quickly on this notion of hypocrisy and saying one thing and doing another, there was an interesting anecdote around this when President Obama visited Senegal. And he was delivering a fairly tough message about the treatment of members of the LGBT+ community in Senegal. And President Macky Sall got up essentially after President Obama and was essentially saying that, you know, we kind of appreciate this tough love lecture, but I would remind you, you know, that Senegal doesn’t have the death penalty, right? And so on one hand we’re actually saying something that has a grounding. Of course, people of all human stripes can have dignity, and have respect and be protected. But he is then hitting back and saying, hey, wait a minute, you kill people who break laws in your own country. And we don’t have the death penalty. So who should actually be the arbiter of how is the correct way – or, what is the correct way to be? On the second part of your question, quickly, Molly, especially as it relates to the kind of diversity, equity, and inclusion piece, this is why also there has been a big push to look in our State Department, to look at USAID, to look at the face that America presents to the world. And all too often that face has been male, that face has been White. And that gives a certain perception of America, but it also means that we lose the tremendous treasure and talent of people who have language skills, who come from communities in which their own perspective on the world actually is a talent that they have. Specifically, because many of those communities—whether they’ve immigrated or come to America by different means—are also from groups who’ve been marginalized, who’ve been oppressed, who have a certain frame and a lens with which to engage with other nations in the world, either in terms of partnership, either in terms of deterrence. And so we lose out in many ways because we haven’t done a great job in that—in that matter. FASKIANOS: I’m going to take a written question from Morton Holbrook, who’s at Kentucky Wesleyan College. His question is: How should the United States respond to international criticism to the U.S.’s racial discrimination? And how will that affect the relationship between the U.S. and the international community? PLUMMER: Well, the United States, I think, has—(laughs)—no choice but to acknowledge this. Historically this has been a problem that when pressed on this issue in the past the response was always, well, you know, we know this is a problem and we’re working on it. And the most egregious examples of racism are the responsibility of people who are either at the margins of society or who represent some sort of relic past that is rapidly disappearing, right? That was the message about the South, right? OK, the South is, you know, rapidly developing and so soon these vestiges of violent racism will be over. Well, again, the reason why that doesn’t work anymore—(laughs)—is because we’re always projecting this future, right, that—you know, it’s always being projected further and further into the future. And we’re never there yet. And it seems to me, again, that this is a problem of institutions. This is a problem of the embeddedness of racism in American life, and a refusal on the part of so many Americans to acknowledge that racism is real, and that it exists. And you know, I think we see many examples of this. I’m thinking of one instance where a George Floyd commemorative mural was painted on a sidewalk and some folks came along with some paint and painted over it, because they said it wasn’t a racism corner, you know, while engaged in a racist act. So, you know, there really needs to be, I think, on a very fundamental level, some education—(laughs)—you know, in this country on the issue of race and racism. The question is, you know, who is—who will be leaders, right? Who will undertake this kind of mission? ADKINS: One thing I would say, quickly, on that, Irina, just an anecdote as well that also relates to really in some ways the last question about who our representatives are and what perspective they bring. Several years ago, I was on a trip—a congressional delegation to Egypt. And I was with several members of the CBC. And we met with President Sisi. And they were giving him a fairly rough go of it over his treatment of protesters who were protesting at that time in Tahrir Square, many of whom had been killed, maimed, abused, jailed. And he listened to them kind of haranguing him. And at the end of that speech that they were giving to him he said basically: I understand your points. And I hear your perspective. But he said, can I ask you a question? They said, sure, Mr. President. We welcome you to ask questions. And he said, what about Ferguson? And the day that he said that Ferguson was on fire with surplus military equipment in the streets of America, with, you know, tear gas and armed military-appearing soldiers in the streets of America who were seen, at least optically, to be doing the same thing, right? Not as many people were killed, certainly, but the point is you have this same problem. However, if that had been a different delegation, he might have scored a point in their verbal jousting. But President Sisi had the misfortune of saying this to two-dozen 70-plus-year-old Black people. And no one in America would know better than they what that is like. And so what they ended up replying to him by saying, exactly. No one knows this better than we do. And this is exactly why we’re telling you that you shouldn’t do it. Not because our country doesn’t have that history, but because we do have that history and it has damaged us, and it will damage you. Which takes on a completely different tone in our foreign relations than if it was simply a lecture, and that we were placing ourselves above the nations of the world rather than among them. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to go to Ashantee Smith. Q: Hello. Can you guys hear me? ADKINS: We can. FASKIANOS: Yes. Q: OK, perfect. Hi. My name is Ashantee Smith. I am a grad student at Winston-Salem State University. In regards to some of the responses that you guys gave earlier, it gave me a question. And I wanted to know how you guys were putting the correlation between racism and immigration. PLUMMER: Well, yeah. The United States has a history of racialized responses to immigrants, including historically to White immigrants. Back in the day the Irish, for example, were considered to be, you know, something less than White. We know, however, that society—American society has since, you know, incorporated Europeans into the category of Whiteness, and not done so for immigrants from Latin America, Asia, and Africa, who remain racialized, who are perceived as being, in some respects by some people, unassimilable. We also have a phenomenon of the racialization of Muslims, the creation of outcast groups that are subjected to, you know, extremes of surveillance or exclusion or discrimination. So immigration is very much embedded in this, is a question of an original vision of the United States, you know, and you can see this in the writings of many of the founding fathers, as essentially a White country in which others, you know, are in varying degrees of second-class citizens or not citizens at all. So this is, I think, an example of something that we have inherited historically that continues to, you know, be an issue for us in the present. Yeah. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to go next to Pearl Robinson. Q: Hello. I am just so thrilled to see the two panelists here. I want—I actually raised my hand when you were talking about the labor rights issue. And I’m at Tufts University. And I’m currently working on an intellectual biography about Ralph Bunche. And I actually ran over here from the U.N. archives where I was actually reading about these issues. (Laughs.) And I wanted to just say that the discussion we’re having now, it’s sort of disjointed because we’re dealing with lots of erasures, things that are overlooked, and they are not enough Carol Andersons and Brenda Gayle Plummer professors out there putting these things in press. But even more importantly, they are not sufficiently in our curriculum. So people who study international relations and people who do international relations don’t know most of these things. So my quick point I just wanted to say was during World War II when Ralph Bunche was working for the OSS military intelligence, his archives are full of it, he went and he was interviewing our allies at their missions and embassies in the U.S.—the French, the British—asking them: What are your labor relations policies in your colonial territories? And this was considered important military information for the United States, as we were going to be—as Africa was an important field of operation. When you get to actually setting up the U.N., I was struck in a way I hadn’t, because I hadn’t read archives this way. (Laughs.) But I’m looking at conversations between Bunche and Hammarskjöld, and they’re restructuring the organization of the United States—of the United Nations. And there are two big issues that are determining their response to the restructuring—the Cold War as well as decolonization. And I actually think that those two issues remain—they’re structuring that conversation we’re having right now. And they—we say the Cold War is over, but I love this phrase, of the racialization of the current enemies or people we think of as enemies. So I actually do think that this is a really good program we’re having where we’re trying to have the conversation. But the dis-junctures, and the silences, and the difficulties of responding I think speak volumes. The last thing I will say, very quickly, that incident about the discussion with President Sisi that Mr. Adkins—that needs to be canned. That needs to be somehow made available as an example that can be replicated and expanded and broadened for people to use in teaching. ADKINS: Well, I always listen when my teacher is talking to me, Dr. Robinson. Thank you for sharing that. And I’m working on it, I promise you. (Laughter.) FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to go next to—we have lots of questions and raised hands, and we’re not going to get to all of you. So I apologize right now. (Laughs.) We’ll do the best we can. Jill Humphries. Q: Hello. My name is Jill Humphries. And I’m an adjunct assistant professor in the Africa Studies Program at the University of Toledo, and have been doing Africa-based work, I’m proud to say, for about thirty-three years, starting at the age twenty-two, and have used Dr. Plummer’s work in my dissertation. And hello, fellow ICAPer (sp). So my question is this: There’s an assumption that I believe we’re operating in. And that is race and racism is somehow aberrant to the founding of this country, right? So we know that Saidiya Hartman and Frank Wilderson, the Afropessimist, make the argument that it is clearly key that it is fundamental to the development of our institutions. And so my question is this: You know, the—in the domestic scene the sort of abolitions clearly state that unless we fundamentally transform our norms and values, which impact, of course, our institutions, then we will continue to have the exact outcomes that are expected. The killing of George Floyd and the continuing, I think, need to kill Black bodies is essential to this country. And so my question is, in the context of foreign relations, international relations, are we also looking at the way in which, number one, it is not aberrant that racism is a constituent element in the development of our foreign policy and our institutions? And that unless we fundamentally first state it, acknowledge it, and then perhaps explore the way in which we dismantle, right—dismantle those norms and values that then impact these institutions, that we’re going to continue to have the same outcomes, right? So for example, when Samantha Powers visited Ethiopia, if you’ve been following that whole narrative, there was a major backlash by the Ethiopian diaspora—major. My colleagues and friends, like, I’ve had intense conversations, right, around that. Same thing about the belief about Susan, former—Susan Rice’s role, right, in continuing to influence our foreign policy, particularly towards the Horn of Africa. So my question is: What does that look like, both theoretically, conceptually? But more importantly for me, because I’m a practitioner on the ground, what does that look like in practice? And that’s where I think Professor Adkins, working for USAID, could really kind of talk about. Thank you. ADKINS: Thank you. Yeah, you know, I think it goes back to Dr. Robinson’s question a moment ago. And that is the first the acknowledgement and the calling out and the putting into relief and contrast the context in which we’re operating, especially when we think about not even USAID specifically, but the industry of development—aid and development assistance kind of writ large. Because essentially what we have is a historical continuum that starts with the colonial masters and the colonial subjects. And then that because what is called, or framed, as the first world and the third world, right? And then that becomes the developing world and the developed world. Then that becomes the global north and the global south. All of which suggests that one is above, and one is below. That one is a kind of earthly heaven, the other kind of earthly hell. That one possessed the knowledge and enlightenment to lead people into civilization, and the other needs redemption, needs to be saved, needs to be taught the way to govern themselves, right? That this kind of Western notion of remaking yourself in the world, that your language, that your system of government, that your way of thinking and religious and belief and economics should be the predominant one in the world. And so I think, to me, what you’re saying suggests the ways in which we should question that. And this is where you start to hear conversations about decolonizing aid, about questioning how we presume to be leaders in the world in various aspects, of which we may not actually be producing sound results ourselves. And thinking again about this notion of placing ourselves among nations rather than above nations in the ways in which we relate and engage. And I think that it’s one of the reasons that we continue to have challenges in the realm of development assistance, in the realm of our diplomacy and foreign policy. Because, again, there is a pushback against that kind of thinking, which is rooted in a deep history that contains much violence and many types of economic and diplomatic pressures to create and sustain the set of power relations which keeps one group of people in one condition and one in another. And so it’s a huge question. And how to bring that kind of lofty thinking down to the granular level I think is something that we will have to continue to work on every day. I certainly don’t have the answer, but I’m certainly answering—asking, I should say—the questions. PLUMMER: I think I might also think about how is in charge. And this is—you know, it goes back to something we talked about before, when U.S. foreign policy is no longer exclusively rooted in the State Department? So in terms of, you know, who represents the United States abroad and in what ways, and how is that representation perceived, we’re really looking at, you know, a lot of different actors. And we’re also looking at, you know, changes in the way that the U.S. government itself is perceiving its role, both at home and abroad. And one of the questions was previously asked about the system of incarceration speaks to that, because we have to ask ourselves what are—what are—what are the proper roles and responsibilities and burdens of the state, the government and, you know, what is leased out—(laughs)—in some ways, for profit to private concerns? So I think that, you know, some of this is about, you know, a sense of mission that I don’t see out there, that I think will in some respects have to be restored and reinvented. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to go next to Erez Manela. Q: Thank you very much for this really terrific and important panel. My name is Erez Manela. I teach the history of U.S. foreign relations at Harvard. And my question actually—I don’t know if Irina planned this—but it follows on directly from the previous question. Because I kept on wondering during this panel what—I mean, the focus that we’ve had here, the topic that’s been defined, is the way in which domestic race relations, domestic racism, have shaped U.S. foreign policy. But of course, U.S. foreign policy has been shaped—as the previous questioner noted—has been shaped directly by racism and perceptions of racial hierarchy for—well, since the very beginning. And Professor Adkins spoke very eloquently about it. And of course, Professor Plummer has written eloquently about that, including in her books on Haiti and international relations. But I guess I’m wondering if you could speak more about the specifics about the history that needs to be recognized in that realm, and then—and this is maybe self-interested—whether you have any recommendations, in the way that you recommended Carol Anderson’s really terrific book—for reading that we can read ourselves or give our students to read, that would really drive that point home, the influence of racism, race perceptions, race hierarchies themselves on—directly on the conduct of U.S. foreign relations historically. PLUMMER: Well, Professor Manela, I appreciate your own work on Wilson. And you know, that in some respects—that would be a book that I’d recommend. (Laughs.) Might also think about Mary Dudziak’s work on Cold War civil rights, and her law review article, Desegregation as a Cold War Imperative, which, you know, directly addresses these questions. Again, what I would like to see is some work that will—perhaps not necessarily a historical perspective—but will address this whole question of the sort of growing, I don’t know what you’d call it, multiplicity or multivariant character of American policymaking, you know, as we—as we go forward, you know, past the Cold War era. There’s an interesting item by a man named Andrew Friedman, who wrote a book called Covert Capital. I think the subtitle is something like Landscapes of Power, in which we discussed the rise of Northern Virginia as what he sees as the true capital of, you know, parts of the U.S. government, in being a center for the military and for intelligence community. And their shaping of that environment at home, as well as their influence in shaping U.S. policy abroad. So, you know, there’s a lot of room for work on these—on these issues. ADKINS: And I would also just follow up—and thank you for the question—and add another book that I just finished. Daniel Immerwahr, from Northwestern University, How to Hide an Empire, which deals in many ways with U.S. foreign policy and the way in which it is explicitly racialized and ways in which that goes understudied in our—in our policy circles, and certainly in the world of education. FASKIANOS: I’m going to try to squeeze in one last question. And I apologize again for not getting to everybody’s question. We’ll go to Garvey Goulbourne as our final question. Q: Yes. Hi. Can you hear me? FASKIANOS: We can. Q: Yeah. My name’s Garvey Goulbourne. I’m a student at the University of Virginia, actually studying abroad this semester in Rabat, Morocco. And my question to you both is: What mechanisms do we have to orient the narratives that our foreign policy leaders are brought up with? Thinking particularly of American exceptionalism and how we kind of place ourselves on a pedestal, whether they be foreign affairs schools or various institutions at different levels of American education, what tools do we have to address the foundations of American perspectives of themselves and our nation in relation to the rest of the world, particularly the global south? FASKIANOS: Who wants to go first? An easy question, of course, to close with. PLUMMER: Go ahead, Mr. Adkins. ADKINS: Sure, sure. Thank you for your question, Garvey. And congratulations on the move out to Morocco. Great to see you there. I think the first thing I would say, of course, is our tools, as far as I am concerned, relate certainly to education. And it’s one of the reasons that I am in the classroom. But I know what that fight is like, because even education is taken over by these notions of White supremacy, by these notions of singular historical narratives. And this is why there’s been such a push against the 1619 Project of the New York Times, why there is this kind of silly season around the misunderstood origins and contexts of critical race theory. There is this battle over who gets to tell the story of what America is, because it is more than—but it is more than one thing, obviously, to a multiplicity of people. And so I am kind of remiss—or, not remiss. There’s no way for me to elucidate for you now a series of tools that will resolve these problems, because these are challenges that people have been wrestling with before our mothers’ mothers were born. And so we only are continuing that fight from where we sit. And certainly, in the classrooms that I am in, whether they are in prisons or on campuses, we are always digging into the origin of these themes. And the main frame through which I teach is not just for students to understand this history for their health, but for them to understand this history as a lens through which to view the current world and all of the events and challenges that we find ourselves facing, to see if we can come up with new ways to address them. PLUMMER: Well, one of the things that Mr. Goulbourne could do, since he is in Morocco, is to make use of his own insights in his conversations with Moroccans. So, you know, there is still a role, you know, for individual actors to play some part in attempting to make some changes. FASKIANOS: Well, with that we unfortunately have to close this conversation. It was very rich. Thank you, Travis Adkins and Brenda Gayle Plummer or sharing your insights and analysis with us. We really appreciate it. To all of you, for your questions and comments. Again, I’m sorry we couldn’t get to all of you. You can follow Travis Adkins @travisladkins, and that’s on Twitter. And our next Academic Webinar will be on Wednesday September 29, at 1:00 p.m. (ET) with Thomas Graham, who is a fellow at CFR. And we’ll talk about Putin’s Russia. So in the meantime, I encourage you to follow us at @CFR_Academic, visit CFR.org, Thinkglobalhealth.org, and ForeignAffairs.com for new research and analysis on global issues. So thank you all again and we look forward to continuing the conversation. ADKINS: Take care, everyone. Thank you. (END)

Adam Julian, director of international student and scholar services at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and 2021 chair of the international student and scholar regulatory practice committee at NAFSA, discusses visa challenges for foreign students and international student enrollment with the return to in-person learning this fall.    IRINA FASKIANOS: Good afternoon and welcome to CFR’s Higher Education Webinar. I'm Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach at the Council on Foreign Relations. Today's discussion is on the record and the video and transcript will be available on our website, CFR.org/academic. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We're delighted to have Adam Julian with us to talk about visa challenges for foreign students and fall international student enrollment. We've shared his bio with you, but I'll just give you a few highlights. Mr. Julian is the director of international student and scholar services at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and the 2021 to 2022 chair of the International Student and Scholar Regulatory Practice Committee at NAFSA: Association of International Educators. From 2015 to 2020, he was the director of international student and scholar services and outreach at Appalachian State University in North Carolina. Adam, thanks very much for being with us today. Obviously, we are coming off this pandemic. I thought we could start by looking at the primary visa challenges foreign students are facing now and what this means for international student enrollment, as schools return to in-person learning this fall. ADAM JULIAN: Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Irina. And I appreciate the invitation and all the work that the Council on Foreign Relations does in this sphere. And it's an honor to be here today. So I wanted to start today with just discussing a few points. And a lot of this I know is information that will not be new to anyone, but hopefully it will spur some good conversation and some good dialogue amongst the group. And so today, I'll touch largely on some visa challenges for foreign students who want to study in the U.S., not necessarily only in the moment, sort of in the COVID sense, but also just in general some of the challenges for foreign students. Also, I want to touch a little bit about my experience, as the chair of the International Student and Scholar Regulatory Practice Committee with NAFSA, and how liaising with federal agencies and our partner agencies, how that's really changed, in particular under the Biden administration, in the last couple of years. And then finally I want to talk a little bit about some international enrollment challenges and tensions for the fall semester, really things in the moment. And so, what I want to say about visa challenges for foreign students, and really, of all of the English-speaking destination countries for higher education, so think the UK, think Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere, the U.S. visa, I would argue, is more expensive and difficult to obtain and comes with fewer benefits in terms of post-graduation work opportunities, in terms of paths to citizenship or permanent residency, than any of its competitors. But despite this, I think the U.S. is still largely seen as one of the best systems of higher education in the world, and U.S. education is still highly sought after by international students. So, when I say it's challenging and difficult for students to obtain a visa, when you think about it just in terms of cost alone, right, if you take into consideration the SEVIS fee, which is the immigration database the Department of Homeland Security and others use, the application fee for the visa itself. That alone is $510. And that's not to mention the cost of travel to a different city. Most of the time, U.S. consulates, depending on the country, as you all know, are either in the capital city or regional city, an applicant may have to provide or may have to travel and stay overnight, take time away from work, all these different things just simply for the opportunity to apply for an interview. This gets especially complicated in other geopolitical complications, think of the case of an Iranian student who has no U.S. Embassy in their home country to apply to and has to go to a third-party country, typically Yerevan or Ankara third-party consulate and it adds an additional cost. So, there's that piece, which is the cost of the visa itself, within even simply to receive an invitation letter or what's known as a Form I-20, from an institution of higher education or any type of institution authorized to issue those in the United States, students have to provide proof of financial solvency for twelve calendar months, just to be eligible to receive this. So, in addition to the cost of the actual application process and applying itself, this system of having to establish twelve months or greater of financial solvency, really, I would argue, creates some real inequity in who is able to access higher education in the U.S., and it's largely only available to the wealthy, since mobility to the U.S., is really, for the most part, only accessible to those who happen to have the means. So, once you've applied for the visa, and you show up to the embassy, you've gone through all these steps, then the way the U.S. immigration law and regulations are structured, is the burden of proof to overcome this idea of immigrant intent, or the idea that you the applicant, are intending to immigrate to the United States and the consular officers are trained to make that assumption, the burden of overcoming that is on the applicant. And most of the times, those of you who I'm sure have been to many U.S. embassies abroad, they're perhaps not the most welcoming and friendly places. Oftentimes, these interviews take place under very stressful conditions, they must be in person in a language that is not an applicant's native language, the majority of the time. And so, if the goal is for the applicant to overcome nonimmigrant intent, to prove to the consular officer that they do plan to return to their home country, they have to establish what's known as home country ties. If you're a 17-year-old or 18-year-old student who's going to study in the United States and is applying for a visa, how do you own property? How do you articulate what your plan for the future is, when you may not even know what you're going to study in the U.S.? Another, I think, aspect of this that makes it very difficult, particularly on the visa acquisition side, it’s really just, frankly speaking, it's more difficult to get a visa from “sample” state university than from Harvard, or an Ivy or a university that has international name recognition, right? So having to overcome that bias that may be there from a consular officer is also a significant challenge. So, in summary, for the visa acquisition process, and some of the challenges in general, it really is, it's the most arduous process for any, in my opinion, for any student visa, with the least beneficial results—no path to citizenship, really strict regulations, really strict vetting, very limited work opportunities for students in the U.S. So I want to turn now to my role at NAFSA and the International Student and Scholar Regulatory Practice Committee and how things have been different under the Biden administration. And as Irina mentioned, I've been a member of ISSRP in some capacity since 2016. I've been chairing the group since 2020. And the difference between the last six months versus the previous five years is truly night and day, I sort of like to describe it as this administration is really less deliberately obstinate, or we've gone back to having a partner and not an adversary. Life is more predictable, more steady for people who have jobs such as mine working with international students and scholars and doing a lot of regulatory work. And I'll give you a few examples just of how that's changed in the first couple of months of this administration. A lot of people on the call may know that the Department of Homeland Security issued some temporary relief or some extra guidance or exceptions for international students during the COVID pandemic. And that has been a process that's been continuing to be updated and extended, sort of piecemeal and it's been a very much a piece of concern for administrators and in higher education for the students and scholars that impact it, but within several months, the new administration issued guidance all the way through the entire academic year. And I think a lot of us really view that as a statement of solidarity and support that we're in this together and we're not going to continue to create a situation that's in flux and unstable and unreliable and subject to change rapidly. The administration also did away with the Trump administration's plan to create an OPT Compliance Enforcement Unit. Under ICE—this was one of the last few months of the Trump administration—there was an announcement that the Department of Homeland Security and ICE were going to create an OPT, Optional Practical Training, form of work authorization for international students, they were going to create an enforcement unit. That was cancelled within the first several weeks of the administration. Other things, the idea of making some significant changes that are less student friendly to OPT, Optional Practical Training, to duration of status, or the length of which a student or scholar can remain in the U.S., we're always on the regulatory horizon, or the agenda, of the past administration. And those things are no longer on the chopping block, so to speak. And so really, it's been a different sense of having a partner, having an adversary in our direct liaison work, we just completed our annual conference at NAFSA. And my group is responsible for facilitating the sessions where we invite government representatives to come and discuss trends and topics and questions around international students and scholars and regulations. The past four years, just frankly speaking, organizing these events were very challenging because there was a fear among our agency partners, I think, what they may say, or what they may be not allowed to say, don't want to be seen as saying something on the record. This was a fundamentally different experience, this year, more collegial, more positive in nature. For the first time in many, many years, we were able to have some liaison with Citizenship and Immigration Services. And just in general, this has really helped the, I would say, perception, and overall sense of optimism among international educators and international students and scholars who are looking to come and study in the U.S. So, finally, where are things right now, with international enrollment? What are the tensions? I think anybody's guess is as good as mine. I think right now, the biggest challenge that a lot of us are dealing with is simply the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on consular operations, it's very, very difficult, if not impossible, to get an appointment, to get a visa. Many posts simply aren't operating. That's often case-by-case, country-by-country, post-by-post specific depending on the public health situation. Those that are operating are experiencing significant backlogs. Speaking for a little bit about the experiences of students at UMBC, we had a lot of students who had originally intended to arrive in August of 2020, but because of the pandemic, had deferred until January, and had deferred again until August. And so that's created a significant backlog. And the U.S. Department of State has very graciously, I think, announced their intention to really prioritize student and scholar mobility. But, we can only do so much with the resources that we have. I think other challenges that we're facing, aside from just lack of visa availability or just navigating travel restrictions, at the top, I mentioned the case of an Iranian student who may have to travel to Armenia or to Azerbaijan to apply for a U.S. student visa, how does that student or scholar navigate the travel restrictions that are in place because of COVID? Whether or not they're at the national level, whether or not they're airline specific, based at the specific console, it's a lot to keep track of and to navigate and very difficult and case-specific. One of the things I think that's kind of interesting is, say what you will about how the U.S. handled the COVID situation, but in a sense, where we are now has in a way turned into a bit of a competitive advantage, it is easier to come to the U.S. than to a lot of our competitor English-speaking higher education receiving countries. And I think, for a particular example, the UK is requiring a mandatory ten-day quarantine stay in a hotel when they arrive, and that's to the cost of the traveler. Australia and New Zealand have other stricter measures in place to prevent mobility of international visitors and travelers. And so, in a sense, that's turned into a bit of a competitive advantage. But it's really all about are students and scholars going to be able to get the visas? Right now, a lot of us are dealing with tensions and questions around vaccinations. It's a balance between personal safety. We want students to have that campus experience, we recognize the importance of the campus economy. And, just frankly speaking, I think that's what keeps a lot of U.S. higher education institutions afloat. And so for those of us who are requiring vaccines on our campuses, and if you're a student from X country who may not have access to a WHO-approved vaccine or a FDA-approved vaccine, how will that be dealt with when you arrive? Will we consider you vaccinated, will we provide you with a vaccine, do you risk your own personal health and safety and not get a vaccine, perhaps, the Russian-produced Sputnik vaccine or a vaccine that's not WHO-approved and then come to the U.S. and be required by a university to get a FDA-approved vaccine? There's really no, to my knowledge, understanding of the science of the effect of vaccine layering. And so students are making these difficult decisions right now. Do I get the vaccine that I have access to, and then take a risk of getting vaccinated again when I get to the U.S.? Do I not? I think that the last thing I would really want to say, I guess two final points about sort of tensions and maybe how we should be thinking about this right now. To me, the pandemic has really highlighted the importance of having a more strategic international enrollment plan. And by strategic, I mean, diversifying sources of enrollment. For students, a lot of institutions are one geopolitical issue or one pandemic or one natural disaster away from having a significant decrease in enrollment. I think the recent surge in COVID vaccine in India is a good example of that. Certainly, there are other cases throughout recent history, relations with China, the currency situation in South Korea several years ago, different types of things that have occurred. And so, I think the second point to that is we, I think, in the United States, really, we live in the moment, we don't think about the future, right? We are, to my knowledge, the only of our competitors, who don't have a national policy on international education. We don't have a whole of government approach, we don't have a strategic plan for how we will maintain ourselves as a preferred destination for higher education for students and scholars from around the world. And I think that's a short sighted and, in my opinion, I think there's lots of reasons for that. And with that, I'll leave my remarks and open it up to questions and hopefully some nice conversation. FASKIANOS: Great, thank you, Adam, for that. It's so complicated, and there's so much to navigate, as you described. We're going to go now to all of you for your questions, comments. So you can either raise your hand by clicking on the raised hand, or you can also write your question in the Q&A box, if you prefer to do it that way. But of course, we'd love to hear from you and hear your voice. So I'm going to go first to Katherine Moore, who has raised her hand. Please tell us what institution you're with, it will give us context. Be sure to unmute yourself. Katherine, you're still—there you go. Q: [Inaudible]. FASKIANOS: Adam, did you get that or was it breaking up too much to get it? JULIAN: I didn't get it, unfortunately. FASKIANOS: Okay. Katherine, would you mind just typing your question in the Q&A box? Because your connection is so poor, we could not decipher it. If that's okay, great. All right. I'm going to go next to going next to a written question Mojubaolu Olufunke Okome, who is a professor of political science at Brooklyn College. She has two questions: “Are there any estimates of how much the U.S. lost in enrollments as the consequence of onerous student visa regulations, in terms of international students studying here?” And then her second question is, “One would have expected COVID-19 to increase barriers to international students’ access to U.S. education. But from your presentation, the U.S. is more accessible than other English-speaking countries. Hopefully, we won't have another wave of infections as most campuses reopened, but if we do how would that complicate the situation?” So that's a twofer. JULIAN: I'll start with the first question. I am not aware of any specific surveys or studies that have been done to really get at how immigration policy affects student mobility. I know that Institute of International Education publishes their Open Doors report every year, and that is essentially a census or an accounting of international student mobility. You can find that readily accessible and that will show you year over year comparisons. I also know that U.S. Department of State publishes their visa issuance rates. And so, those are also publicly available. And the second part of the question—Irina help me here—I think was we would assume that the COVID-19 pandemic would increase burdens, but that hasn't necessarily been the case, or increased obstacles for students. FASKIANOS: Right. JULIAN: I would say it certainly has increased obstacles. All of last year, most of U.S. universities were operating in fundamentally different circumstances in terms of in person or virtual, etc. And consulates were largely closed. And so, I would say during that time, absolutely, there were fundamentally more challenges. But I think, I guess the point I'm trying to make now, is that because we in the United States have, just being frank, have taken a much more laissez faire approach to public health, that now there are no national restrictions on entry as there are to other competitors. So, if I'm a student, particularly, who for the last two years has tried to think about I want to come to the United States, I want to study abroad for an advanced degree, you've got this pent up demand, and right now, really the only supply that's readily and easily accessible is the United States, in a sense. I mean, certainly there are ways to go to other competitor countries, but with fewer restrictions. I hope that gets at the question. FASKIANOS: Great. Let's go next to Susan Briziarelli, who is the assistant provost for global affairs at Adelphi University, “We've heard about plans to allow visa interviews to be conducted in the consoles virtually, is this still a possibility?” JULIAN: That is a great question. I've seen many, many rumors, and I know there's efforts afoot through AIEA and others to try to advocate for that. I have not heard anything from the Department of State or any of my colleagues that leads me to believe that is in the near future. I simply—this is my, Adam Julian, my personal opinion, not that University of Maryland, Baltimore County or NAFSA—that I simply just don't think that's in the cards anytime in the near future. I know a lot of people want that. And I know that would seemingly save a lot of problems, remove a lot of obstacles, rather, that we're facing. But I just don't see that happening. I hope I'm wrong. FASKIANOS: Next question from Martin Edwards, associate professor at Seton Hall University, “Are you aware of any conversations at the higher level to better coordinate communication between CBP DOS and USCIS?” JULIAN: Another great question. And I think about that. And the reason I say it's a great question is it's one that we're constantly asking and constantly getting different answers to, and it's really important. Think back to the early days of the Trump administration with the Muslim ban, if you remember when that executive order was signed and went into action, there were literally people in the air who, when they were in the air, the U.S. Customs Border Protection had no understanding that this was happening and only received this information as they came. And so I think that sort of interagency communication is absolutely critical, particularly in a situation live we’ve found ourselves in the last four or five years where you're having such rapidly changing regulations and things like that. Every time we ask this question, we get varying degrees, in particular, I think with CBP, you get a lot more communication amongst the Department of Homeland Security agencies, and not necessarily the Department of State's Consular Affairs or the Exchange Visitor program, because if you remember, CBP is part of the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State is separate, in that sense. So, there's much more interagency cooperation. I know the couple of times that we asked that question at the most recent NAFSA annual conference of our agency partners, to a person, each one expressed the importance of that and that they take great strides to do it. But I'm not aware of any sort of specific actions or plans that are being made to facilitate better interagency communication, other than just to think right now, in this current climate, that's easier to happen naturally, particularly among the core career diplomats and career bureaucrats who are there administration to administration who perhaps no longer fear stepping out of line. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I'm going to go next to Hamdi Elnuzahi, who's raised their hand, assistant director for sponsored students at Minnesota State University, Mankato. So, if you could unmute yourself. Q: Hello. Thank you, Adam and you, for bringing this up here. I think it is a very important topic right now. And many of the schools are looking for how to strategically manage this issue to get more enrollment in the fall. It is not a question, but I just want to share something that is very important that may reduce or decrease the number of enrollments in the fall is the visa waiting time in many countries. Based on the information that I have, in more than eighty-six countries, the visa wait time could exceed sixty-five calendar days, up to maybe two hundred-something days, and most of the U.S. embassies in these countries maybe have only one option—emergency appointment. I think these applicants from these eighty-six countries, they don't have hope even to get a visa appointment, and they will not be able to come even if they get accepted. Second, if they want to enroll, they have to just to take the one option, to enroll online from the countries until they get an appointment. Mr. Adam, can you give us some insights about that, and how we can help these students in these countries? JULIAN: Thank you, those are some great points and I would be very happy to address them. I think the point about the significant delays and visa appointments, the time between when you can actually schedule an appointment, that's, I think, what most of us are dealing with right now, that's the most critical piece. And I think all I would say to that, I guess, would be in a positive sense, I know that back to this idea of feeling like we have a colleague, and not an adversary anymore. The Department of State has indicated that they will prioritize student visas as soon as public health conditions allow. And so, if the optimist in me is looking and hoping that will mean more resources, more appointments will be available, things will be coming up and we will be able to have some students who get more visas and get more appointments quickly. Obviously, that's not a given. But it is the situation as it is right now. Your point about enrolling online is a really interesting one. And so at least from my perspective, here at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, a lot of our students—we did offer our students the option throughout the last year to enroll entirely online, if they chose, from outside of the U.S. But because of—back to these limited work authorizations, there's a program known as Curricular Practical Training, which is essentially a work authorization, off campus work or internship or authorization for a student to gain practical experience in his or her field. And for the most part, by and large, you must be physically present in the United States for a year, before you can be eligible for CPT. And so we found I think, in the past year that a lot of our students just simply didn't want to, particularly our masters students, or applied masters students for whom that CPT is such an important piece of what they're coming for, just simply didn't want to enroll online, simply wanted to wait so that they could start that eligibility for CPT, which can only begin when they're in the United States. And so that's a critical piece. And then I also think—back to the online piece—one of the things that I know a lot of colleagues around the country are grappling with is as we open up, and as we go back to more in person learning on our campuses, perhaps those available online options may go away, perhaps there are fewer options. And so, what we're trying to do is to find a happy medium where we can still have, still be able to offer a student a full array of online or hybrid courses that they can enroll in from abroad, if that situation comes to that, but also not do so in a limiting fashion. And I think time will tell, I think the next month, six weeks will be really, really critical for what fall enrollment is going to look like from an international perspective. And I'm hoping for the best, I think like everyone else. FASKIANOS: Yeah, thank you very much. I'm going to go next to Jennifer Tishler, who is associate director at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Our center has several international PhD students on hold but also several international nonstudent postdoctoral scholars. The postdocs would have employment status at our university, not student status. They would be entering as F-1 students and/or J-1 scholars. As things start to open up this summer, do you know if one visa classification will get priority over another? JULIAN: Short answer is I don’t. I know so much of the conversation when we facilitated our conference session with Consular Affairs and NAFSA was around F-1 students, but I do know that they are also prioritizing—and as we've seen through the past in these national interest exemptions for “academics,” and so I think there's been a lot of manipulation is not the word, a lot of negotiation, rather, around what academic means. Does that mean anyone with a J-1 visa, does that mean an H1B who is coming to teach and that sort of thing. So, I don't know the answer to that, but I think what I would say is just in general, I know Consular Affairs is understanding to higher education’s need in this regard. And I think there's an understanding that it encompasses not just the F-1 category students. So yeah, not really a great answer, but it is what it is, as the saying goes. FASKIANOS: Right. I mean, there is so much still to sort out as states are now reopening and just so much navigate through this summer as we see how things unfold in this country. So, the next question comes from Devi Potluri, who is dean of the graduate school at Chicago State University. If you could unmute yourself, that would be terrific. Q: Thank you. Good afternoon, Adam. You did mention the difficulties those of us in the smaller state universities have in our student visas. Before COVID, we used to hear the news that because we don't require GRE, consular officers would look at as a negative thing rather than a positive thing. Do you think that COVID has changed that because most universities now waive the GRE requirement? We had some students telling us, they used to ask a question does your university have a GRE, what kind of university doesn’t, even though we are a state university, fully accurate and everything else. I don't know if you heard anything like that, or any other ideas. JULIAN: In general, that idea is something that anecdotally I've heard people, colleagues like you from around the country, and colleagues I've worked with in my capacity at NAFSA, say for years things from “Oh, you don't require the GRE” to “Oh, your [inaudible] requirements are very low. These are the types of questions that we've asked consular officers in the past, and certainly, I would admit that these practices have happened. I would suggest that they are a little more isolated than I think the belief is, I think we, human nature just sort of grasp on to these ideas that when there's a perceived sort of injustice or unfairness, I think there's human nature to really think of it as a trend rather than a few isolated incidents. But that's not to say that it absolutely does not occur, I certainly think it does occur. And, in my experience working in the past at a public state university without much international name recognition, I've encountered some of those things myself. I think there are some things that you can do to ameliorate that situation. I think, one of the things that we really focus on at UMBC, and in other places, throughout my career, where I’ve worked, is really on, I don't want to say coaching, it's not coaching students on the visa application process, but helping them understand what they have to articulate. And part of that process is explaining to a consular officer, why Chicago State? Where is Chicago State? What you're studying, what your future goals are, why you chose that specific university? I think you raise a really interesting point with the—particularly as a lot of us are going test optional, even not only with GRE and for undergraduate admissions, SAT and ACT and those sorts of things, but in the English language testing area. Duolingo, I think is making a lot of significant headway in English language. And so, consular officers provide—they have bias for TOEFL or Duolingo, or the type of testing that it is, is it a public university, is it a community college, those sorts of things. I haven't heard any anything specific, but what I guess my strategy would be or what sort of what my team tries to do is to really educate our students and our applicants on really how that burden of proof is on them. And not necessarily just burden of proof that they're not going to immigrate, but burden of helping to articulate what their future plan is and why your specific university or school or institution fits into those plans and what it is. And I think that will go a long way. FASKIANOS: Thank you. We have another question from Martin Edwards, “Many universities have decreased their staff and resources to international students on campuses over the past year in order to offset difficulties of the pandemic and lower enrollment of international students. Could you offer any data resources that we could point to, to make a case for an increase of staff and resources to support an expected increase of international students?” JULIAN: So trying to wrack my brain here for any sort of specific data, I'm aware of some benchmarking surveys that some of my colleagues, particularly people in my role as a director of international student scholar services have done with NAFSA to talk really about what ideal staffing looks like, based on enrollment. Outside of that, if you could send me a message, I could follow up with you on that. I could share that information; I'd have to locate it. I don't know where it is, and how easily or readily available it is. I'd say, one point that we might bring into this conversation is how do you go about creating additional staffing and supporting increases in students? I know there are many, many different models that people employ, whether that's an international student fee charged per semester, or whether the fee for services you charge for OPT applications that you process or H-1B applications that you process. Obviously, we all have our own political and cultural context to work within what's possible at our campuses and institutions. But I would say one place where I would want to kind of put some focus would be on how could we creatively increase those resources. But I'd be happy to share that benchmarking survey if we can connect offline somehow. FASKIANOS: Sure, we can make sure that happens. Next question from Danielle McMartin, who is director of global education at California State University, San Marcos. “We do anticipate a change in F-1 regulations regarding allowance to online classes, as many institutions and faculty have become more online friendly within their curriculum planning. You might have touched upon this, but I want to just break surface it again.” JULIAN: That's a great question. And for those of you who work closely with F-1 student regulations, you will remember that much of the language that revolves around hybrid or distance or virtual education is antiquated at best, I think there's a reference to closed circuit television in the regulations that we have to use to sort of navigate this. So, I would hope that there are some changes, I think there are a lot of things that have occurred this last year that are not going away. I think one of the things that I think about when I hear that question is what exactly does hybrid mean? How do you define hybrid? Right? That was the guidance we had to work with throughout most of the pandemic with our F-1 student populations, how do you define hybrid? Is it one minute of in-person instruction? Is it one activity? Is it a majority? There's no, like so much of our work, there's no black and white, this is what it is. And so I think that piece of sort of virtual learning, hybrid versus online versus in person, is one of the single greatest areas of need, I think, for clarity in the F-1 student regulations in the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations. So hopefully something will come with this. I hope we learn our lesson from this and prioritize it moving forward. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to take the next written question from Katy Crossley-Frolick, who is an assistant professor at Denison University, “You discussed the need for longer term strategic thinking regarding international enrollment and mobility. Are you sensing a shift in the Biden administration in terms of pivoting in that direction? And what should be tackled first?” If you were going to give them, 1, 2, 3, what would you advise, Adam? JULIAN: Oh, yeah, I love that, I've suddenly been given some power. This is a great. Am I sensing his shift? Yeah, I think in general, I think it's just a more friendly administration, you see it in not just international education, but more friendly to higher education. You've seen it in some recent Title Nine actions, you've seen it in some other things. I know this idea of a national policy is something that other associations and other groups have brought up and advocated for. For me, the number one—I don't know if I can come up with three—but the number one thing I would fix or would address as part of this policy is to increase opportunities for work for international students and increase the ease by which an international student has a path to permanent residency or citizenship. I know I'm preaching to the choir or so to speak here. But the value of international students to this country and to the world is really immeasurable. Right, how many of our Nobel laureates and others and Fortune 500 company founders and CEOs are former international students, right. Making the U.S. more attractive destination for the world's best and brightest minds to come, making it easier for them to work, to gain practical experience, to invest in this country in this economy, and if they so ultimately choose to have a path to permanent residency, should be the number one piece of any strategy, in my opinion. International students create jobs, international students innovate, international students who are responsible for some of the greatest accomplishments of this country, in my opinion. I’d also focus on opportunities for study abroad or study away. I think the value of mutual understanding, particularly thinking of my experience coming from smaller state schools or growing up in rural Southwestern Indiana like I did, the value of interacting with people with differing perspectives and experiences is immeasurable, so I would try to find some way to create support for international study or travel for U.S.-based students. I think that's only two, but those are the first two that come to mind. FASKIANOS: Great, and Adam, speaking from your position at UMBC, what have you done over the course of the pandemic to foster a sense of community for your international student population? And what are the strategies that you're putting into place for returning this fall, especially if some of them aren't going to make it onto campus if they are trying to get those interviews, and they're not going to be there in the fall, or make it to the fall, are you offering the online option? How are you thinking about all that? JULIAN: Well, that is, I think, the number one question that we think about every day. So, the first part: what did we do over the fall, we actually established a new program—I'm sure most the people on the call with universities have similar programs—our Global Ambassadors Program. And it really is designed to do two things simultaneously: provide funding and support for international students who already have limited opportunities for employment in the U.S. who may have lost their job because that on campus employment isn't available due to COVID. And so, we employ them to really serve as ambassadors for new students and admitted students to help them connect, build a sense of community online, virtual, different types of platforms, different types of activities that they participate in together. And really, that was sort of as a substitute to try to, during the COVID times, build a sense of community and try to replicate those bonds and the importance of mutual understanding and trust that comes with the campus experience. But the campus experience, the experience of studying in a U.S. university of vibrant campus life is really in some ways what differentiates the U.S. system of higher education from other systems of higher education in the world. And I think we would all be naive to say that's not extremely valuable. And so, we're looking at ways that we can do that safely, just like I'm sure everyone else are, that is something that we think should be critical, it's a priority. And to add to that, we've got a whole group of students, they're not many, but who came in the fall or spring during COVID, who have never visited campus. So, there's this real kind of pent up need for that. And so, we are planning things for the fall semester, we're doing some sort of hybrid orientations and meet and greets and a sort of welcome reception with our senior administration for international students to recognize the significant obstacles they've overcome to join us. And we really want to celebrate that and recognize that at the most senior levels, and so we're planning some things like that for the fall. FASKIANOS: Thank you, and then putting on your NAFSA, or your role at NAFSA. What are you doing—obviously, so much of this is dependent on our U.S. immigration policy and reforming that—what are you doing to talk to Congress to advocate for some of these changes that you've mentioned here, and that need to be put in place in order to decrease the barriers to come to this country to study? JULIAN: Yeah, NAFSA has a great advocacy wing, a group of professional staff members who are really dedicated to advocating on behalf of the Association and its members. They do several things that you can imagine, from an advocacy day to specific calls to action. One of the things, in particular, that the regulatory practice group that I've been involved with has done over the past is when there were these proposed changes to immigration regulations, the way the process works, typically, there's a public comment period where anyone can comment on how this rule will impact them, or impact their state, their university, their institution, their family. And so we've really worked with NAFSA to sort of muster the energy amongst people to write these comment letters and to have our voice be heard. There have certainly been successes, I think, through this. I think back to [inaudible]. I know at some point the duration of status was on the chopping block, so to say, so to speak, there were, it was up for public comment, and received thousands and thousands of comments. And ultimately, that was dropped by the next administration, that's no longer in danger. So, I would say, really kind of summary, two things. NAFSA’s advocacy arm works really closely with other associations and really sort of daily on the Hill for our means. And then also, we as association members, I think, really need to be actively engaged in public comment periods and things like that. FASKIANOS: Fantastic, I'm just looking to see—we're almost at the end of our time. So, I'm just wanting to see if there's anything—we covered a lot of ground. So, I think I can just turn to you for any closing remarks that you want to make before we finish up our session. JULIAN: Thanks. Well, I just want to say, I really appreciate everybody attending, and I appreciate a lot of the great questions and comments that I know were—for those of us who are in the weeds, so to speak, in this room right now, it's a very stressful time. But I think back to last summer, and then I'm reminded that it's not nearly as stressful as it was, then. So, have hope, keep the faith, we'll see, I think as things improve, appointments will open up and we'll get back to sort of establishing whatever our new sense of normal is, and we'll do it like we do all things, that's together. And I look forward to that, if I can ever help in any way and to anyone on the call, please don't ever hesitate to reach out. I'm always happy to share ways that you can get involved with NAFSA, with international students, calling regulatory practice committee, or just trying to share resources that I may have come across in my work with that group that would be helpful. And I guess that's all I have to say. FASKIANOS: Adam, I do have one final question, just as your people are navigating over the course of the summer, is there one source or a couple, a handful, that you would say should be the touch point go to reading or go to check, like every other day or daily or once a week, just sort of see where things are? JULIAN: Yeah, I would say so if you're looking at that from a sense of what's changing on a regulatory perspective, I think NAFSA, at least for student and scholar pieces, is the definitive source. And so, I would put in a plug for NAFSA.org/reginfo, that's the landing page where any recent changes and updates occur. On the consular front, it is really post specific. And so, if you're working with a student, or you have a population, have a heavy population of students from one country or another, I would really refer you to that particular embassy or consulate itself and their social media feeds. They do a great job with their public outreach. And they're a great source of information. FASKIANOS: Fantastic. And we will circulate the link to this webinar, some of the resources that were mentioned, as well as the benchmark study that Adam is going to dig out for us. So, appreciate that. So, Adam Julian, thank you very much for being with us and to all of you. I hope that people can take a little bit of a break. It has been a grueling year for educators. The summer probably won't give you much respite. But hopefully, you'll be able to take a few days off to try to reenergize and do some self-care, which is so important. So, we really appreciate it. So, thank you. You can follow Adam on Twitter @Adam_l_Julian. So I hope you will follow him there. We appreciate your expertise. And again, follow us on @CFR_Academic, and you can visit CFR.org and ForeignAffairs.com for more resources. We look forward to seeing you all again for our next webinars, so stay well and stay safe and take care. (END)

JENKINS: Hello. Welcome, again, to the second day of the Council on Foreign Relations Religion and Foreign Policy Workshop. I am Jack Jenkins, national reporter with Religion News Service here in Washington, D.C., where I cover the intersection of religion and politics as well as Catholicism. And the overlap has been significant in recent days. And I am delighted to be moderating today’s conversation with Cardinal Timothy Dolan. Cardinal Dolan is the current archbishop of New York. He was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of St. Louis in 1976. Pope Benedict transferred him to the Archdiocese of New York in 2009, and named him a cardinal in 2012. And Cardinal Dolan entered the conclave that elected Pope Francis in 2013. And he joins us here this morning. Good morning, Cardinal Dolan. DOLAN: Jack, good morning to you and all our gracious listeners. It’s an honor and a joy to be with you. Thanks for the invite. JENKINS: Thanks so much. So I’ll just lead out with a question. So the biggest foreign policy headlines in recent weeks have involved the ongoing conflict in Israel-Palestine, where violence has continued to ramp up. Shortly before we began this session, news broke that President Biden has called for de-escalation in that region. Now, the region, of course, is a place that is of profound religious significance to at least three major world faiths. And I’m curious from your perspective, what is the role of the Vatican in particular, and the Catholic Church broadly, in terms of responding to this conflict? Because, obviously, there are foreign policy things at stake here, as well as domestic demonstrations happening right now here in the United States. So what is the Vatican and the church’s appropriate response and role in this moment? DOLAN: Well, thanks for asking, Jack. Yeah, the turmoil in the Holy Land, in Israel and Palestine, boy, that’s not new. And for those of us who are interested in foreign relations—and I salute the Council on Foreign Relations for their constant vigilance on this extraordinarily timely topic. It shows us how perennial conflicts are—that conflicts, unfortunately, are at the heart of the human project. Also at the heart of the human project is the ardent desire for peace. And of course, the Holy See—which is kind of the technical name for the Vatican—the Holy See would always be promoting that. The church—the Vatican, the Holy See—has always taken a special solicitude for the Holy Land. You hinted at one of the reasons, Jack, is just because it’s the historical roots for the monotheistic religions of the world: Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. The Holy See—the Vatican—has been particularly solicitous in the Holy Land for a number of reasons. One, because it’s home to ancient Christian communities. Secondly, because they’re always concerned about the rights of people. And thirdly, because they know that, unfortunately, what happens in the Middle East—as the old saying goes, when the Middle East sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold, and that means that there’s going to be implications throughout the world. In one way, the church’s position—the Holy See’s position—would be very basic and very fundamental. And it’s going to be the same, Jack and listeners, to any turmoil or conflict that you have in the world, namely that violence is never the answer. Violence always breeds more violence. What is always essential is to step back, have some reflection and circumspection, and then to go into dialogue. Now, those might sound like bromides from a Hallmark greeting card, but for the Holy See they are extraordinarily important. And the Holy See would say that words like “stepping back,” “prudence,” “distance,” “dialogue”—don’t tell me those are dreamy, cerebral ideals because they are extraordinarily practical. And they work where violence rarely, if ever works. I remember, Jack, when I was taking a course in world history in my high school years. And it was a great course taught by a wonderfully astute priest, and we were studying the Second World War. And he said,“now, tell me the main reason for the Second World War,” and we all tried to give the reasons that we had learned from our reading in the textbook and all. And he said, yeah, those are all reasons, but he said, the major reason for the Second World War was the First World War. It was the First World War that caused the second one. Now, there’s an example of how violence, of how war, of how bloodshed, of how vendettas only lead to more. So the church is always saying, whoa, hold on here. Yeah, I know tensions are high. I know that this is in your gut. I know that there’s a breeding sense of injustice, and tension, and apprehension. But let’s use our mind, and our hearts, and not just our gut. And let’s call for scaling back and getting together to talk. We, most of the time, think of the violence and upheaval in the holy land and in Israel, in the Mideast.  We—as I’m speaking with you people who are much more learned on topics of international affairs than I’ll ever be—we can’t escape the fact that progress has come when the sides have gotten together. I’m thinking of Jimmy Carter and the Camp David Accords. I’m thinking about all the times that leaders have come together. And simply put, that’s what Pope Francis, that’s what his predecessors, that’s what the church believes. The church has a box seat on what’s going on in the Middle East because of the ancient Christian communities, who would weigh in. And does that help, Jack, or is there a follow up that I can be more specific? JENKINS: Yeah. Just a quick follow up about that box seat. I’m curious. Given, as you noted, the duration of this conflict. And it’s not new. But I’m curious, does the Vatican have a particular voice and influence to offer in this moment, given the billion-or-so Catholics that are represented in that institution. I’m curious, is there a specific amount of clout that the Vatican and the church can—writ large—can exercise in this moment, that other nations or bodies might not have? DOLAN: I would hope so. And I think that they do. By the way, in 1979 I was a graduate student in church history. And I was able to—I had Christmas free for the first time ever. And the first time I figured I ever would again, as a priest. And I went to Israel. I went to the Holy Land for Christmas, or at least we had the trip planned. And all of a sudden, come November, there was tension. There was some bloodshed. There was some upheaval. So I called the pilgrimage director. And I said, “well, I guess we better not go because there’s tension and conflict.” And he said, “look, if people only went to Israel when there was not tension and conflict nobody could ever go, because it’s been that way throughout history.” Yeah, the church would have a particular voice in a number of ways. Number one, there is a nuncio there.  The nuncio is the fancy word that the Holy See or the Vatican uses for its ambassadors—one who announces, an ambassador. And the nuncio, the Holy See’s ambassador to Israel, has always had a central role. Secondly, the leaders of the ancient religions there, they would all have some historical headquarters. And those religious leaders—I’m thinking of the patriarch of Jerusalem. I’m thinking about the Maronite archbishop, the—and pardon me for using all these fancy words. I hope nobody asks me to explain them because I don’t know if I can. But all the different groupings of the ancient Christian communities would be here. And they would have a loud voice. And thirdly, both parties historically, very much look to the Holy See for some type of moral approbation. So both the Palestinians and Israel are eager always to kind of explain themselves and seek the counsel of the Holy See. You would know in history that the state of Israel was eager, eager, eager always to have diplomatic relations with the Holy See. That didn’t come until the time of Pope St. John Paul II, if I’m not mistaken, in 1993. As the Palestinians were always eager for diplomatic relations. So they’re kind of sensitive to the moral authority of the church in world affairs. And I would like to think that that would give the church, the faith communities, a particularly significant role in brokering any type of advance in peace. JENKINS: I see. I see. Now, on that topic of kind of the moral authority, I mean, obviously world leaders are the chief arbiters of foreign policy. And Catholic leaders routinely dialogue with world leaders on issues the church cares about. Most recently, we’ve seen Pope Francis speak vocally about the plight of refugees, immigrants, the threat of climate change. John Kerry, in his capacity as the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate, met with the pope over the weekend—again, kind of dialoguing about these issues.  Now of course the church has also taken a firm stance opposing abortion, which is an issue that has both domestic policy implications and foreign policy implications here in the United States, such as the so-called Mexico City policy, which members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have vocally supported in the past. So there has been a debate recently among your fellow bishops over whether or not to deny Catholic politicians, such as President Joe Biden, communion if they back policies that support abortion rights.  Now, you said back in 2019 that that’s not necessarily something you would want to have done back when there were reports that then-candidate Joe Biden was denied communion in South Carolina by a priest. But I’m curious, do you still hold that position now? And would you support—do you have any thoughts on this potential for drafting a document in the upcoming bishop’s meeting about this precise issue? And then the attached question to that is, is this what it looks like when the church tries to exert moral authority on moral questions to world leaders, both here in the United States and abroad? DOLAN: Yeah. Yeah, way to go, Jack. I had mentioned to you that the Holy See always prefers dialogue, conversation, reasonable approach to things when it comes to international tension. That, by the way, is the church’s preference when it comes to intermural difficulties. You just raised one of them. So the Holy See recently wrote to us, bishops in the United States, and said: Hey, it’s good you’re worried about this issue. Let’s keep in mind that always the best approach is, before you get into sanctions or discipline, is always to have dialogue, OK? So we preach to ourselves as well as to others. It’s interesting you bring up, Jack, moral authority. Some people might be tempted to say, whoa, wait a minute, morality doesn’t have, shouldn’t have much to do in international diplomacy and foreign affairs. The people on this call know better, don’t they? Diplomacy at its core is a moral enterprise, insofar as it is based on such virtues as trust and honor, the reliability of one’s word, a concern not only about one’s self, but the common good. Those are all moral principles upon which fruitful diplomacy and foreign relations are built, OK? Most of the time we come into tension, as we’ve got now with the issue at hand in the Mideast, is because of why? A lack of trust on both sides. That’s a moral problem, OK? That’s just not an earthly problem. That happens to be a spiritual and emotional problem, a conflict of the heart. And from the middle of the fourth century, as you all would know in your history of foreign affairs, the Holy See, the Vatican, the central government of the Catholic Church, has always been looked upon as a player in foreign relations because it does have a particularly compelling moral voice. We’re not the only faith that does, that’s for sure. Thank God there’s a whole array of voices in it. But the Holy See—and that’s why since the middle of the fourth century the Vatican, Rome, the Holy See has sent and received diplomats. Because world powers would appreciate the role—the moral authority that the Holy See uniquely has.  We have no troops to send. We have no currency to float. We have no borders to protect. We have no arms to trade, OK? Our only coinage, Jack, is in the moral and spiritual realm. But that’s not to be dismissed. When that is dismissed is when we get into hot water, as is going now. That’s why the holy father would constantly call both sides: Slow down. Ease up a little. Let’s get together and talk. And, by the way, if I can be a partner in bringing sides together, let me know. As often the Holy See is. Remember, as often the Vatican is. More often than not, behind the scenes. Diplomacy by its nature is heavy on discretion, OK? And the Holy See is sort of an expert on discretion. JENKINS: Got it. And just to make sure that you address the first part of my question, do you have any specific remarks about this dialogue about denying communion? And do you still hold your same position as you did in 2019 saying that you personally wouldn’t do this to then-candidate Biden or now President Biden? DOLAN: Yeah, I would have welcomed the Holy See’s counsel to us recently. This is a timely moment for us as teachers, us bishops in the United States, to issue a clear teaching on what we believe about the holy Eucharist, and what is necessary for a worthy reception of holy communion. That’s a challenge to all of us, not any particular politician. So I think the church’s role is to teach, and then in dialogue with individual politicians who profess the Catholic faith would ask for guidance. That’s where we would come in. So you quoting me in 2019? That would probably be my position today, yeah. JENKINS: Got it. And I have a couple more questions if we can get through them. One is just, one of the realities of foreign policy is that sometimes domestic policy can influence foreign policy. So for instance, the struggle for racial equality here in the United States has been noted by other nations as calling into question the moral high ground that the United States sometimes claims in conversations around human rights. And racial justice has also been a topic within the Catholic Church. You know, the USCCB has dedicated resources to it and Pope Francis has even mentioned demonstrations that happened here in the United States around racial justice recently. And so with that in mind, how can the Catholic Church—which activists noted has been among the myriad of faith communities that were complicit in perpetuating slavery and other forms of White supremacy throughout American history—how does the church help this country reckon with that past and create a future that embraces racial justice in order to help further the foreign policy goals that the United States and the Catholic Church have put forward? DOLAN: What your good question is predicated upon, Jack, is the importance of credibility when it comes to foreign affairs and diplomatic initiatives. One has to have a certain amount of credibility, especially if you’re talking about morality, which the Holy See does. That’s our cache. And part of that morality is to admit that we don’t often practice what we preach. So very often a contrite posture that, hey, we’re going to hold up the values, we’re going to hold up the principles. We’d like to think that more often than not we’ve been a good example of showing those in the past. But we got to let you know that we’re also painfully aware that there have been examples in the past where we ourselves have been guilty of the atrocities that now we warn against in the world, and that we ourselves haven’t been the best in living up to. So that bluntness, that candor, I think, is always important in the life of the church. So when it comes to racism—I remember very well, Jack, over the summer we had a most enlightening and an extraordinarily blunt Zoom call with our priests and deacons, religious women and men leaders in the diocese, on the question of racism. And that came up, that we had some people painfully speak about their personal wounds of racism, even within the family of the church in the past. Thanks be to God even more people spoke about how the church was a light to the world, as Jesus asks us to be, in speaking about racial justice. You have to remember, everything the church does is based on those two pillars: of the dignity of the human person made in the image and the likeness of God, OK. And number two, the sanctity of all human life. Those are the two pillars. And every time we preach them. and preach them we must even in the realm of foreign affairs, we also have to do a mea culpa in saying, hey folks, sometimes we learn the hard of the horror and the trauma of not living up and defending those two pillars. Maybe that give us a bit more credibility. Can I give you an example, Jack? JENKINS: Sure. DOLAN: What am I asking you for? I would have done it anyway. (Laughter.) You know, the church, the Vatican, and its central teaching has a checkered history in the defense of religious freedom, all right? So there would have been kind of the drift of the church’s teaching through the centuries that the one true religion—for us, Catholicism—should have a privileged posture in the common good, in society, OK? Gradually the church changed in that, OK? Led, if I might say so, by dah-dah, the United States of America. So when we have our First Amendment, when we had the separate of church and state, when we came across as the champion of religious freedom throughout the world, at first the Holy See said, oh, we don’t know about this separation of church and state because the union of throne and altar was always such a part of history, especially in Europe.  But gradually they came to see, this is the providential way, in such a way that at the Second Vatican Council between 1962 and 1965, through the leadership of the American bishops, the highest teaching authority in the church, an ecumenical council, issued a document on religious freedom that today by diplomatic entities is looked upon as one of the foundations of civilization’s providential protection of that first and most cherished freedom: religious freedom. So I get—I only mention that as an example of how sometimes we have learned by our mistakes. And we don’t serve anybody well if we hide those mistakes and don’t admit them. And say well sort of what Jesus said about some teachers. He said, do what they say, don’t do what they do, OK? JENKINS: Right. Well, and one last question before we turn it over to the audience. We’re in the middle of a global pandemic, a foreign policy conundrum if there ever was one. And, as you noted, the Vatican, the church, isn’t going to send armies of that variety. But they are present in places around the planet in a way that is not true with most other global institutions. And so the Vatican has been involved in several debates involving the pandemic, most recently calling for vaccine patents to be loosened so they can be more widely distributed to the planet, something the Biden administration has since endorsed. And I’m curious—and I apologize for the unfairly broad nature of this question given how all-encompassing the pandemic is. But what is the role of the Catholic Church moving forward as it looks like many Western nations are deeply vaccinating their people and their citizens and now trying to distribute those vaccines elsewhere where other countries might have to grapple with this pandemic for months, if not years, beyond this present point? What is the role of the Catholic Church and the Vatican, looking forward to the future of the repercussions of this pandemic? DOLAN: A high and necessary role, a trust. You are right in saying that one of the traditional ways, one of the traditional reasons that the powers of the world look to the church, to the Holy See, for some type of guidance or help when it comes to global problems is because we do happen to have outposts in every nation of the world. The very word “catholic” means “everywhere,” OK? We’re everywhere. So the church is always on the ground. And we always got our ear to the ground about the trials and the tribulations that people are going through. So we like to think we can bring that experience to global conversations. Again, the church’s sensitivity to the global pandemic is obvious. And it stems from what I just mentioned before, Jack, our dual responsibility of the dignity of the human person, made in God’s image and likeness, particularly when that’s threatened, and the sanctity of all human life. Now, the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of life has been extraordinarily, graphically affected by the global pandemic. So no wonder the Holy See has had something to say about it, and will continue to. However, you used a word earlier, Jack, that usually we try to stay away from, but it might be applied here. You spoke about the clout of the Vatican. I don’t know if, we can’t claim any earthly clout. We can claim a spiritual clout. And so the greatest service that the Holy See can provide is spiritual. And I have not heard anybody deny that this has, this pandemic, yes, it’s affected the lungs. Yes, it’s affected the body. But it has also affected the soul. And that there has been a planetary, almost, rediscovery of the power of the within, the power of the soul, and the spirit, and the human person. And of course, the Holy See will speak to that. So I look, for instance, here in the Archdiocese of New York, have the parishes, I could speak about the way the parishes, and Catholic Charities, and ArchCare have been extraordinarily robust in helping to bring about the vaccines in our pop-up food pantries and the help that we’re trying to get to the poor who are overly burdened during the crisis, in our nursing homes, in our hospitals. Yeah, I can talk about all of that. Primarily what I hope we’ve been most salutary in, is in our attention to the soul. To try to help people get focus and meaning in all of this suffering. Would you ever forget, it was almost, well, it was the end of March last year. So it was right after the global pandemic was kind of recognized by the entire world, when Pope Francis did that outdoor service in the rain in an empty St. Peter’s Square. JENKINS: Right. DOLAN: He was there, standing alone in an empty St. Peter’s Square, addressing the world. I’m told by my friends in the media that that was extraordinarily soothing and helpful to the world to use, if you might remember, the passage in the Bible about the terrible storm that happened in Galilee and with the apostles in the boat thinking they were going to sink. And they look to Jesus for help, and he was snoring. He was asleep. And he spoke very, Pope Francis, to an empty square with literally tens and tens of millions of people listening. He spoke about the temptation today is to think that God is asleep. That he’s not in charge. That he’s not taking care of us. That he’s not going to get us through this. That, Jack, is the church at her best. That is where the church has its most clout, to use your word. Without for a moment deemphasizing the extraordinary humanitarian charitable and health-care work that the church has done, and the moral chiding sometimes that the holy father has done about the necessity of sharing the virus, the necessity of not tying it to the ability to pay, the necessity of making sure that the poor are on par with everybody else in having access to this. JENKINS: Thank you for that. And I could ask you questions all day (laughs), but I do want to give our audience the opportunity to do so as well. So at this time I would like to invite participants to join our conversation with questions. We’ll do our best to get through as many as possible. I think I turn it over to the CFR folks for that. OPERATOR: Thank you. (Gives queuing instructions.) We’ll take the first live question from Burton Visotzky at Jewish Theological Seminary. Please unmute. VISOTZKY: Thank you. Can you all hear me? DOLAN: You bet we can Burton. VISOTZKY: Your eminence, it’s— DOLAN: It’s good to have a friend and a neighbor asking the first question. VISOTZKY: Excellent. Yes. I want to ask you a particular question in light of Pope Francis’s unprecedented outreach to the Muslim community. He visited Abu Dhabi in 2019 and his encyclical “Fratelli Tutti,” which was magnificent, was really in large measure addressed to relations with the Muslim community. That is a sea change in Catholic-Islamic relations over almost two thousand years, well, fifteen hundred years. I want to ask: How will this affect your own interfaith outreach to the Muslims in New York? DOLAN: Yeah. Burton, thanks for the question. By the way, you did very well, “Fratelli Tutti.” You had a great Italian pronunciation. Had a little bit of a Hebrew twang to it. But you did very well, Burton. Way to go. It’ll have an epic impact on us. It’ll have an epic impact. I’m glad you brought it up, because this is exhibit A of the church’s posture to everything. It’s much better to talk, to sit down. It’s better to embrace hands than have them in a fist. And we have to do that, especially as religious leaders. Pope Francis has been phenomenally active in this. And I would say, Burton, it’s based on both a pragmatic and a theoretical reason. The theoretical reason is simply because of the compunction of what the Islamic, the Jewish, and the Christian community believe, that trust and respect for the human person is primary in our approach to life and to other people. It’s pragmatic in that we can’t keep going on like we are. And if religion can’t show the way of getting together, how can we expect the people of the world to do it? So it’s also very pragmatic. Pope Francis, by the way, Burton, has not been a dreamer here. He’s also been pretty blunt in reminding us on the one hand that Islam at its core is a religion of respect with a thirst for peace, but that, like the rest of us, its adherents might not always live up to that. So he has also been a little bit, what shall I say? A little bit blunt with his friends in the Islamic community to say: Please help us in reminding those radical elements that don’t live up to the noble virtues of Islam, remind them that they are at odds with what Islam teaches. In other words, he wants to, he says to his Islamic sisters and brothers: You tell us you want to be on the side of peace and reconciliation. And we firmly believe that you do. You need then to bring all of your, all of these people together in being, in condemning the examples of violence and harshness that sometimes we see within your community, like we all see within our communities, people who are not living up to it.  So, Burton, now something tells me you will agree with me very much that here in New York we’ve got a leg up. Because I would think it’d be tough to find another city in the world where religious, interreligious amity, friendship, concord, is so practiced. New York is a laboratory for people getting along. I remember a couple of years ago we had a cardinal from the Vatican who was in the Jewish-Catholic dialogue. And he came and he was visiting a synagogue. And when he was waiting to go in for his address, he was reading the bulletin board. And he saw a notice on the bulletin board saying: Listen, everybody, as you know, the Islamic Mosque three blocks away suffered a fire recently. And they’ve had to close for repairs. In the meantime, we’ve invited them to have their Sabbath services here. Now, the cardinal from the Vatican when he was telling me that had tears in his eyes. He said: I don’t know if there’s another place in the world where you could have, where you’d find a notice like that.  And so the good thing you and I have, Burton, is that we are grateful inheritors of a legacy of interreligious dialogue, and amity, and friendship that we can never take for granted, and upon which we need to build. And that now, the particular challenge is with the Islamic community. Why? Well, for one, because they’re kind of recently arrived. So they may not have been part of that heritage that we revel in. And number two, because tensions within world religions, whether it be Islamic, or Jewish, or Christian, is now such a part of the world arena. So to engage them is to an extraordinarily compelling motive for all of us involved, like you are, and like I’m honored to be, in interreligious dialogue here in New York. JENKINS: I think we can take another question. OPERATOR: Our next question is a written submission from Ellen Posman at Baldwin Wallace University. I appreciate the comments about moral authority and racial justice and admitting mistakes and maintaining credibility. How do you see those issues playing out for the church’s role on the issue of gender justice throughout the world? DOLAN: Yeah. Thank you, Ellen. That’s a very timely question. We, part of our Catholic tradition is always a distinction between who a person is and what a person might do. Who a person is, is non-negotiable for Catholics. No matter what ethnic background, no matter what race, no matter what gender identity, or sexual attraction, that person demands, deserves respect, reverence. And that’s part of Catholic teaching, OK?  Now while the Catholic Church might say some forms of behavior we would have questions about, what is non-negotiable is the inherent dignity of the human person, no matter—so, when I go, when I visit, well, when I visit a prison I ask to see, well, thank God, in this state, it’s not true in other states where I might visit prisons, I would ask to see the person who’s on death row. There would be people who would say, they have absolutely, they’ve lost any right to ask for dignity and respect. In our book, people who believe in the Bible, that’s just not true. Every person deserves dignity and respect. We, as Catholics, always hold up that ideal when it comes to any question. And even though, yes, we have the moral imperative to preach what we feel is a revealed truth about behavior, we also know it’s a revealed truth that the human person always, always, always deserves dignity and respect. And, you know, Ellen, and I admit that’s a difficult road to walk. And it’s one that one time we might err one side to the other. But, boy, we can never give up trying. JENKINS: I think we can take another question. OPERATOR: We’ll take the next live question from William O’Keefe at Catholic Relief Services. DOLAN: Ah! OPERATOR: Accept the unmute prompt. O’KEEFE: Good morning, Cardinal Dolan, and thank you so much— DOLAN: How are you, William? O’KEEFE: Yeah, I’m good. It’s a pleasure to see you. Thanks for all your work. DOLAN: I just had breakfast earlier this morning with a great benefactor of Catholic Relief Services. O’KEEFE: Well, thank you so much for doing that. We appreciate your support. You talked about the church’s work on fighting COVID, and the Vatican’s role. And I’m wondering about how you see bringing to life the holy father’s comments about trying to build back better. And to reverse some of the economic and political injustices that have been so exposed around the world. And, we at Catholic Relief Services, where I work, see this every day. I’d love to hear your reflections on what we can all do to try to advance that. DOLAN: Thanks, William. I hope our listeners don’t think this is a staged question because of my high esteem for Catholic Relief Services and the possibility to give you a shout out here with the Council for Foreign Relations. On the, pardon me, Jack, for going off-key for a minute. But three or four days after the horrific earthquake in Haiti in January of 2010, I had the honor back then, William, as you might remember, serving as chair of the board for Catholic Relief Services. And I was able to go down there to deliver medical supplies.  And as we landed at the airport, which was opened especially for relief airplanes like ourselves, who did I meet but the then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And we chatted for a little while in the airport hangar before I went into Port-au-Prince. And she said to me, I’m glad you’re here. She said, I’ve been here for a couple days. And she said, the people who seem to be doing the best would be your Catholic Relief Services, because we already had three hundred people who were there all the time. They were on the ground. They lived there. They worked there. And they were able to deliver supplies. So God bless Catholic Relief Services. You ask a good question, William. I mentioned earlier to Jack that this COVID crisis has triggered an internal, an introspection among everybody, who have had to kind of look deep down within for reason, for focus, for a sense of purpose. It’s been a time of trial, and suffering, and isolation. And those occasions usually trigger an internal reckoning. And I see that among a lot of our people. But that’s not just individually, personally. I also see an occasion for a communal, a national, a planetary examination of conscience. There’s a rediscovered sense of the brittleness of human life and of our health. We were kind of on a high for a while thinking, oh my God, we have one cure after another. And the scientists have everything under control. Scientists, by the way, would be the first to be humble and say no, we’re working hard at it but we don’t have everything under control. But COVID has taught us about our frailty, about our fragility. I see it here in the city. I see it here in the state. I see it here in the nation. And I see it abroad. Everybody now is beginning to ask themselves how we as a people, part of this village that we call the human race and the planet that we call Earth, how this kind of newly rediscovered fragility can give rise to a more poignant sense of solicitude for the poor and vulnerable of the world. The inequities that may have caused the virus to spread much more aggressively in minorities, in underprivileged areas where healthcare is not available. This, I trust, and I’m not surprised; I’m very proud of him, that Pope Francis would be one of the leading voices in this, is, I trust, leading to a cosmopolitan examination of conscience about what we can learn from all of this. JENKINS: So I think we have time for one more question. OPERATOR:  The final question is a written submission from Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons at the Center for American Progress. Climate envoy John Kerry just met with Pope Francis at the Vatican. What areas of overlap do you see between the Biden administration’s priorities and Catholic social teaching where you can partner? DOLAN: Even more than just on climate change, but that’s the one that you particularly mentioned. And I wasn’t surprised at all to see that the holy father received John Kerry, and that both gave glowing statements. Pope Francis has been an early advocate of a crescendo of sensitivity to the fragility of the planet. By the way, so has the Greek Orthodox, Bartholomew, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch in Constantinople, or as you all call it, Istanbul, all right? He also has been an early prophet of climate. And Pope Francis has become one of the leading advocates. So that he would find a mutuality of concern with the administration does not surprise me at all. The Holy See is always eager to cooperate with world leaders. They don’t agree on everything, OK? I can remember when Pope Paul VI, I was a student in Rome, a seminarian, when Pope Paul VI met with Idi Amin. Now they didn’t have much in common, folks, but Pope Paul said, look, if I can try to talk some sense into this guy, if I can try to bring out some of the good that I believe is deep down within, I’m going to give it a shot, because we don’t have much to lose. So the church is always ready to meet with leaders, even when we know that we’ll agree with them and disagree with them. I say that, I presume there’s going to be areas of tension between the church and the Biden administration, as there has been with every president, OK? The Holy See usually looks on the bright side and says, hey, let’s make hay while the sun shines. Or, to use the Italian expression, you got to make gnocchi with the dough you got, OK? So let’s find some areas where we can work on, and then maybe we can bring about a conversation of heart on the areas where we disagree. That’s pretty much true with all world leaders. So I’m not surprised at all to see Pope Francis and Secretary Kerry sit down and make some progress on climate, on the sensitivity towards the crisis of the environment. And I would anticipate there would probably be some agreements where, some areas where there might be some disagreements. JENKINS: Got it. Well, I think that is all the time we have. DOLAN: Aw, shucks. JENKINS: (Laughs) I want to thank Cardinal Dolan for being a part of this conversation and the Council on Foreign Relations for hosting it. This has been a wide-ranging discussion. I’m sure we have many more questions. But thank you again, all of you who watched, for joining us on this Wednesday. DOLAN: Thanks for letting me in, folks. Thank you. (END)  

TIPPETT: Well, it is my pleasure to convene this gathering with a few announcements. First of all, welcome, everyone, to this opening session of the CFR Religion and Foreign Policy Workshop. I am Krista Tippett of On Being Project and the On Being radio show and podcast, and very happy to be moderating today’s conversation with CFR President Richard Haass. As a reminder, this virtual meeting is on the record and it is made possible in part through the generosity of the Ford Foundation. In 2006, CFR President Richard Haass launched the Religion and Foreign Policy program for clergy, scholars of religion, and leaders of faith-based organizations, in recognition of the importance of including the religious dimension in discussions of international affairs. Since 2007, the program has held this annual workshop, which I attended in the very, very early days—I think Irina and I guessed it might have been the first one—with the purpose of convening a diverse group of religious leaders to examine pressing concerns at the intersection of religion and foreign policy. And this year’s workshop brings together over 320 participants representing 41 faith traditions. I’m pleased to introduce Richard Haass. Richard Haass is a veteran diplomat, a prominent voice on American foreign policy. He is now in his eighteenth year as president of the Council on Foreign Relations, which is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, publisher, and educational institution dedicated to being a resource to help people better understand the world, and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries. And Dr. Haass has extensive government experience. He’s worked for the State Department, multiple White House administrations, and also as a staffer in the United States Senate. He’s also the author or editor of fourteen books on American foreign policy, one book on management. And his most recent book is The World: A Brief Introduction—a small topic, Richard. So we are going to speak for a few minutes up here, about half an hour, kind of traversing some of the big picture questions and observations around this moment. And then we’re going to very importantly turn to the room, the Zoom room, for your questions. I will make that shift in about half an hour. And when we get there, we’ll explain again how you can submit your questions. So let’s just dive in. I will say that Richard and I very briefly crossed paths a long time ago in a vanished world, in divided Berlin back in the Cold War world. It was literally another century, another world in every way. And I was the chief aide to our ambassador to West Germany in Berlin at that time. And you were already kind of in your foreign policy groove heading towards this august post that you have now. And, Richard, I just want to start by saying it’s been so on my mind that when that wall came down in 1989, which I think would agree, no one predicted would happen when it did, how it did. I never imagined that in my lifetime there would be another event, another turning that felt so much like the world, globally, that you could think about the time before and the time after. But it has been astonishing to live through this past year and feel that we have had again such a pivot. And I’d just love to draw you out on that, and on how it feels to you. And I also wonder if you have a name for this time we’ve entered now. (Laughs.) HAASS: Well, first of all, thank you, Krista. Thank you for doing this, and for all else you do. And welcome, everyone. It’s great to have you back, virtually. I hope and expect next year we’ll have you back physically. Maybe even we’ll do some version of a hybrid, seems to be the word of the moment. But again, it’s good to be with you all, if only through the wonders of Zoom. I actually think the end of the Cold War was a more consequential development, in the sense that it totally transformed the structure of the world. For forty years, for four decades, the world was essentially divided into two principal camps, two rival camps. There was the third of the,then so-called “nonaligned,” but essentially it was a great-power rivalry and heavy, with these two large concentrations of power. Now, when that world ended, and we’re still in the post-Cold War era, something very different took its place. So a much broader distribution of power, much greater capacity and autonomy, and many more hands. And also, coincidentally, became a year where global challenges moved to the forefront, alongside traditional geopolitics. The pandemic is one such global challenge. A disease that broke out in a city of ten million or so of China has, over the last, what, sixteen, seventeen months claimed millions of lives worldwide. My sense is probably on the order of ten million lives. The undercounting, I believe, is quite significant. And it’s disrupted lives, careers, societies, economies. That said, I really don’t think it will be a transformational event. Already we’re seeing in certain countries, including this one, the resumption of fairly robust economic activity. The countries of Asia, for the most part, have weathered this in extraordinary fashion, the Asia-Pacific. Other countries are in very difficult state: India, Brazil, Russia, some others. But I think it’s a question of when and not if, through some combination on vaccines, therapeutic drugs, masks, distancing, what have you, you have significant recovery in the physical sense, as well as in the economic sense. And the world after the pandemic will in many ways resemble the world geopolitically and geoeconomically before it. So I think this is a powerful experience. I think it’s a reminder of the power of globalization, borders in many cases are not respected. But I don’t think, say, the world of 2022 or 2023 will be fundamentally changed from the world that existed before it. TIPPETT: I guess I’m thinking, I’m certainly thinking of the pandemic when I speak about the before and the after, but I also think about the racial reckoning that I think happened within the pandemic. We could have a whole conversation about that but in some ways if I think about something that—(laughs)— the whole end of history idea, back in that olden day, was not seeing how the Cold War had kind of kept the lid on tight of the reckoning with colonialism. And in some ways I think that is now coming full circle. Certainly, it’s happening internally, domestically, but it’s absolutely, I mean, it is a global reckoning in a sense. And I imagine it having foreign policy ripple effects. I agree with you, maybe we won’t see it by 2022 or 2023. But I just wonder if you, it also very much points at how the language that I read about what CFR is about and this conference is about, the intersection between religion and all that religion grapples with, and foreign policy, is really the connotations, what is contained in that phrase is so transformed, although that transformation has been coming for a while. HAASS: You know, lots I could say. TIPPETT: Yeah. HAASS: I do think the Cold War kept a lid on a lot of things. It was, in its own way, quite disciplined. Countries in many cases lacked a degree of autonomy. And what we saw with the dissolution both of the internal Soviet empire, the Soviet Union was an empire in and of itself, and then there was the external empire in Eastern Europe and so forth. When empires tend to unravel, there’s often quite a lot of violence and nationalism that emerge. We saw it profoundly in places like the former Yugoslavia. So  we’ve seen that. And I think more broadly, again, this is a world in which power is much more distributed, autonomy is, for lots of reasons. One is the end of the discipline of the Cold War. Indeed, when you think about it, Krista, the first great event of the post-Cold War period happened less than a year after the taking down of the Berlin Wall, and that was the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. And that was something that arguably never could or would have happened during the Cold War because, among other things, the Soviet Union had considerable influence over the behavior of Iraq, and my guess is would not have permitted Saddam Hussein to do such a thing, to provide that kind of a strategic opening for the United States to increase its presence and role in a critical theater of the world. So I think it’s true that some things have come out because of the end of the Cold War. You’ve seen the rise of certain countries, which has liberated them to do things—China, just to give you one example. I mean, you mentioned the racial reckoning, and that to me is attributable to all sorts of things. I think technology’s made a big difference. It’s given voice to, in some ways, the opposite of what Mr. Orwell predicted. Rather than concentrating voice, it’s distributed voices, thanks to social media. But yes, so in many ways it’s, to me, a far more complicated world. I’m an historian by training. And you asked me before and I never answered it: What do we call this period? Well, the answer is we don’t yet have a name for it because it’s still forming itself. And in some ways, until there’s a dominant feature of this period I think we’ll continue to call it the post-Cold War period or we’ll just avoid any terminology. If the United States and China end up in a cold war, we’ll probably call this the inter-Cold War period just like the ’20s and ’30s were often referred to as the inter-war period between the two world wars. But it could be because of some global challenge. For example, we’re living with the pandemic. Thank God we’ve got it under relative control. Imagine vaccines hadn’t come around. Then that could have been a defining event for mankind. Climate change still has the capacity to do that. Again, so I feel we’re at a moment in history where we’re living in it, but it’s yet in some ways to define itself. TIPPETT: So I’m curious, you started this initiative, is that right, this Religion and Foreign Policy initiative? So that was in 2006, and I’d like to hear what you were seeing in 2006 that made you feel that this gathering and this kind of conversation was necessary and was missing. HAASS: It’s fifteen years ago, if my math is right, and it was one of several initiatives we started at the Council on Foreign Relations. The whole idea was to open the aperture of people’s involvement in international issues and foreign policy issues. What struck me at the time was how important objectively the world was and how little, increasingly, people, particularly in this country, knew about it. Lots of reasons why. Schools don’t teach it, or if they teach it they don’t require students study it. Media covered it a lot less. You mentioned the end of the Cold War. A lot of people said “OK, well, therefore, we don’t need to worry about the world a whole lot, we can take a break, put our feet up.” You mentioned the “end of history” idea, that somehow a lot of the dynamics of history had been set aside. My own view was just the opposite, that the world is becoming more important. I was struck by the gap between the inherent importance of the world and people’s appreciation of it. And then one day I came across a statistic about how many Americans once a week entered a house of worship. And you add up the number of Americans that go to churches of every conceivable denomination, and mosques, and synagogues, and what have you, it’s well over a hundred million people. I’ve seen numbers, a hundred fifty million people or more. I will leave our three hundred religious and congregational leaders to make a judgment as to how rapt their attention is, but I put that aside. That I leave to them. But my view was, wow, I couldn’t think of another experience that so many people in this country had on a regular basis. And so what made this so interesting to me was not just what you said at the beginning, to get a better appreciation of the role of religion as a dynamic in international affairs. It means a lot to me because I was originally a religion major at Oberlin College. I got my first degree in Middle Eastern studies, very interested in comparative religion and all that, flirted with becoming a rabbi, and for better or for worse chose another path, which I’m happy to return to. But my view was that religious leaders, congregational leaders had a connection with people that was unparalleled. And so my view was if I could somehow, if we at the Council on Foreign Relations, could establish a relationship with them, if we could become a resource for them, also, what an opportunity to expand awareness, understanding of critical issues in the country and the world if we could, if those who were giving the sermons, if those who were teaching classes inside churches and synagogues and mosques and the like were essentially a better position to educate their congregations? So it was, in a sense, a two-way relationship. I wanted us to learn more from them about the role of religion in the world, but I also wanted to be a resource for them in terms of just what the content of what it was, whether it was in sermons or whether it was in classrooms associated with religious institutions, I wanted to increase conversation about critical subjects that I thought was simply not happening in other places. TIPPETT: That world in which you and I were young people interested in foreign policy was also a world in which—I always liked this thing that Peter Berger said, great sociologist of religion, that in the late twentieth century—what did he say—in polite circles, polite society, religion was something done in private between consenting adults. And it’s just telling that even though you studied, you did religious studies in college, this looking at the religious world and taking it seriously from the perspective of being a foreign policy expert, came to you in the twenty-first century. And I’m curious, also, about what you now would say you didn’t yet see about all the layers that there are to, again, that phrase, the intersection between religion and foreign policy. What have you learned? HAASS: Any student of history would go back and would look at the role of religion and conflict, whether it was the Thirty Years’ War which ended with the Treaty of Westphalia, which is really the rise of the modern state system, so that kind of stuff was pretty well-known. But it wasn’t until I really studied the Middle East that I got a much better appreciation for I guess the word that comes to mind is fusion or integration. Because, or another way to put it is universities have departments; the world doesn’t. So you have the religion department, the sociology department, the economics department, the politics department. The world doesn’t have one, and these things all mix together. And it’s true of individuals. That’s why I’m very careful about ever ascribing motives to people because it’s always many things at work. But same thing with societies. And I was involved heavily in everything from the Gulf War to the Iraq War to Afghanistan. I was the U.S. envoy to Northern Ireland; the U.S. envoy to Cyprus, the peace talks. And in every one of these positions, how could you be involved in these things and not understand the interplay? In some cases this was obvious at the surface, say in Northern Ireland or in the Middle East. Other places it was more suffused, when I was involved in India and Pakistan and so forth, involved in diplomacy between them. So I actually think any diplomat who ventures out and doesn’t have some understanding or feel for this set of topics that forms the core of this group, this workshop, I think is actually underequipped. I guess I would put it that way, is underequipped for the task. TIPPETT: And has it been your experience in these years that a wider swath of policymakers see the importance of understanding religious people, communities, leaders? HAASS: Not enough. TIPPETT: No? HAASS: I got really frustrated at times in government when I thought that people didn’t understand that enough. And it’s religion, it’s culture, it’s hard to say where one ends and the other begins. But when I look at the biggest mistakes the United States has made in the world—and I would say, two of the three biggest mistakes were Vietnam and the Iraq War—the lesson I take from that is we get in real trouble when we don’t understand local realities. And anytime we try to see the world through a lens of geopolitical abstraction rather than getting immersed in local realities, we get in real trouble. And we got in real trouble in Vietnam and in Iraq because, I would argue, we did not come close to understanding the nature of these societies we were intervening in, the nature of these societies we sought to transform. So one of the lessons I took away is, yeah, hey, I’m always described as a globalist, but I always tell people you’ve got to know local. At times you’ve got to think local even if you’re acting on a global stage. TIPPETT: Yeah, and the major traditions are the original global institutions, right? I mean— HAASS: Absolutely. TIPPETT: The Catholic Church—(laughs)—for example, was there before American foreign policy. HAASS: For example. It’s still there, last I checked. TIPPETT: Yes. (Laughs.) HAASS: I think, again, one way or another these are powerful forces. And it’s just part of the tapestry or mosaic, whatever phrase you want to use about what motivates people or explains societies. And again, unless you have a feel for the range of what explains a society, I don’t think you can be, you’re not nearly as effective as a diplomat or an analyst or anything else if you lack that. TIPPETT: What would you like the people in this room, our virtual room, to be attentive to? How would you advise them to strengthen their voice and their presence and the agency they have in these important intersections? HAASS: It’s a big question. I will probably be, and please forgive me, characteristically immodest in my answer. (Laughs.) But I’ll try to be sensitive. Let me start out with the fact that I am genuinely worried. I am worried about the future of this country. Our democracy is nearly two-and-a-half centuries old, and for the first time in my life I don’t take its future for granted. I’m worried about the future of international relations, given certain dynamics and certain capacities that have spread. And I’m also worried about the future of the world, the planet itself, in many cases because of the gap between these challenges and the collective responses. So let me just choose three issues, three of many, that I would hope that people in this virtual room would give voice to. One is what I just alluded to, is climate change. We are stewards of this Earth. And one of the things we have learned is depending upon how we collectively, the eight billion of us, live our lives, how we use and consume fuel and the rest, we are changing this planet, and in the process, changing its ability to support life as we know it. God created the heavens and the Earth. We’re custodians. And I believe that responsibility towards the planet and climate change is one that we all share, that we need to leave it in better shape than we found it. Now, the actual policies that are adopted, that’s a different subject. But the importance of responsibility, of collective responsibility for the planet, that is one thing that I would argue needs to be—voice needs to be given to. Secondly, and even more immediately, is to save life, which is the most precious thing of all. If I’m right and COVID’s killed around ten million people, we have got to act faster to save lives, and that means expanding the production and availability of vaccines. The United States just announced yesterday we’re going to make twenty million doses of vaccine available by the end of June. That’s probably enough for one day in the world. We’ve got eight billion people we’ve got to get vaccinated. Many of them are going to be two-dose vaccines. That’s sixteen billion doses. That’s a lot of doses. So we’ve got to dramatically ramp up collective efforts to make vaccines available, and it’s got to be done simultaneously not just for the human part but for ourselves. You know that line in the airplane when you all get, I mean, in the old days when you and I used to get on airplanes, and there you stood, some voice used to come on and say, in the event of loss of cabin pressure oxygen masks will drop down; put yours on first, and only then help your neighbor. No. That kind of sequentialism is not the right metaphor. It’s got to be simultaneous. We’ve got to help our neighbor and help ourselves simultaneously with COVID. Who better to argue for life on humanitarian or any other grounds or self-interested grounds than the people in this room? And then, thirdly, something, again, I never thought I’d have to talk about, is American democracy. And I’m not saying that people in the clergy should preach you should be for or against this issue. That’s not the point. But there’s got to be something about nonviolence, something about civility towards those we disagree with, something about respecting laws, respecting norms, to talk about the importance of norms, the unwritten rules that are the glue to a society, to civilization. Again, I think, without getting into controversial matters of policy, which is beyond what arguably those in the clergy should be talking about, but how we go about our politics, that seems to me to be exactly in their wheelhouse. So in those three areas, the planet, saving life, how we conduct our politics, I would think that the people in this room have tremendous opportunity, and I would say with opportunity goes responsibility, to be a clear and consistent voice. TIPPETT: I think one more question and then let’s open it up because I think that would be a great conversation to have with this group. Just curious, is there an issue or an area where you’ve seen what you would consider to be good modeling of what this kind of, it’s not really, “collaboration” is too small a word. You’re talking about  kind of walking alongside each, I mean, really, some of what you just pointed at is moral imagination and kind of where, and also action, and so where those things are joined effectively and generatively with other kinds of civil and political and foreign policy efforts. What comes to mind? HAASS: One image that comes to mind, I’m not sure it gets at what you raised, and if it doesn’t do justice to it come back at me, it was during the protests you mentioned, the racial protests we’ve had over the last year, and it was a policeman with a protester and doing it together. And to me, it was so powerful that, because we think of  many of the marchers against the police, and the idea that they essentially joined in a demonstration of mutual respect and acceptance, just to me it just stuck in my mind as just a very powerful, it was a bit of a We Shall Overcome kind of moment. And I’ve seen it, I mentioned before, I was the U.S. envoy in Northern Ireland. When the various mothers got involved, and wives, in marching for peace. And they were from cross denominational lines, Catholic and Protestants alike, how powerful was that? And it actually, it made a difference. And it makes a difference. It’s a little bit of humanity coming before policy. But that’s, in and of itself, a powerful political statement. So, yeah, it’s when individuals showed not just the morale. It takes enormous courage, enormous courage. I’m writing a book on citizenship now, which is not what you would expect a foreign policy guy to do in his spare time. And the reason I’m writing it is that I’ve decided the greatest threat to the future of this country is not anything external, like China, or Iran, or North Korea, or terrorism, or what have you, but it’s us. It’s our own ability to come together. And I reread a book I hadn’t read, I’m reading all the things I haven’t read in forty or fifty years, from The Federalist Papers to de Tocqueville. And I reread Profiles in Courage. It was a book, of all things, I had gotten for my bar mitzvah four hundred years ago. And it’s just a reminder about— TIPPETT: By John F. Kennedy. HAASS: Yes. How normal— TIPPETT: You need to remind—everybody here hasn’t heard of that book. HAASS: Oh, yeah, like I said, four hundred years ago. John F. Kennedy wrote about, I think it was, eight or so senators who he called them profiles in courage, did truly courageous things often at the cost of their own ambition and careers, and put principle or country before ambition and self. And I actually think we’ve had some demonstrations of it recently. And it just shows me how—sorry to go on so long—but I’ve been lucky enough to work for four presidents. There’s so little that’s inevitable in history. So little is baked into the cake. But human agency matters tremendously, for better and for worse. And what Profiles in Courage is, are vignettes of human agency that mattered for better. So I believe in that. That’s the reason I’m not a pessimist. Throughout history you see examples when people step up and do the right thing, despite the cost, despite the risk, despite the pressure. And one just hopes that those become less the exception and more the rule. TIPPETT: I’m so curious at that formulation of humanity over policy. Was it something that would have occurred to you in the early part of your career, back in that Cold War world? Or is this something that has evolved within you? HAASS: It’s evolved because, again, I’ve been so fortunate in many ways. But one of them is I’ve been involved in things at high levels in this country and other countries. And I’ve seen what people do. And I’ve seen people evolve and grow. The favorite, I’ve interacted with a lot of remarkable people in my life. Again, I’ve been really lucky. But if I had to choose one person, and I’m often asked that, who’s made the biggest impression on me, it was Yitzhak Rabin, who, when we first met it was even before he was defense minister. Then he became defense minister. Ultimately, he became prime minister. And we had many, many, many conversations. And what I loved about him, and he talked about it a little bit in public on the lawn of the White House at the signing ceremony when he was up there with Yasser Arafat, after Oslo. And he basically said: This is not easy for me, what he was being asked to do. And how can you not be impressed by that? And what makes people great is that. And I have tremendous respect for George Bush forty-one, the forty-first president, the father. You know, when we worked together, it just showed me close up the power and the impact of individual choice. And again, I’ve seen, I won’t go into the areas where I’ve been disappointed, because I’ve also been tremendously disappointed. Where I thought people had within their grasp potentially wonderful things and they let it slip through their fingers for whatever set of calculations or emotions. So for better and for worse, close up, I’ve seen people step up to history and people step away from it. But it made me realize how personal it is. It’s funny—one last thing. For a long time there was a fashion in history that so-called great man or woman idea or history was incorrect, and that underneath what really mattered were these great societal, cultural, larger forces. And those forces matter. We’ve been talking about them, you and I. But also, it’s those people, I don’t know what the metaphor is, but who kind of surf or ride on top of them and who steer them a little bit or resist them if need be. So again, there’s so little that is inevitable. And when I talk to young people I always talk about the power of what individuals can do. And it ought to be a great—people say how can I make a difference? And one of the arguments I use for reading history and studying history, is history is in many ways the record of people who have made a difference. TIPPETT: OK. Well, Rivka, I think you can guide us into opening this conversation up to everybody. OPERATOR: Great. The first written question will come from Marie Anne Sliwinski at the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, who asks: The more global empathy toward the Palestinians shows how the pandemic has changed people. Would you agree? HAASS: I don’t think I would agree. I don’t see how the pandemic has changed thinking about Palestinians. I think there was and is sympathy for their plight. Less sympathy for those, such as the leaders of Hamas, who use violence to advance their goals. But I think, unless I misunderstood the question, I don’t see a particular connection between the pandemic and Palestinians. Although, Palestinians have had it particularly hard because, particularly in places like Gaza, you have such dense population. You’ve got two million people in an extraordinarily small piece of land. You’ve had inadequate access to vaccines and medical help. But by and large, I think the Palestinian problem, situation, however one wants to characterize it, had a dynamic that long predated the pandemic, will have one that will, is now trans-pandemic, and will be there post-pandemic. And I think the factors that drive that issue, many factors that drive that issue, all of which are in the press today, are essentially largely apart from the pandemic. And I don’t see that, for example, affecting the coverage or the reaction to events of the last week. TIPPETT: Another question. OPERATOR: We will take the next live question from Pastor Mark Burns. He is from the NOW Television Network. BURNS: Great. Thank you so much. My question is a piggyback question in regards to the Israeli-Palestine conflict that is currently taking place. Christians in general, especially Evangelical Christians in general, support Israel. What is your opinion on the latest conflict? Is Israel at fault, or is there a justification for the Palestinians’ attack? HAASS: Well, we could use the rest of the time to go into that. And I think what we’ve seen in the last ten days are all sorts of things. We saw the protests in Jerusalem over legal issues dealing with title to land. We saw the use of force inside Islamic holy places, that I was critical of. Even before that you had the postponement of the, by the Palestinian Authority, of elections, which again was unfortunate. Then you had the use of, the firing of rockets by Hamas from Gaza into Israel population centers. That was wrong by any and every measure. Israel had the right to retaliate in the name of self-defense. I think that was appropriate. The question is whether there’s been sufficient retaliation. And I’ve been arguing for the last several days that we, the United States, ought to be pressing harder for a ceasefire. That too many innocents on both sides are losing their lives. I also think for Israel there’s other risks, like continuing a loss of support in some quarters. I think it strengthens, potentially, the political hand of Hamas and weakens the political role of the Palestinian Authority. I also think there’s a potential here to radicalize the two million or so Israeli Arabs, which would be a threat to the fabric of Israeli society. But more than anything else, I don’t see the purpose or justification for continued attacks. I think what we need now is a mutual stand down, a de facto or more formal ceasefire. It’s happened in the past after previous rounds of fighting. It will happen again now. I think the question is when, not if. And I would simply say the sooner the better. And just to be clear, if and when we get to that point it will not have dealt with any of the basics, any of the underlying causes of this conflict. But it will stop the destruction and the loss of life. And then the question is, is there enough for diplomats and politicians to work with to address the more fundamentals of the crisis. I’m not a real optimist. I don’t see an end when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinians’ feud anytime soon. But at least it would stop the destruction and death that we’re seeing now on both sides. TIPPETT: Another question. OPERATOR: Our next question is a written submission from P. Adem Carroll at the Burma Task Force USA, who asks: The harsh and sometimes genocidal persecution of religious and ethnic minorities, notably in China, India, and Myanmar, has resulted in a mixed response from the West and silence from many other nations. At the same time, many corporations prefer to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses. For example, Disney in Xinjiang, or Chevron in Myanmar. Speaking of corporate responsibility, what is the future of Corporate Social Responsibility in a world where Responsibility to Protect struggles to survive? HAASS: It’s a really thoughtful question. So thank you. Look, let me make one or two general points, and then I’ll come to the question of corporate responsibility. I think for governments this question of speaking out on behalf of religious freedom, human rights, and so forth, I think it’s important to do so, but I think one has to at times also look at the question, as what is, well, what influence do you have? Countries have the ability to push back not just big and strong countries like China, but even weak, relatively weak countries like Myanmar. And also from a policy point of view, there are tradeoffs sometimes. And we have to ask ourselves if we, are we willing to mortgage, or jeopardize, or place hostage, whatever phrase you want to use, an entire relationship to concerns over human rights or religion? Take an example of Russia. We, obviously, fundamentally disagree with what Russia is doing in Ukraine. Obviously, fundamentally disagree with the mass incarceration of political protesters, the attempted killing of Mr. Navalny. On the other hand, the United States recently signed a multiyear extension of a nuclear arms control agreement with Russia. And the question is, how do we look after certain interests at the same time we try to show a decent respect, and a necessary respect for religious freedom and human rights? And that’s a serious conversation that’s ongoing. But I think there’s no necessary right or wrong, it’s just that’s a foreign policy challenge to figure that out, understanding, one, the limits to influence sometimes and, two, that we have multiple interests, and we have to work the tradeoffs. On the question of corporate social responsibility, I think this is a growing issue. We’ve come a long way since the days that corporations and CEOs were just responsible to shareholders and shareholder return. We see it in a pronounced way with environmental, and climate, and energy issues. We see it with, and we’re going to see it more and more with human rights and labor issues. Trafficking is another issue, the tens of millions of people around the world trafficked. And I would argue that corporations have a responsibility to make sure that their supply chains, the goods and services that are going into the products they produce, that people are not, that there’s no slave labor involved in those supply chains, or forced labor, and so forth. So the answer is, yes. I think this has got to be a consideration. Shareholders and other investors should raise it. And I believe that CEOs have, and Larry Fink, who’s a member of our board here at the Council of Foreign Relations, the head of BlackRock, one of the largest asset managers in the world, has basically made a powerful argument for an expansion of the responsibilities of a CEO. And a CEO has to, yes, worry about shareholder return, investor return. But also has to be sensitive to his employees. He has to be sensitive, he or she, to customers and clients, but also to principles. And that’s, again, a balance act. But I think they ought to be confronted with it. I think that shareholders and the public more broadly have every right to press corporations to take these other factors into account. And then the corporation, it seems to me, has to make a decision on how to respond, and then just to justify that decision. Has to justify that decision in the marketplace. And if people aren’t pleased with their decision or how they’ve justified it, I expect in some cases they will pay an economic penalty. People won’t want to own a stock, won’t want to buy a product or a service. So there’s lots of ways to influence these decisions. So there’ll be tradeoffs, shall we say, there, just like governments will have to make tradeoffs. So too will corporate leaders. TIPPETT: Let’s have another question. OPERATOR: Our next question will be live from Tereska Lynam from the University of Oxford. Please accept the “unmute now” button. LYNAM: Can you hear me OK? TIPPETT: Yes. LYNAM: OK, great. Thank you. This is also a written question. How do we confront and move beyond the real divisions in our information sources, which are filtering our way into our news, obviously, but also our spiritual communities? And so much reporting, even what seems to be benevolent and benign, has a partisan stance. And kind of on that, we just had Shavuot. How do we love our neighbors as ourselves when in many cases we are taught that so many of our neighbors are actually our enemies? Thank you for your consideration. HAASS: No, thank you for your question. My honest answer is I don’t have a great answer. It’s something I’m struggling with. It’s extraordinarily difficult for a democracy to have a conversation or a debate about an issue if the foundation is not fact. You know, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who was the Harvard academic who then became the senator from New York, his famous line was that everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion just not to his or her own facts. And one can be, one could either, and by that, I think that’s important two ways. One is, one could just grab onto falsehoods. But there’s also the inaccuracy of grabbing onto 5 percent of something and ignoring the other 95 percent. And I think part of the obligation of schools is to do a better job of helping people understand what facts are, what are judgements, what are opinions, where to go. The idea also of multiple sources. I was, in the old days before the pandemic, when I used to go to a gym, one of the things I used to do is when I worked out on the elliptical, if I had a half-hour workout, I’d spend ten minutes on three different networks, and just get a different sense of it. And I try to do it now with podcasts and others. Or I’ll read multiple newspapers. But we live in an era of narrowcasting rather than broadcasting. And that’s dangerous. So part of it is to encourage people to move out of their comfort zones. And by the way, I don’t think universities do a great service in encouraging this notion of safety and safe spaces. I think people need to learn to be a little bit uncomfortable, to be exposed to things that challenge their own beliefs, what they had accepted as orthodoxy. So I think we ought to encourage people to go—I mean, there’s two things. One is to encourage people to go to multiple sites, sources. And some are better than others. And but also how to practice the art of disagreement in a civil way. I think we need—we don’t want to stop arguing. We don’t want a ceasefire in the conversation. But we want to have, if you will, the equivalent of the laws of war. We want to have the Geneva Convention about how to have conversations in the public marketplace about what is legitimate and what is not, and how to disagree without turning people into enemies. There’s a lot of experimentation going on. I’ve seen it with groups where you bring people together and you do polling at the beginning of the group. I think it’s called deliberative polling; I may have the wrong phrase. And then the idea is that people talk, and they get to know one another. And then you do polling later on in the process. And in my experience, when people are exposed in a civil, relaxed way to different points of view there’s often a bit of, not transformation, but a bit of movement. And so I think, again, religious institutions potentially provide a great vehicle for doing that, for bringing in speakers who represent different points of view within the congregations. For getting people to have conversations on certain issues. To bring in experts who can provide an educational background to help people reach more informed opinions. And again, as I said before about democracy, to talk about the civility of disagreement, about how it is we, what democracy requires in the way of norms. I actually think norms are incredibly important. Norms aren’t laws. They’re not things you have to obey, but they’re things you ought to. They’re the ought-tos and the shoulds of societal existence. They’re the lubricants that make societies work. We can’t just be a society of law. Law is too narrow. Potentially it’s too black or white, or too brittle. Norms become the conventions that allow us to find ways to disagree and coexist. And again, I think religious institutions can become places to exercise that and to even train that. TIPPETT: Another question. OPERATOR: Our next written question is from Simran Jeet Singh of YSC Consulting. He asks: As you express your concerns about the state of our world can you speak about the state of religious freedom and how it’s been manipulated and politicized? From your vantage point, what would an appropriate and meaningful vision of religious freedom look like? HAASS: By definition religious freedom is, for me, the ability of any individual on the planet to worship or not worship as he or she pleases. It’s about, in the phrase, “religious freedom,” it’s the freedom to practice or not to practice, and practice in whatever direction and whatever manner one would want to. I would say I’m not an expert on the state of religious freedom around the world. I will say though that over the last approximately decade and a half, plus or minus, there—if one were going to—I’ll use a financial metaphor. If there were a share of stock in a market called state of democracy and freedom in the world, it would have lost value over the last decade and a half. In the previous decade and a half after the end of the Cold War, say from 1990 to 2005, there was an expansion of freedom in the world, political and otherwise. And in the last fifteen years, there’s been something of a contraction. And that, to me, is a worrisome development. And what we’re also seeing in many cases is greater intolerance and various justifications used for limiting religious freedom, or, not just religious freedom, but for treating members of religious groups with discrimination, I guess is a—which is what we’re also seeing in more  societies than we did before. And that’s part of the greater illiberalism of this era. Lots of reasons why. We can talk about it. But religion can’t escape a trend of greater illiberalism. It’s one of the reflections or victims of the time. And illiberalism has grown in democracies and non-democracies alike over the last decade and a half. TIPPETT: Next question. OPERATOR: Our next live question comes from Chloe Breyer of the Interfaith Center of New York. BREYER: Yes, hello. Thank you so much. My question is as follows. It’s a written question as well. A generation of young women and men have grown up in Afghanistan having received an education supported by the United States and international aid groups. What is it the U.S. can do to make sure this progress is not completely lost, particularly in women’s health and education, while drawing down our troops there? HAASS: Thanks, Chloe. In part because of my concern about what you just raised the reason is I oppose the policy to withdraw all Americans, and with it then allied, troops from Afghanistan. Having them stay there was not a guarantee that women and girls would get to continue to benefit from the gains they had made: access to school, health care, and so forth, employment opportunities, but it certainly increased the odds they would. As American and allied troops withdraw over the next few months, there’s really grounds for being worried. Assuming that withdrawal goes ahead, and I see no reason to predict it won’t, it seems to me it makes a case for a large-scale assistance to the Afghan government, military assistance, economic assistance, and so forth. It means in some cases I think, protecting those who worked with us. And if they’re not safe in Afghanistan, I think we have an ethical and moral responsibility to accept in this country those individuals in particular who were widely knowing, including by the Taliban, to work with us, who have worked with us, who will be targeted. And I think they and their families ought to be provided safe haven, asylum in this country. I think we, if things begin to go badly in Afghanistan, I think preparations have to be made for large refugee flows around the—provisions ought to be made for that. So I don’t have a good answer, because, again, I’m extraordinarily worried about the likely increase in violence and the likelihood of Taliban gains. And I see no reason to believe that the Taliban have—what’s the word—have mellowed. I see no evidence of that. And so I think that risk is real. And so I would say we ought to do everything we can to bolster without a physical military presence. Maybe through provision of arms, intelligence, training, through contractors, economic help, diplomatic help, convening a regional security forum. We ought to do everything we can to strengthen Afghan authorities. We ought to—pressure ought to be put on Pakistan to limit the sorts of sanctuary and support that the Pakistani government continues to provide the Taliban in parts of Pakistan. And we ought to prepare. If we still don’t succeed, then we ought to look for ways to help as many people as we can as they flee to areas of safety. I hope I’m painting too negative a picture here, but I fear I might not be. TIPPETT: Another question. OPERATOR: We have a written question from Rob Radtke of Episcopal Relief and Development, who asks: As the U.S. becomes a more secular society, how would you suggest building faith literacy amongst policymakers? HAASS: That’s a really interesting question, since just yesterday I was having a long conversation about how to build greater technology literacy among policymakers. Because people like me, my generation don’t understand technologies enough from robotics to artificial intelligence to quantum computing. But these issues all matter. Thirty or forty years ago, the challenge was how to increase economics literacy among a lot of policymakers, because a lot of policymakers had studied politics or government but hadn’t studied economics. And as I said before, universities have departments, but the world doesn’t. Seventy years ago, the challenge was how to bring together military types and foreign policy types and mathematicians. And out of that was born this discipline called arms control. And it became way for regulating and structuring nuclear weapons to make it much less likely that they were used. And it has proven to be, shall we say, enormously successful. I think the idea of greater faith or religious literacy amongst policymakers is a great idea. Again, began as a comparative religion major, so I kind of tripped into it. I would think a couple of ideas come to mind. One is for some foundations to step up to that. And the foundations would offer things like the funds for a summer institute at this or that, it could either be at a theological school for foreign policy types or it could be at places like the Foreign Service Institute. Or you take the schools of, Johns Hopkins, SAIS, the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, the Kennedy School of Government, other places that are great training grounds for people who go into this field. That either a separate summer institute or executive programs for people who are midcareer. But essentially to make this training available, that this, again, we teach people the arts and crafts of negotiation, or we teach them a little bit about history, or you learn the details of decision-making, or what have you, or budgeting. So why not add this to the curriculum. And that would be the best thing, is that what you’re just describing would become part of the curriculum of, say, these graduate schools of international relations. I would also think, I don’t know what the State Department does now, but you would never send someone to certain parts of the world without, say, a year or two of language training. Why would we send them to a part of the world without a year or two of faith, of training to learn about the cultures, the religions, and other forces that shape the society? So I would think that ought to be part of the curriculum. And just more broadly, the more interdisciplinary, the more things can be, the more exposure individuals can have across these disciplinary lines, the better. But I love the idea of giving people in this field something of a grounding either in religion, per se, or if they’re going to specialize in a certain country or region of the world to make sure they got added exposure to that. I also think corporations, before you send somebody, instead of just sending them to business school, why not have, again, some exposure here if they’re going to be located in Africa, or the Middle East, or Asia? This, I would think, would be part of the outfitting, if you will, of preparing somebody for that experience. TIPPETT: One more question? OPERATOR: We’ll take another written question from Anna Thurston from the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, who asks: In Dr. Haass’s remarks today he mentioned that some step up to history while others step away from it. How does religion influence whether people step up or step away from history? Could you give examples of both cases? HAASS: I’m a little bit reluctant to give examples of those who stepped away from it. Let me put it this way, I think religion, it’s hard to generalize. I’ll speak for myself. Religion to me, among other things, besides the traditions and the practices—and I don’t know if my rabbi is in this virtual room right now so I’m going to be very careful with what I say—but it’s also, there is a code. And I think there’s codes of behavior. And as I said before, not just laws but norms. And one of the things I like in my own tradition, in the Jewish tradition, there’s a, and I’ve talked about this before, there’s things that one is precluded from doing, things that one is encouraged to doing. And one, it forces a kind of awareness or consciousness, and not to act in certain times, not to do things, can be every bit as consequential, and I would argue even wrong, as to act. If one sees an injustice taking place next to you or an act of aggression, to simply stand by or turn away seems, to me, to be wrong when there are opportunities to move towards agreements that would increase protection for people, peace, greater freedom, what have you, not to take advantage of them, not to take some reasonable risks for them seems to be wrong. I would simply say that where we’ve seen success, and I’ll give you certain examples, places like South Africa, when you had both Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk, or parts of the Middle East when you had an Anwar Sadat and a Menachem Begin. We’ve seen people on both sides, or multiple sides of an equation, who were both willing and able, two critical measures. Willing and able to take risks for peace, or to compromise. And where we’ve seen failure is that we haven’t seen that kind of parallelism amongst the various parties involved in a negotiation or in a process, where either no one was willing to do it, or only people on one side or another. And essentially some people were not willing to step forward. In places where we haven’t seen progress, that is often the case, where people, I believe, forfeited opportunities, one might say responsibilities, to take some risks for peace. And I think, again, one has to, you’ve got to decide what code you live by. You’ve got to decide how you, what you’re comfortable with in terms of both action and inaction. And I think that’s something for everybody, it’s a personal reckoning. It’s a personal accounting of one’s behavior that I think we all need to take. TIPPETT: OK, we have time for a couple more questions. OPERATOR: Our next written question is from Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons from the Center for American Progress, who asks: You mentioned the mistakes of the Vietnam and Iraq Wars. There was significant faith-based opposition to those wars. How can U.S. faith groups help influence U.S. foreign policy and promote peace? HAASS: Well, again, people who are faith-based, they have every right, same rights as every citizen to use their voice, to use their vote, to get involved in political processes, to encourage, to organize. And it seems to me it’s totally legitimate. I think for you all it’s a slightly different question, because there’s one thing in your individual capacity but you’ve also got, many of you, institutional capacities. And—(laughs)—when I got this job eighteen years ago, Tom Friedman said to me: The job you’re going to take, you’re going to run the toughest congregation in New York City. And we’ve got about five thousand members. And there are days I think he had a point. And one of the things I have to reckon with, and I’ll square this circle in a second, is to think about what I can and can’t do, because I’m no longer a totally free individual agent. I’ve got responsibilities to represent an organization. And we’ve got three hundred fifty, four hundred staff, we’ve got five thousand members, and I’ve got to keep that in mind. And I think the same is true for you all. If you lead a congregation, you’ve got to be aware that if you take certain kinds of stances or encourage certain behaviors, if you yourself do certain things, they may have consequences. You may find certain people leaving the congregation, or not contributing as they might have otherwise, and so forth. You’ve just got to weigh that. You’ve got to weigh it. And again, life’s filled with tradeoffs. And there’s matters of conscience. There’s matter of practicality. You might say I’d like to take more of a stand on issue X, but if I do I then won’t be able to speak out on issues A, B, C, and D. So it’s not simple. It’s not black or white. So I’m not going to sit here and, you know, reduce it to some kind of a formula, other than to say, again, in your individual capacity and your leadership capacity, you’ve got the power of example and you’ve got the power of voice. And what you do and what you don’t do, what you say and what you don’t say is all consequential. And I think we’re living in a moment—let me say one other thing, which I think I expect if I could see you nodding your heads I think you would. I see it in the people who work with me at the Council on Foreign Relations. We’re living at a time where, particularly for a lot of younger people, there’s widespread concern about what they see, a certain loss of confidence about the future, and a lack of confidence in secular authority. And I believe there’s something of a vacuum. I would believe that people in this virtual room have the potential to help fill that vacuum. And our politics are in many ways polarized, they’re gridlocked. I’m not naïve. I understand where ambition will win out over principle, where party will sometimes come before country. I get it. And as a result, a lot of people are looking to other institutions. Someone asked before about corporations. There’s the nonprofit world, that I represent. And there’s the world that you all represent. So I believe people who are in positions of authority and responsibility, who lead other types of organizations or congregations, I believe this is an enormously important moment just because, again, so much secular authority in this country and other countries, I believe, has let people down. So I actually think there’s, again, opportunity but also responsibility to probably play a larger role than perhaps you thought you were going to play when you were undergoing your religious training. I think things have changed a bit. TIPPETT: OK. I think we have time, a couple minutes for one last question. OPERATOR: We’re going to just do two quick ones, actually. We’re going to take a live question from Felice Gaer from the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights. And then we’ll take one last question after. BLAUSTEIN: Thank you very much. Richard, the number of killings of Christians in Nigeria has been huge. And some people have blamed Boko Haram for much of this and say it’s a religious conflict between Christianity and Islam. Even the U.S. government has named Nigeria a country of particular concern under the IRFA. But others, including experts at the Council itself, say it’s really about other issues of development and that’s all that we’re seeing with ongoing impunity exacerbating the problem. What’s your view? HAASS: Just to be clear, I don’t claim to be an expert. You know, John Campbell, who is one of our experts, was our ambassador there. Boko Haram is obviously responsible for much, but also the weakness of central authority plays an enormous role. I mean, John’s whole argument is that in some ways it’s almost wrong to think of Nigeria as a traditional country with this central government that performs or fulfills the obligations of a sovereign entity. Sovereign governments are meant to provide protection to all those within their borders. Well, the government of Nigeria will not and cannot. So he actually advocates for a U.S. foreign policy not just towards the central government, but towards many other aspects of the country. Because, again, power and capacity are so distributed. And so it means, in a funny sort of way, or, not funny, but diplomats getting out of the capital, not just meeting with foreign ministry types. Essentially, being out there and looking for other ways to provide help, to build capacities locally, and so forth. So I don’t think it’s an either/or. Boko Haram is a menace in all sorts of ways. But there’s so many other fault lines within the society, and so many limits to the capacity of the central government that this is a—there’s too many—how would I call it? There’s too many vacuums of authority there that are getting filled by the wrong forces. So one of the challenges, and it’s not unique to Nigeria, it just happens to be on such a large scale, about what we can do, NGOs can do, what the U.S. government can do, what the EU can do, what the AU can do. And again, there’s not a solution in sight, but whether you can do something to make it less bad. But I think it’s not an either/or. I think it’s an and. TIPPETT: So—oh, sorry, Rivka, are you going? Do you have another question? OPERATOR: Our final question is from Tom Getman of The Getman Group, who asks Krista: Of all your interviewees, who was the most inspiring and helpful in dealing with the needs of the interplay that Richard mentions, now thinking of Israel-Palestine? TIPPETT: Oh, gosh. Can I just say I’m terrible at a question about, when I’m supposed to think of one thing, I can think of nothing. Obviously that question has been on my mind a lot in recent days. We actually did a production trip to Israel-Palestine a few years back. Honestly, you know, I keep thinking of the conversation I had with people who are involved in the Bereaved Families Forum, who take in the pain and the grief and, as Richard said, that human dimension, which also gets manipulated by religious language and religious energy when it’s not necessarily religion that is at play. It’s a very hard time to talk about this. But that’s what’s on my mind. If you don’t know about the Bereaved Families Forum, which are people on both sides of that conflict who have lost loved ones and have said that they do not wish their grief to be cause for another round of violence. But as we’re here today I have a lot of despair about what’s happening there right now. And that’s just— HAASS: By the way, Krista, there’s an equivalent group in Northern Ireland. When I was last involved as an international mediator, there were families that had come together, all of whom had lost loved ones during the Troubles. And some of the most extraordinary meetings were with these people who, what they had in common was that they all had lost, and yet were willing to work through it. And it was quite—it was about as powerful and as emotional as anything I’ve ever encountered as a negotiator, was dealing with these people I thought were remarkable in what they were doing. TIPPETT: And I think religious leaders, and texts, and traditions, and rituals, and communities walking alongside that kind of energy is a whole other way to talk about religion and foreign policy, one of these other layers. I so wish that we were in person and I could now mingle with all of you over coffee. And maybe that fantastic dream will come true one day. What an incredible richness of conversation you have ahead. And thank you, Richard, for this. Thank you for having me. Thank you, all of you, for joining this discussion. And thank you for what you do. HAASS: Thank you, Krista. And again, thank—let me just join you in thanking everyone on this call for—and this meeting for what it is they do. Yes, thank you.

Charles A. Kupchan, senior fellow at CFR and professor of international affairs at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and Department of Government, and Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the U.S. and Americas program and dean of the Queen Elizabeth II Academy for Leadership at Chatham House, and associate professor of international relations at SOAS, lead a conversation on isolationism, internationalism, and America’s role in the world. FASKIANOS: Good afternoon and welcome to the CFR Winter/Spring 2021 Academic Webinar series. I'm Irina Faskianos, vice president for the National Program and Outreach at CFR. Today's meeting is on the record and the video and transcript will be available on our website, CFR.org/academic, if you would like to share it with your colleagues or classmates. And as always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We are delighted to have Charles Kupchan and Leslie Vinjamuri with us to discuss isolationism, internationalism, and America's role in the world. We have shared their bios with you, so I'll just give you a few highlights. Dr. Kupchan is a senior fellow at CFR and professor of international affairs at Georgetown University. In the Obama administration, he served as special assistant to the president and senior director for European affairs on the staff of the National Security Council. Dr. Kupchan was also director for European affairs on the NSC for the first Clinton administration. He is most recently the author of Isolationism, A History of America's Efforts to Shield Itself From the World. And here is a copy of his book. Dr. Vinjamuri is director of the US and Americas program and dean of the Queen Elizabeth II Academy for Leadership in international affairs at Chatham House in London, as well as associate professor of international relations at SOAS University of London. From 2010 to 2018, she was founding codirector and then director of the Center on Conflict, Rights, and Justice at SOAS. Dr. Vinjamuri holds a British Academy grant on the future of internationalism, a project that looks at the role of the US and other major powers to reform international institutions and governance structures. And together with Dr. Kupchan, she led the Lloyd George study group on world order. She is an editor and contributing author to Human Rights Futures. So thank you both for being with us today. I am going to go first to you, Dr. Kupchan, to talk about the ideological and political roots of American isolationism, its evolution, and how you see what's happening today, put it into context, given the history. KUPCHAN:  Thank you very much, Irina. Thank you for organizing this. And thanks to all of you who have joined us today for the program and special thanks to Leslie Vinjamuri for participating. It is after hours in London, so she is going beyond the call of duty. And in the spirit of full disclosure, Leslie and I are good long-term friends, but we will not let that get in the way of mixing it up on the discussion today, right, Leslie? VINJAMURI:  Absolutely not. KUPCHAN:  Okay. We're still in what you might call the honeymoon period of the Biden presidency. And at least here in in Washington, among the people that I talk to, there is a sense that we're going back to something that resembles normalcy—whatever the hell that is—and that the US will return to the global stage, that liberal internationalism and American foreign policy that essentially gives the United States pride of place as the overseer, we're going to go back to that, we're going to reinstate the state of play that we had prior to the Trump era. And what I want to do in the next five, six minutes is simply say, I don't think that's going to happen. I think in many respects, we are entering what I would call the third big era of American grand strategy. And to summarize the core of my argument, I would say that the first big era was 1789 to 1941, which was simply put the era of American isolationism when—with a couple exceptions in 1898 and 1917—the United States generally tended its own garden, avoided strategic commitments outside North America and then the Western Hemisphere, in effect, ran away from the world geopolitically, even as it engaged it economically and culturally. The second period ran from Pearl Harbor through the Obama administration. And this was the heyday of liberal internationalism, when the United States effectively ran the world rather than sought to run away from it. Roosevelt, Franklin put together a synthesis of an American grand strategy that was both power-oriented, realist, and idealist, American interests and American values, and he forged a bipartisan compact behind that brand of American leadership. What I want to argue today and discuss with Leslie and the rest of you is the proposition that we're now in the third era, and that in many respects, Trump's "America first" was not some bolt from the blue, some detour, some bizarre hiatus from the norm, but in many respects, a continuation of the grand strategy that the United States adopted before 1941. Trump, in my mind, accurately perceived that for many Americans, there was too much world and not enough America, too many wars, too much free trade, too many international packs, too many immigrants, too much investment in Afghanistan, and not enough investment in Arkansas, and he then pursued "America first," and he ran on that platform as a way of addressing the sense among many Americans that the US had overreached. The problem, in my mind, is that Trump went way too far. He overcorrected for overreach. He jammed on the brakes, rather than easing off and trying to use a judicious pullback to put American foreign policy back into alignment with its political will. That to me, is Biden's core task over the next four years: how to correct for Trump's overcorrection. And how to find a new equilibrium in American grand strategy that represents the sweet spot between era one: doing too little, and era two: doing too much. How can the United States step back without stepping away? And very briefly, I want to just take one second to outline why I think Trump's America first has strong antecedents in American history. The US was, for most of its history, isolationist. It was, for most of its history, unilateralist. It was protectionist until after World War II. It was guided by a nativist and racist view of the world. One of the reasons that the United States did not expand abroad, is that the American people did not want either to rule over or integrate into the body politic, non-whites. That's what stopped us from going into Latin America, to the Caribbean, to places like the Philippines, Hawaii. And then finally we start moving out after 1898. But it was with great controversy. And in part because of a backlash against going to places that were non-Christian and non-white, we retreated to the isolationism of the 1920s and the 1930s. So in many respects, Trump was harkening back to an earlier era in which the United States was much less willing to expend blood and treasure to extend its strategic reach abroad. As I said, I think Biden understands that right now he needs to correct for Trump's overcorrection. And I believe that he will put "America first" in the ash heap of history for the second time. Keep in mind that the first round of America first was in 1940 and 1941 when the America First committee blocked Franklin Roosevelt from trying to provide more assistance to those fighting Nazi Germany and interwar Japan. And so Biden, I think, will go back to being a team player. I think Biden will go back to being a liberal Democrat, and he will rebuild America's ties with liberal democracies around the world. And he will restore the United States to its traditional role as an exemplar, as a beacon to the rest of the world, after four years in which many countries were scratching their head, and asking themselves, "What has happened to American democracy? We have always looked to American democracy as a model. Now it's in shreds.” That, in my mind, ended on January 20. But in other respects, I think one can see continuity in Biden's future as much as change. First, a continued pullback from the Middle East. I think Trump was right to begin to dismantle the forever wars, and Democrats and Republicans alike agree that we should stop our efforts to turn Afghanistan and Iraq into Ohio. Number two, I think there will be very little trade liberalization in the Biden administration at first at the beginning. And that's because it seems to me, there isn't much support for free trade on either side of the aisle. The one exception I see is the US trying to align with democracies around the world to push China to liberalize its markets, and to create a more level playing field on the trade front. But I would not hold my breath on a US-UK free trade deal, or on other major acts of liberalization, at least in the first and second year of the Biden presidency. My final point here is that it's my assessment that Biden and the people around him understand that right now, America's first, second, third, and fourth priorities are all at home. We cannot turn our backs on the Trump era, we need to learn the lessons of the Trump era. And those lessons to me, say rather loud and clear, there are many unhappy Americans in the United States, and we need to figure out what the problems are. And so I see a president who is going to focus like a laser on the pandemic, on racial injustice, on investments in infrastructure, on investments in green technology, on worker retraining, on opening up new manufacturing lines in the industrial heartland. Because if we do not solve these domestic problems, the sources of polarization, the sources of illiberalism, a country that no longer knows its own mind, no longer shares a unified sense of what constitutes reality, we are never going to get our foreign policy right. And as a consequence, I think we'll see more effort, more time, more resources focused on the home front. That doesn't mean you can't walk and chew gum at the same time. It doesn't mean pulling out of Europe and Asia, as some in the so-called restraint school argue. But I do think it means a president who puts domestic priorities first, a president who allocates resources away from the traditional defense budget towards cyber, the pandemic, climate change, and other issues that are not part of the traditional security agenda. And in my mind, that's just as it should be. Because, as I said, if we don't fix the nation's internal problems and make that our top priority, our foreign policy will continue to be all over the map, which is where it's been for the last while. And that says to me that our main priorities are here in the United States. Leslie, over to you. VINJAMURI:  Thank you. And it's always good to hear Charlie, for many reasons. And I also, Charlie, was taking a very careful look at your Foreign Policy article that Irina and the CFR circulated to everybody who's on the call that was published just a few weeks ago, because it there's really a lot in there, and I want to address it in part. But I should say, first, thank you to Irina, who is the heart and soul of CFR, and certainly of the CFR in London, of which I actively enjoy being part, and it's great to be on the call with Charlie. I saw many names on the list that looked familiar, not least my dear former professor David Baldwin. And so I guess I'd say a couple of things. First of all, on Charlie's way of breaking up the history of the US and its engagement in the world, I'm partly sympathetic with it, but in many ways, I think 2008 is really where we should date the beginning of a change that perhaps, although obviously, President Obama, President Trump, and I would argue even President Biden, were all very different from each other, the effort to recalibrate America's global engagements and America's way of thinking about its role in the world, I think, began earlier perhaps than Charlie dates it, but that things get in the way. And actually, things do get in the way. So part of the story of what happens going forward, we have our suspicions, and many of them certainly in Charlie's case are grounded in deep knowledge of the sitting president. But we also don't know what the unknowns will be, what will the world ask of America. But I do think that the effort to recalibrate, to recognize the deep problems in America's democracy that were revealed by the 2007-2008 financial crisis, the inequality, the desire to get out of the forever wars, the desire to think differently about America's Asia strategy, a pivot, an institutionalist strategy that was designed to manage the China problem differently by exclusion, arguably, the TPP, and that all of these efforts were part of a long term project, which was about recalibrating America's policy, which didn't turn out the way that Obama wanted them to. And certainly, President Trump had a different agenda. A word on Trump, as somebody who's been sitting in London and in the UK through the entire four incredibly tumultuous and difficult years, not to even begin to pretend that they have been more tumultuous for those sitting in Europe than they have been in the US, but they certainly haven't been pleasant. And I guess, because the many of the readings are set up as being sort of this contrast between isolationism, restraint, and liberal internationalism—the one thing that President Trump’s America didn't read as to Europeans was restrained, or isolationist, or liberal. And so it's sort of in a category of its own, it was very active, as we know, relying on tariff wars to manage deep economic problems, frequently using force, even in unexpected ways, if you go back to his early use of humanitarian force to respond to the use of chemical weapons in Syria, keeping boots on the ground much longer than he said he would, and being full of bluster, and throwing up many new strategies for dealing with old problems, not least in North Korea. It looked anything but restrained and anything like America was simply focused on the home front. It did look very much unilateralist and very much a policy that was dominated by the logic of "America first." But in terms of where do we go from here, a couple of things. First of all, for better and for worse, the real world is far messier than the theoretical world of grand strategy debate in international relations, certainly, and this is probably a good thing. I would argue that restraint is simply not realistic in an era in where there are some global issues that range from highly consequential to existential in terms of their consequences for Americans, that America's soft power has already taken a battering and then squandered. And that America's allies don't really have the leadership ability or the material capabilities to check hostile powers, of which we have at least two: Russia and China, and probably many more. So there are multiple reasons for which the United States will need to remain actively engaged, which isn't to say that restrainers are suggesting that they shouldn't remain engaged in solving the big global challenges. But I think the imperative, and the instinct behind restraint is deeply flawed. I would also argue that I don't think there are very many people that actually believe that, at least where I sit, that President Biden means a return to the way the world used to be. And I would say it's for a couple of reasons. One is that everybody can see it. And I would argue, the vision of America from the near abroad and from the further abroad, is far worse than I think America actually is, in large part because the rest of the world looks at America through the lens of the media. And the media has a very single-track agenda and has had for the last four years. So people don't think America is coming back to where it used to be, because I think America is just fundamentally changed, and will necessarily be constrained and focused at home. But the second reason, of course, is that Europe has changed. Certainly, the UK has changed. It's finally now after the entire four years of Donald Trump's presidency being internally focused on exiting the European Union. It's now deeply focused on a foreign policy debate that's really just kind of emerged in the last couple of weeks about now that Britain is free, what will Britain's foreign policy be? But Europe is changed, and Europe's interest in sovereignty has changed, and Europe is not aligned amongst itself. So for any number of reasons, I don't think that people assume that the world is just going right back to where it used to be. And the other thing I would argue is that—and this goes not so much to Charlie's remarks today, but maybe his comments in his Foreign Policy piece, which I think are really worth taking a look at when he sort of sets out his vision, and much of it I agree with. His first point that America must invest in its democracy and the problem of inequality and rebooting the economy in an inclusive way, in sorting out an immigration policy that's pragmatic, but values-based that gets the narrative about America right, that America needs to keep its alliances strong as force multipliers. And I guess the part of it which was really interesting to me and where I think there is a very substantial debate to be had, and maybe for this call, is about what America's commitment should be in terms of the other liberal international institutions. And whether America should turn to the framework, such as it exists, or whether there should be some new institutions created, one of which Charlie proposed was a concert. And whether the others should be the way to solve collective problems is sort of an ad hoc, pick it up and put it down, and maybe I'm being unfair, coalitions of the willing, and I guess I would argue not to exclude those as possibilities, but very strongly against abandoning the institutions that we have, work with them, sometimes perhaps work around them, but recognize that the problem is not the institutions, the problem is perhaps that the institutions went too far, in some cases, in misunderstanding the important role of sovereignty in international politics. But if that can be re-harnessed, there's no reason not to very clearly work through the institutions. The other thing I would say is on the question of democracy, and I'm not sure exactly Charlie's views on this, although I suspect I have a sense from the readings and for many conversations, I think the democracy question can't be one that's simply about America's democracy at home, and I think it's an important point to make on the Holocaust Remembrance Day, that the world deeply needs America, not to use military force to overthrow dictators and wars of choice, but it deeply needs America to be back in the game of articulating a vision that is values-based, that pays attention to and gives priority to America's allies that share those values, that gives voice to those interests in civil society and creates the space for transnationalism that's been severely damaged and dampened through the Trump years, and that really works with democracies, in the first instance, to put forward global solutions to key problems, whether it's on technology, health, etc., before turning to a broader array of partners that will be necessary in order to really move the dial. So I'll close there, but I think the democracy and values agenda can't be one that's simply limited to the home front. FASKIANOS:  Thank you both. Great start to the discussion. And we want to continue it now with all of you. You can raise your hand at the bottom of the screen. If you're on a tablet, you can click on the More button and raise your hand there. You can also type your question in the Q&A box. I see we have a few there. But I'm going to first go to the first raised hand by Babak Salimitari. Please unmute yourself, and please tell us who you are and what institution you're with. Q:  Hi, can you hear me? My name is Babak Salimitari, and I'm a second-year economics student at UCI, University of California, Irvine. And Ms. Vinjamuri, I think you made a really good point about Europe not being the same Europe. I would argue that it was like that since the Iraq War. We saw that the great powers of Europe, whether that be France, whether that be Germany or Italy, didn't really do anything with the United States in Iraq. It was mostly Poland and Estonia or whatever, and England, but it was mostly small, Eastern European countries that went and put troops on the ground. And from there, I would say that we saw a big shift between transatlantic relations, and we're still seeing that shift. And we saw how Trump called Europe worse than China. So I was wondering, if we continue to see this shift from transatlantic relations to, say, India or Japan, and how we saw this big focus on Asia, how can that create problems between us and our oldest allies? FASKIANOS:  Leslie, do you want to take that? VINJAMURI:  Yeah, I'll add a comment. And then I'll certainly let Charlie, because Charlie's spent his career working on Europe, I just live here. Although I don't live in Europe anymore, apparently. So there we are. And, as is noted, by the downgrading of the EU ambassador in the UK, the latest diplomatic drama, talk about a storm in a teapot. But I think there are going to be a lot of them. It's a really, really important question. And I guess it depends a little bit—and I think you're right to draw that distinction about the positions that were taken with respect to Iraq, of course, Britain was in a different situation. But some of the changes, some of the other significant changes, I think, are more recent, and certainly, with respect to divisions between Germany and France. So that's not a new thing. But in terms of how it's played out internally, what it means for current issues having to do with European cooperation internally, but also with the US on China. But I do think that the fractures in Europe are longer than that I probably intimated in my initial remarks. But I guess there's a question now that the US has ceded that space, can it kind of go back in, and does it even want to go back in as a unifying presence to sort of bring Europe together, or has the absence of the US during these four years created the space for even greater division? And I suspect it's a bit of the latter, but let's see what Charlie says. KUPCHAN:  You know, it's a great question, Babak. I'm going to answer it with a question. And maybe some of you on the call could weigh in on this, or Leslie could as well. One question I have in my mind is, to what degree are Europeans and Asian allies going to simultaneously come back to the fold, welcome back the United States as a strategic guarantor, but hedge their bets? There was an interesting poll that came out of the, I think it was the European Council on Foreign Relations, that said that 51% of Europeans don't think that Biden will be able to repair the country's divisions and come back as a reliable ally. If you're South Korea, or you're Japan, or you're Vietnam, and you're looking at US politics, polarization, the switches from Clinton, to Bush, to Obama, to Trump, to Biden, you have to wonder is this a country on which we can count? And I don't know the answer to that question. I think that many allies around the world are breathing a sigh of relief and they can't wait for the warm and fuzzy feeling of American attention and American troops and reassertion of the alliance. But my guess is that deep down inside, they are also making judgments about, as I said, hedging their bets. They're looking at the United States, they're seeing a Senate that is about to go through an impeachment trial in which we're not sure whether we want to have a revocation of the filibuster. You know, I don't know, 50, 60 million Americans still don't believe that Biden won the election. And so, there are reasons for those abroad to be somewhat cautious about what's been happening here in the United States politically, and whether or not those problems are fixable anytime soon. FASKIANOS:  Question from Derek Suthammanont at Texas Tech University, "The world knows America can change priorities depending on what administration is entering. So Biden now is putting forth a lot of executive orders that are undoing what Trump did. And so, what strategies should the US and the world take to maintain stability given that, and what actions can be undertaken to prevent another era like Trump's?” KUPCHAN:  Maybe I'll take a quick swing it that. Leslie's right that the Trump story really didn't start in 2017. It started earlier, because Barack Obama, I think sensed the same thing that Trump did. And that is he, and his bumper sticker when he ran for re-election was "it's time for nation-building at home." And so he was already beginning to say, I think we've bitten off more than we can chew and we need to address domestic problems, but I think that those of us, and I put myself into this boat since I was in the White House then, just didn't appreciate the gravity of the domestic problems that we faced, and the costs of our activism abroad. I mean, we've spent $6+ trillion dollars on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the broader region, we're now unlikely to get $1.9 trillion stimulus package through because I'm guessing that Republicans aren't going to agree to go ahead with that. And so this is a conversation that does go back to the pre-Trump era. But I do think that, as I said, we need to listen more carefully to what we're hearing from the electorate. And my sense is that there are many members of the electorate who don't feel that American foreign policy has done particularly well for their interests, particularly on the economic front and the trade front. And that's why I think we need to recalibrate, because if we don't recalibrate, we may be in Trump 2.0 four years from now, whether it's Donald Trump or son of Donald Trump or daughter of Donald Trump, that is the purveyor. VINJAMURI:  I'll add something to that if it's okay, Irina. I read the question a little bit as what Europe and the rest of the world should do to guard against another kind of "America first," which is partly had Charlie answered it also. But I think we're certainly seeing this new and big debate in Britain, about which I find quite interesting, but puzzling at the same time about UK foreign policy. But it proceeded the Brexit. When Charlie was working on the National Security Council, Britain made the decision that America did not to accept the offer to join the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, Britain is now having a conversation about whether to join the CP TPP. Maybe I've missed kind of where it is this week. And Britain is hosting G7, it's hosting COP26, it's thinking very carefully about who its partners are and all of these things, and it's hedging on how much one relies on the US for exactly this reason. The problem, of course, is that it's really hard to work around and work without the material power authority capabilities of the United States. But I am quite convinced, listening to people, that that is exactly what they are trying to do. And then the other obvious mechanism is to really tie things in, through transnational endeavors that have substantial weight, and don't rely on the apparatus of the inner government to keep them going at times when people don't want to do that, don't want to play ball. FASKIANOS:  Thank you. I'm going to go next to John Mueller who has his hand raised. Thank you. Q:  John Mueller from Cato Institute at Ohio State. Question for Leslie. You talk somewhat in passing about existential threats to the United States. Would you explain what those are? You then went into Russia and China. Do either of them threaten the existence of the United States? And when you talk about trying to "check" China, what does that mean? Keep it from becoming ever richer or what? VINJAMURI:  So first of all, I should say, I know your work. And I've long admired it. And so I have some sense of where the questions coming from. No, I'm not suggesting that there. And maybe I shouldn't use the word "existential." But I do think that some of the global challenges, and climate is the obvious one, simply, can't, we know this is like stating the obvious over and over again, but we know that there are global challenges that the US needs to be part of, if there's going to be progress, and they need to be dealt with collectively. Do I think that Russia represents an existential, territorial threat to the United States? No. But I think that the cyber attacks seem to be, from what we're finding out, pretty extraordinary in terms of their capability, the risk, the financial devastation and disruption that they could cause. And the capabilities of some of America's partners in that area are not small, not least the UK but working together collectively, through the Five Eyes and any other number of alliances is key to America's success in responding to that kind of challenge. And I guess I'm on the side of those who think that yes, China is a very significant threat, and yes, the US will be better off if it works with others to try and counter that in a way that's productive and not more destructive and doesn't make the problem worse rather than better. So yeah, I'll leave it at that. FASKIANOS:  I'm going to follow on with a few China questions. And Charlie, you can take a swing at it. And we'll come back since we are on China. So Evan Medeiros at Georgetown wants to talk about America's China policy. What does Biden's correction from Trump mean for us China ties? Doesn't the growing US concern about China's rise and the near universal embrace of strategic competition mean that Biden will double down on Trump's China policy? And will he push relations in the direction of an ideological competition as a consequence of the correction? And then there's another question on China about the competition for science dominance. What is your view on the many arrests of Chinese American professors collaborating with Chinese universities in the science field? There are lots of, and China rising as a superpower, what are the prospects the US is facing to lead the world? So I'll put those all together for you to thread the needle. KUPCHAN:  A wild swing at that, and Evan knows much more about the topic than I do, so I answer with trepidation. I think that the most likely outcome is a continuation, if not an escalation, of US-China tensions. And that's because, number one, the underlying conflicts of interest aren't going away. Whether it's geopolitics or Hong Kong, or Xinjiang, or the broader security architecture in the Asia Pacific, or Belt and Road, and the giant sucking sound of the Chinese economy. I mean, we just saw the European Union make a deal on an investment treaty with China during the last few days of last year, even though Jake Sullivan, the incoming National Security Adviser had said, "Hey, wait, wait for us. Let's talk this over." And so I think that, in some ways, the United States will for the first time in its history face a true peer competitor. Yes, there was there was bipolarity, during the Soviet Union, but I think in China, there is a peer competitor, that that is more impressive when it comes to its scientific infrastructure, its ability to compete on 5G, on semiconductors, on a lot of the areas of AI that will be at the leading edge of technology and economy moving forward. That having been said, let me offer a couple of caveats, or things to watch for. First of all, I think there will be a strategic dialogue, an effort to open a serious corridor of communication with China, which did not exist during the Trump era. And it did exist during the Obama era as you well know, Evan, since you were there. The second thing I would say is that I'm not someone who believes there is economic decoupling in the cards. There is, what I would, say irretrievable irreversible globalization. There'll be some repatriation of supply lines here and there. But I don't think we are going back to a world in which we see two economic blocs, and to me that's good news, because it gives China, and the US, and the Europeans, and everyone else, an interest in keeping the tension from spilling or spiraling up. And then the final point here is that, even though I think there will be a head of ideological steam on both sides, nationalism in China, bipartisan consensus to stand up to China here in the US, we also need China. And this is one of the reasons that, yeah, fine let's have a D10, let's bring the democracies of the world together. But if we're really going to tackle climate change, cybersecurity, extremism, North Korea, pandemics, what country do we need to work with? China, as much as any country. And so it seems to me that the Biden will, in the end of the day, try to balance a tough line on China with a pragmatic recognition that much of what he wants to do in the world cannot be done without China. VINJAMURI:  I would just add to that very quickly. I agree with pretty much all of that. I mean, I think that—two things one is what I'm waiting to see on the human rights question is, it's one thing to call it out, it's one thing for the US to call Xinjiang genocide. But it's quite another thing, what does that lead to? What does it prevent from happening on these broader challenges that Charlie's outlined? And what other instruments are leveraged behind that, if any? Or is it just that the name will be put out there? And if it is a harder edged policy, then the big question is, how will the Chinese react? For me, it is kind of the thing I can't work out because I can't work out what else you do, that doesn't have some really high costs in terms of the broader diplomacy. On the EU—the EU story, and interestingly, and it was on the record, so I can repeat it, and I'm sure you've all heard it, but Anne-Marie Slaughter said in a call, she had been advising and urging the EU to push forward this EU-China investment deal in order to have more leverage over the US so that the US would work with Europe more on its China policy. So that's very interesting. Of course, I think the story that's told more often is that this was Germany's push, this is what Germany wanted, and getting Europe to be aligned internally, in a way that will allow for a transatlantic strategy on China is going to be really, really tough. I would say, even though the UK looks like it's moved towards the US, there's still a lot of people here that believe in the responsible stakeholder thesis and don't like the way things that are going, and I guess the bottom line there is that it leads to me to be pessimistic that the that the Europeans and the UK and the US are all going to get aligned and on the same page. I think the prospect of the US and the UK being aligned is much stronger. KUPCHAN:  Leslie, did the UK government take a public position on the EU investment treaty or did it stay silent? VINJAMURI:  I don't think it took a public position. But don't quote me. I mean, I didn't see anything that sort of spoke out against it. But I think that it's seen it as an opportunity, right, the fact that things are not going as well, for the EU and the US and China, I think there is a sense of an opportunity to align and to fill the gap. FASKIANOS:  Thank you. I'm going to go next to Gary Prevost, who has his hand raised. We have like twenty questions, so we're clearly not going to get to them all. Hope to get through as many as possible. Q:  Gary Prevost at the College of St. Benedict. I thought one of the most important and creative approaches of the Obama administration was to talk to adversaries, longtime ones like Cuba, like Iran, and like North Korea, and at least on the first two, I thought there were very important successes from that approach. Do you see the Biden administration continuing that approach and extending that, for example, to deal with the issue of Venezuela? Some of you may know, I'm a Latin American specialist. KUPCHAN:  I think that, that Biden himself is a believer in the power of personal diplomacy. He likes to roll up his sleeves and sit down with people and take walks with them. And so I think you'll see him do that. With lots of different players. It's interesting to point out that Trump, in some ways kept the Obama strategy in certain areas. I mean, he actually went and talked to North Korea, he said at one point, he was ready to talk to the Iranians. So there was some of that in the Trump era. But yes, I do think you'll see a return to that effort to engage what you might call adversaries or difficult countries. And I would come back—I don't know about Venezuela, but in those areas where the United States sort of has important interests at stake, whether it is the Iran nuclear deal, or Russia and the START treaty, or China and climate change, again, I see someone in Biden who is ideological in the sense he's a real democrat and will speak up about violations of human rights in Venezuela and everywhere else. But he's also a very pragmatic guy who wants to solve problems. And to me that says, he will, in the end of the day, take an engagement strategy, even with countries that are not "friends" of the United States. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I'm going to go next to Thomas Kahn, who's at American University, he wrote a question, and it got two thumbs up. So I'm going to ask it. What does this new era mean for US-Israel relations? Will we protect an Israel under attack? Will the US continue to maintain its close alliance, albeit be more like it was under Bush and Obama than under Trump? VINJAMURI:  Got to do Israel, Charlie. KUPCHAN:  All right. VINJAMURI: We saw the shift on the aid to the Palestinian authority returned to support a two-state solution, but in terms of how far that goes. KUPCHAN:  Yeah, I mean, I think that you'll see the Biden team pocket the significant progress that Trump made on Israel's relationship with its Arab neighbors. And one should not minimize the deals that were struck over the course of the last year or so that really do change the diplomatic landscape. At the same time, I think he'll go back to a more traditional American position on the peace process: support for the two-state solution, not drawing maps that look like the maps that Mr. Kushner drew. And we've already seen the benefits of that, when it comes to re-engaging the Palestinians, who basically shut down their diplomacy, because they felt that the Trump team was simply not sufficiently even-handed. So I think you're looking at something that looks a lot more like pre-Trump policy toward Israel. I don't expect there to be a lot of progress, to be quite frank, given politics in Israel, and given politics in the Palestinian community, I can see tangible progress on this, that, or the other thing. But if we're talking about something that looks like a deal, and a two-state solution, I would not hold my breath. VINJAMURI: Can I interject one thing here? I guess it's a question almost for Charlie. If there is a move working in a consultative way, compliance for compliance, to move the Iran deal, to move back into the JCPOA, how much do you think that sets back the US-Israel relationship, the Abraham accords, etc.? What would the implications be of moving back into the JCPOA in the region? KUPCHAN:  I don't think it would be a big setback in the sense that, whatever the terms of the deal, the story's not over. Right? And so, yeah, okay, let's say they decide to go back to having X kilograms of enriched uranium, let's say they say, okay, we're going to turn off our new generation centrifuges. That still doesn't mean that everybody says, "Ah, let's breathe a sigh of relief.” There will still be a counter-Iran coalition. And in the end of the day, I don't think that Israel would like there to be another war. The big wars in the Middle East, the war in Syria, the war in Iraq, they haven't actually done a lot for Israel. And so I think everything else being equal, the parties in the region would like to see some kind of deal. Would they be comfortable with the original terms? Probably not. But my sense is that on the table right now is not let's just go back and reinstate the JCPOA, but let's have a conversation that builds on that. And it's going to be a tough conversation. FASKIANOS:  Thank you. Katherine Marshall at Georgetown University asks about what do you see as the objectives of the announced democracy summit. If done well, what might it accomplish? And what do you see as the most effective ways to engage the G20 mechanisms? KUPCHAN:  Leslie, why don't you start? VINJAMURI:  Yeah, I mean, I'm puzzled by this whole democracy summit. As you know, in the UK, there's a conversation about the D10. And, A, will it happen? B, it seems like a lot of the proposals have, perhaps they're fluid, but that they've moved towards having a democracy summit that is focused on protecting democracy internally amongst all of those who are partnered to the summit. As opposed to perhaps, the initial idea of the D10 was a group of countries that would in effect, coalesce democracies that would coalesce to talk about 5G and cooperation on big issues with China on the outside, but very much the target, the object of those policies. So I think I feel like that agenda and whether it's actually going to happen are very much in flux. And it strikes me that the wiser way to go if it does go forward as the internal focus. On the G20—I work at Chatham House, I'm on leave from SOAS right now. And our chairman, Jim O'Neill, has got to be one of the biggest fans on the planet of the G20. So we talked about the G20 a lot. He thinks the G7 is just a ridiculous reflection of the global distribution of economic power. So I guess the argument and I—if you really want to take on the big challenges of the global economy, questions of technology, in particular digital trade regulation, that the G20 is the place to go, and also climate and trade issues. Other people, and I guess I'm a little bit sympathetic with the argument, think it’s too big and too clunky and very, very difficult to get anything done through the G20 absent a very serious short-term crisis of the kind that we saw when we first started talking about the G20. Which, of course, was after the financial crisis. KUPCHAN:  Yeah, I would agree with Leslie in that, if a summit for democracy is about us, it's a good thing. You know, I'll speak personally, but I'm exhausted and traumatized by what we've been through for four years. I took this to be a near-death experience for liberal democracy in the United States. Had Trump won, and he came close to being re-elected, I'm not sure we would have survived as a liberal democracy. So yeah, the system worked, but the system was tested to the extreme. And it's happening not just here. It's happening in the UK. It's happening in many parts of Europe where populism, angry populism, is seething just below the surface and above the surface in places like Poland and Hungary. So if the issue here is, hey, we need to have a discussion about how to re-found liberal democracy and understand the sources of the illiberal turn, let's do it, let's do it tonight. But if this is about global governance and believing that we can run the world and solve the world's problems, by sitting the US down with Germany and Canada, and its traditional allies, and then bring India and South Korea and Australia in, and we're done, right, meal cooked, let's eat, it's not going to work. Right? The big challenges of global governance in my mind are reaching across political dividing lines, finding ways of having useful ongoing strategic dialogue with countries that don't share our view of democracy. And that's because we're not going to solve global problems unless we do that. Is the G20 the right forum? Perhaps. As Leslie mentioned, I've been thinking about other kinds of, coalitions, concerts where key players can sit down together and have a real ongoing strategic dialogue. But to me, that is the key here, not getting the world's democracies around the table that should be, in my mind, largely an internal as much as an external conversation. FASKIANOS:  Thank you. So there are a few questions in the chat that all get at the same issue. Elizabeth Alfreno at Ohio University. Isolationism and internationalism are both important when running a country. So what is the prioritization of resources to focus on domestic issues versus foreign policy? How do you make a decision to focus on which one? And this gets to Michael Raisinghani’s question too: how would you balance foreign policy with given the internal domestic issues in the USA? And somebody else mentioned, you layer on top of this, the pandemic, which is pretty severe here in the US, and of course around the world, but we are contributing the most to this. So, how would you prioritize for the Biden administration? KUPCHAN:  Well, as I suggested in my opening remarks, I would certainly put the domestic priorities first and second and third and fourth. Because to me, they're the urgent national security threats that we face. Right? If you would, if you say, well, what poses a greater threat: China, and Chinese expansionism, or the stumbling of American democracy, the pandemic, the polarization? For me, it's what's been happening in the United States. So first things first. Now, does that mean that we can't spend money domestically and on foreign policy and defense spending at the same time? We can, and we will. But resources are not unlimited. I, like many of you, read Paul Krugman, who tells us that we can just keep spending, because it doesn't matter that we get bigger and bigger deficits. But at some point, doesn't the deficit get too big? Don't we need to make tough choices? My answer to that is yes. And especially when I consider the need to spend money on non-traditional national security issues, such as cyber, such as global health, such as climate. On diplomacy, I think our foreign policy has been dramatically over militarized. So even though I think we should radically reduce our military footprint in the Middle East, we need to increase our diplomatic footprint. That takes resources. So I do think that we are going to have to make some tough choices. To me, that doesn't mean that you just cut way back on spending on foreign policy. But it does mean that when push comes to shove, we're going to prioritize the domestic agenda. VINJAMURI:  I guess I would just add to that, I don't disagree on the details, but I disagree on the framing. I do not understand how you can talk about the pandemic as being a domestic issue. The pandemic is a global issue. It came across the border, it keeps moving across borders, you've got the UK variant, we have a South African variant, Brazil's, I mean, this is not a national problem. There is a national problem of delivery, which is frankly, not even a national problem, it's a state-level problem. It's a local problem, it's a problem for schools and hospitals or whoever is going to deliver it, and there needs to be a national policy, but it is a global problem. And unless the US is going to be very, very actively engaged in a global solution to a global problem, it's going to end up being a country that has border restrictions and border controls forever, as is the UK. So I would change the frame and say, domestic, when it comes to unemployment and jobs and all those things, have to be right up front and center. But the global challenges in the immediate term, and I'm afraid and I've been afraid of COVID, whatever it is 2021, never mind COVID-19, since the day we found out about COVID-19. And because we could just be in this, we could be working from our bedrooms and living rooms forever if we don't take this as a global problem. So I think, yeah, really being very careful about the binary is incredibly important. And to Charlie's point about you can do foreign policy very much more cheaply if you get your diplomacy right. And you can get a lot of wins through development assistance, that might be a longer term game but have some very positive effects in multiple different ways. So choosing and backing off some hard power interventions is certainly a good idea. But national versus international is an incredibly murky way of framing. KUPCHAN: Yeah, I didn't mean to make that clear distinction, Leslie, thank you for correcting that. And I do think it's important to point out that if you ask average Americans what they're worried about, and the fact that we're looking at the loss of at least a half a million, 500,000, Americans to the pandemic, that climate change is starting to have coastal areas disappear, that's going to require resources. And you're right, this is a global issue. It's not a domestic issue. But that's one of the reasons that I think we need to have a big discussion about the allocation of resources, because a virus is killing many, many more Americans than our wars, or 9/11, or other things that we have been spending $758 billion on when it comes to the defense budget. VINJAMURI:  And add to it, my last word, the other sort of key focus of our chairman, which preceded the pandemic, which is antimicrobial resistance. Talk about a big challenge with very high stakes for everybody. It's certainly one. And people aren’t talking about it right now because we're distracted by the pandemic and liberal internationalism. But I think it's really important, it's clearly really important. FASKIANOS:  And add to it the disproportionate effect on the black and brown populations, the minorities, and also the developing countries that can't afford the vaccine. So we have, the inequities are pretty stark. But to leave on a positive note, President Biden has rejoined the World Health Organization, the Paris Climate. So, hopefully putting those priorities back on the agenda for the US and for us to play a role on the international stage. We are out of time. I'm so sorry. We have so many questions, and I feel terrible that we could not get to them. I think there are over thirty questions now. So my apologies, we will just have to have you back. We'll have to have part two of this conversation. But Charlie and Leslie, colleagues and friends, thank you very much for being with us today. This was a really rich discussion for the past hour. We really appreciate it, and to all of you for joining us. You can follow Charlie Kupchan's work on CFR.org. Follow Leslie Vinjamuri on Twitter @londonvinjamuri. Our next webinar will be on Wednesday, February 10, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Maria Carmen Lemos, professor at the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability, will lead a conversation on rising to the climate challenge, another big issue, and I encourage you to follow us @CFR_Academic on Twitter, and visit CFR.org for new research and analysis on global issues. So thank you all for being with us. Stay well, stay safe, and we look forward to convening again. KUPCHAN:  Thank you for hosting, Irina. Pleasure to see you, Leslie. (END)

Esther Brimmer, executive director and CEO of NAFSA: Association of International Educators, leads a discussion on international student contributions to academic communities and the U.S. economy, and declining international enrollment. FASKIANOS: Thank you, Erica, and good afternoon to all of you. Welcome to CFR's Higher Education Webinar. I am Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach here at CFR. Thank you for being with us. Today's meeting is on the record and the video and transcript will be available on our website, CFR.org/academic. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We are delighted to have Esther Brimmer with us today. We have shared her bio in advance with you, so I will give you just a few highlights. Dr. Brimmer serves as the executive director and CEO of NAFSA: Association of International Educators. Her distinguished career includes three appointments within the U.S. Department of State, serving most recently as the assistant secretary for international organization affairs from April 2009 to 2013. Prior to joining NAFSA, Dr. Brimmer was professor of practice of international affairs at George Washington University's Elliott School. She was also an adjunct senior fellow for international institutions here at CFR, and a senior advisor at McLarty Associates. Previously, she was deputy director and director of research at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, and was a member of the faculty there. So Dr. Brimmer, thank you very much for being with us today. NAFSA recently published a report on international student contributions to U.S. colleges and universities. I thought it would be great if you could give us an overview of the report's finding on international students' contributions to the U.S. economy, and talk a little bit about their academic and cultural value to campuses and local communities. BRIMMER: Good afternoon. Thank you so much for inviting me to speak with you today. It is great to be with you. And I look forward to the conversation with everyone here on the webinar. I am very happy to join you to talk about the important contribution of international education and the state of the field at this moment in time. Now, as you know, NAFSA is the world's largest professional association dedicated to international education with around ten thousand members at three thousand five hundred institutions and around one hundred and fifty countries. And we're proud to provide public policy leadership with the field and to advocate for a better world through international education. At NAFSA, we see firsthand how international education is critical to the development of strong diplomacy, global affairs, and technological and medical advancements. International students create jobs, drive research, contribute to our classrooms, strengthen national security, and become fantastic foreign policy assets around the globe. They are good for the U.S. and good for the world.  Now first, let me take a moment to talk about the benefit that international students and scholars bring to their institutions and their classrooms. They bring academic value and talent as well as cultural value to their campuses and communities. Especially for students who are unable to study abroad, the very presence of international students and scholars internationalizes a campus, creating value for their American counterparts. And indeed demand from international students for classes in, let's say science, technology, engineering, mathematics, for STEM classes, actually can help their institutions offer more and a greater variety of courses to all students. And tuition from international students can also help offset budget deficits and provide opportunity for needier students. International students also contribute to the economic vitality of their local communities, and local businesses benefit greatly from their presence.  Economic contributions, which are felt at the institutional and local level, are also felt nationally, and are dramatic when compared to other sectors within the economy. Now, as you indicated in your introduction, last month, NAFSA completed our latest analysis of the economic value of international students and their families. The more than one million international students who studied in United States colleges and universities contributed $38.7 billion and supported nearly 416,000 jobs during the 2019–20 academic year. This is a substantial contribution, considering that international students only make up 5.5 percent of the overall enrollment in U.S. higher education. And indeed, the U.S. Commerce Department currently ranks education as the sixth largest service export of the United States. You can get more data on that and the data that underpins those figures at NAFSA.org/economicvalue. And you can go in and you can actually go examine by your state, by your congressional district, and we also provide an institution-by-institution breakdown, as well. So people on the webinar can go check their own states if they would like to do so. Now, disturbingly, this year marks the first time that our dollar and jobs calculation has declined in the over twenty years that we have been conducting this work. The dollar amount declined 4.4 percent and the number of jobs declined 9.2 percent from last year. We also calculate that the economic value of international students attending U.S. community colleges for the 2019–20 year and just for community colleges, that is about seventy-nine thousand international students, and they contribute $2.3 billion that supported twelve thousand jobs. But these amounts also declined from last year by 9.8 percent and 13.4 percent, respectively. Now, certainly, the COVID-19 crisis of course impacted these economic figures. And while the pandemic was a huge part of the decline, it was only part of the loss. We estimate that the dollar impact of COVID-19 on the contribution of international students during the last academic year was nearly $1.2 billion. The analysis we complete annually is based on an enrollment report called Open Doors, which is funded by the U.S. State Department and conducted by the Institute for International Education (IIE). It is a robust and reliable report that relies on figures from the 2019–20 year. Understandably, we are all interested in how the enrollment has been affected this fall. Not surprisingly, the enrollment decline has continued. The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center recently reported that as of mid-October, international undergraduate enrollment at U.S. colleges and universities was down nearly 15 percent and international graduate enrollment was down 8 percent. IIE also completes an annual enrollment snapshot survey. The declines evident in this survey are alarming. This fall, overall international student enrollment fell 16 percent, with new international student enrollment falling 43 percent. Roughly half of all the new international students are outside the United States. So if the 43 percent figure falls to 72 percent, when one limits the new international enrollments to only those who are physically in the country now. And we're clearly experiencing a time of unprecedented challenge in international education and the broader field of higher education. Yet we know that international students continue to be a major source of value to the U.S. economy, and we must promote policies that reinvigorate international student mobility. A recent piece in Foreign Affairs—I definitely want to cite Foreign Affairs here. As you know, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, urges the incoming Biden administration to quote, "pursue foreign policy initiatives that can quickly highlight the return of American expertise and competence," end quote. She argues for three specific areas. One of these is an effort to quote, "again, make its universities the most attractive to foreign talent," end quote. Embracing international education is a means to demonstrate the United States is ready to lead once again and to reenter the world stage. It is sound U.S. policy, and it advances outcomes indirectly associated with academic leadership. In fact, one of the companies readying a vaccine for the coronavirus is led by a former international student and another by an immigrant to the United States. NAFSA agrees that the incoming Biden administration should take immediate steps to make the nation more welcoming to international talent. Reversing harmful Trump administration regulations and executive orders, like the proposal to do away with duration of status for students and the travel ban, must be immediate actions. The administration should also jumpstart a strategy to proactively recruit international students, gain market share, and increase the diversity of countries sending students to the United States. Power, in fact, goes even further, arguing that quote, "Biden could start by delivering a major speech announcing that his administration is joining with American universities to again welcome international students, making it clear that they are assets rather than threats," end quote. As with many sectors of the economy, education and international education will only return to normalcy when COVID-19 transmission is brought under control and people feel safe traveling. Yet much harm has been done to the international education sector during the time of the Trump administration, even before COVID. Declines in new international student enrollment reached nearly 11 percent over the three academic years preceding the pandemic, while leaders expressed xenophobic rhetoric and pushed forward harmful policies. While we must be prepared for the current administration to push forward with last minute regulatory policies, I would like to close on a hopeful note. We are happy to hear recent good news from the courts. On Monday, November 30, the federal district court in Washington, DC, granted summary judgment in a case that allows an important experiential learning program, optional practical training, known as OPT, to continue. NAFSA encouraged institutions to sign on to the abacus brief that was filed on behalf of institutions in this case. Then on Tuesday, December 1, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California set aside both the Department of Labor and Department of Homeland Security interim final rules altering the H-1B visa program. The court found that the agencies did not have just cause to skip the statutory required notice and the comment period and to issue interim final rules that were immediately implementable. So that's important news for the courts. In closing, I would like to say that international students and scholars make an important contribution to the United States and the world. And turning towards revitalizing that important global connection will be important, good next step for the next administration. Thank you so much for this opportunity. And I look forward to our conversation. FASKIANOS: Thank you so much. That was a terrific overview and we will have to delve into your report for the specifics with the tracker. That is really fantastic. Let us go now to all of you. If you want to click on the participants icon at the bottom of your screen and raise your hand there and I will recognize you, or else you can, if you are on an e-tablet, click on the "More" button on the upper right hand corner and you can raise your hand there. And if you want, you can also just type a question in the Q&A box. If you could please tell us what your affiliation is to give us some context, that would be great. I am going to take the first question from Teddy Samy. Q: Hi, can you hear me? FASKIANOS: We can. Q: Okay, great. So I am Teddy Samy, I am the director of the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. And so we have had a lot of the issues that you talk about resonate with us, certainly. And one of the challenges we've always had is to bring more international students to our program. And that's largely a funding issue. It has nothing to do with students not wanting to come here. In fact, we get a lot of applicants, but it's surprisingly quite expensive for them to come, and so on. So I was wondering whether you've had a chance to reflect a little bit on what COVID-19 might mean for the inflow of international students, because one of the things that universities are talking a lot about is perhaps thinking more about how to deliver online programs where students may not necessarily have to come to the United States or Canada or the Western world to get an education. Can you tell us a little bit about this? BRIMMER: Indeed. Well first, thank you for your question. Of course, we will be continuing to study and learn from the impact of COVID-19, both immediately and over the long term. So you always want to be humble and recognize that we will learn in the future some things we may not yet see. But I can share with you some of the things we do see at this point. One of them is the integration of virtual learning into existing programs. So that, indeed, one aspect is to see efforts by institutions to use virtual learning to enable, let's say, two professors in two different countries to bring their students together and to have a virtual interchange and virtual courses together even though they're not able to meet together. It is interesting to note that particularly institutions that already had existing partnerships with others institutions around the world have made a rapid pivot to this sort of activity. Now, it is institutions that had preexisting relationships of some form, have sometimes turned to those to form the basis for incorporating virtual learning into their classrooms. So we see that in terms of classroom use, and that may continue. It may be, as say, supplementing or complementary to the in-person experience. Because I think after months of not seeing friends and colleagues, we realize we recognize the importance of in-person experiential learning, being in real life in a real place, and the fundamental nature of human interaction. But that said, using virtual space can, for example, help in preparations before studying abroad. Before students come into a classroom, before they come into the country, being able to use the exchange of information before and after an experience is important. Another is to make international experience as available for those students who could not travel in the first place. I do not know the figures for Canada, but I will say in the United States, only about 10 percent of undergraduate students are able to have an in-person education abroad experience. So even before COVID, we wanted to work on ways to expand access to an international experience. And indeed, the ability to bring in another classroom virtually could be used to help create international experiences for the many students who will never be able to travel abroad. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I am going to take the next question from David Oxtoby, president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. BRIMMER: President Oxtoby, it is very nice to hear from you. Q: Nice to see you, Esther. BRIMMER: President Oxtoby was a president of my alma mater, Pomona College. Q: Right. BRIMMER: After I was there, I was there in the last century. (Laughs.) Q: We got to know each other then. It is very nice to see you and the great work that you are doing. I wondered if you could comment about your thoughts, and thoughts at NAFSA, about the sensitive political question regarding China, and some of the proposed restrictions on what students might be allowed to come from China, what they might be allowed to study, and so forth. Any thoughts about that? BRIMMER: Thank you for your question, and indeed it is one of the great questions of our time. The evolving relationship between the United States and China is one of the great international issues and the return of China to the global stage, again, is one of the world historical changes. The continued evolution of the United States as a multiethnic, dynamic society is also one of the great world historical changes that continues. So there's some really epic issues here. That said, one of the most important aspects where these changing relationships are playing out is in the educational space, because of the relationship between the United States and China on education. First, we are in knowledge economies, and the ability to educate and train is fundamental to being able to succeed in the future. Also, as many of you know, Chinese students and scholars make up the largest single group of international students and scholars in the United States. Of the roughly one million international students in the United States, 50 percent are from China and India. About 370,000 or so are from China, so it is the largest single group. That said, Chinese students and scholars make important contributions to classrooms and to research just as students and scholars from around the world to do. That said, you are seeing major competition in knowledge-based areas and real concerns about issues related to research and both the openness of research and also, the effect of the Chinese coming on campuses through some of the student associations. There's the controversy of the Confucius institutes, all of which play into a question about how one addresses important national security concerns related to research, related to concerns about whether there's espionage involved in research, these are very serious issues. But that said, the best way forward is really that continued work between the academic community and the U.S. federal government precisely because their long standing ways of managing classified information for the important research that's handled on campuses. And campuses themselves want to have vital intellectual environments and also want to be part of the solution. So I think it's important that we really look carefully at what's actually the issue, not to paint all students and scholars as threats, but rather to really use really thoughtful and analytical understanding of where the actual concern is. Faculty members, for example, need to abide by their own rules about, let's say, reporting funding from other sources. I would flag that, again, the importance of really being targeted and focused in really understanding the nature of research is important because some of the proposals, such as the idea of trying to ban all research from everybody who has some contact, let's say, with the Chinese Communist Party, how that's defined is important, because there again, you may find there are in a society that is very statist, that there may be family members who are caught up in that. So one has to be targeted, and this is where legislators, regulators, and leaders of institutions really need to drill down. And so I encourage greater dialogue amongst the different parties, rather than policy that may be planned within regulatory issues without really understanding the academic community. FASKIANOS: Great, thank you. Let's go to Masoud Kavoossi. He has written in the Q&A box, "Do you feel universities are more open to international graduate students from countries targeted specifically by the current administration, China, Iran, etc.?" And he is—sorry, I just want to give his affiliation—he's a professor at Howard University. BRIMMER: Thank you. Thank you for your question. And indeed, I think that, of course, there are thousands of colleges and universities in the United States, and so they take a variety of views. But I will say that I think there's a sense that the exchange of knowledge is important for international understanding and for the advancing of human wellbeing. Some of these international consortia that are working on developing the vaccines are great examples, good examples of this. And so actually, I think many educators are aware of the benefits of greater educational cooperation, particularly from countries that may be of human rights concerns or have other issues which create foreign policy challenges. But that said, that recognizing that actually, some of the ways of building better understanding, of understanding societies better, is precisely through education. Having less contact, not learning languages, does not help us understand what is going on in other countries any better. Now the use of sanctions and other measures are important foreign policy tools, but again, they should be targeted, focused, designed for purpose. The original sweeping travel bans that were launched in 2017 were not targeted and focused for purpose. So that's where again, the foreign policy community and the leading architects and implementers of foreign policy need to say what's actually objective and really be targeted in their actions, such that you don't undermine the greater cooperation that can allow for more openness and ideas in more societies. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I am going to go next to Annelise Riles, if you could unmute yourself. Q: Hi, Esther, nice to see you again. I am Annelise Riles, I am associate provost for global affairs at Northwestern University. I have a very technical, in the weeds question for you and a big picture question. So the technical question is one that is obviously of great importance to all of us in the universities right now, which is whether the INS rules that we've had in the fall that have allowed international students to remain in the country, even though their classes are online will continue into the spring. And I'd like to know whether you have any information or ideas about that, because it's critical for us. And then the big picture question is about universities as emerging actors in global governance. I mean, it seems to me that with the U.S. and some other nations sort of retreating from multilateralism and the global stage over the last few years, universities have really stepped in and filled the gap in a number of ways, through cooperation around issues like environmental sustainability, innovation, peace and security, and so on. And now with what looks like something of a return to multilateralism in the United States, I'm wondering what your vision is for us as a collective global actor going forward. Thank you. BRIMMER: Oh, thank you for both questions. First, good to hear from you, too. Of course, Northwestern is a very big actor in international education. On the first question, and just to share with the majority of us, the question is we are all waiting to see whether the dispensation allowing international students to develop online education will be continued. We are tracking this issue. I have no immediate new updates, but that is definitely one of the things that we are raising, because it's absolutely crucial that it be extended and that it's imminent. So we will be—as soon as we have useful information to share—we will post that on our website. We keep regulatory updates, because we know institutions need to know that soon and students need to know that soon. But I don't have a new update as of Tuesday morning for you, because these things do move [inaudible]. But believe me, that is definitely on our radar. On your larger question, indeed, universities are important aspects for global governance, because many of the issues do have a scientific underpinning. And universities are the centers for vital research and the cooperation among them is crucial to come up with the solutions that then the political community can then build upon. And you've cited two great areas. One is climate change. And the questions of understanding climate change, the worldwide research on this area is underpinned by thousands of experts working on these issues and giving us the scientific grounding that then, again, diplomats and policymakers can build on. The other is medical. And we would have said this before, but it's even clearer very much as we look at, for example, the understanding of the COVID virus, understanding this new virus. And in both of those, universities are central to creating the body of knowledge that then diplomats build off of.  And how does that happen? So for example, as we know, the body of knowledge and then looking at actions by the World Health Organization, looking at the objectives are built, again, off understanding scientific knowledge. One of the first ones will be on the sharing of the vaccine issue, where you have both the intersection of the policy point of view, and having the United States maybe participate in that would be a development, and what is needed for actually to have global distribution of vaccines. So that interplay between scientific knowledge and policy is so important. And I would hope that as we look towards a new administration, thinking about how it approaches these issues, having that scientific grounding, is crucial. And so a vision for universities is to be at the table, to be part of the advisory community that helps leaders to make those choices and for universities to be doing that cutting edge research that's asking the next question, the question after that, that then policymakers can draw on. I will say, when I was in government, I was thrilled to be assistant secretary for international organizations, because world health does come under that portion of the State Department. And it was great to be able to go—I actually did go to Atlanta while I was assistant secretary because we wanted to go talk to CDC, and hear from experts about some of the issues that we were addressing in global fora. So understanding and being the channel for expertise and bringing that knowledge to the policymaking community is a great role for colleges and universities in the United States and around the world. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I am going to go next to Jim Harrington, who is at Nashua Community College. He wrote his question, but Jim, I want to give you the opportunity to ask it yourself as I think it would be clearer coming orally. Q: Thank you very much, Irina. What I am referring to here is the place of international students and the long immigration history of the United States. Not all of these immigrants were students of course. But I'm referencing—you mentioned New Hampshire—I'm referencing skilled workers that were brought into the country in the 1820s to work in textile mills, and actually to build the machines to steal the intellectual capital of the British and put them to work here in our textile industries. The same thing happened in the 1890s with German steel workers that U.S. firms brought to this country at their expense. And we continue to do that. But this intellectual tradition seems to me to be a part of that in a new age. Okay, clearly, with all of the virtual education we had, and would you not? That is the question, would you not place this international student policy in that same category of economic and immigration policy? BRIMMER: I would say there may be some elements that are similar and some elements that are different. And again, I have not done the same research on the nineteenth century analogies to be able to make sure that exactly I'm following the same path that you identify, but I would maybe suggest some areas of similarity and some areas of difference. Some areas of similarity, indeed, is recognizing that having skilled people come into the United States is of great benefit to the economy. Having people come as students, or come not as students, but who come and bring their energy and talents and wanting to contribute them to the society, that is beneficial. And indeed, learning from innovations around the world is beneficial to the country as a whole. So in that sense, there is a continuity in the idea that bringing in talented people who are maybe aware of new processes, or new ways of doing things, or the intersection of those people with people here, has created a rich environment both culturally, as well economic. So there is a longer tradition there. But I would say one of the interesting areas is the exchange as well. Such that, because of modern travel and modern communications, immigrants no longer have to, let's say, cut themselves off from their home countries as they might have done one hundred and fifty years ago, two hundred years ago. So that means that you can sometimes have benefits for the United States and for home countries, as well. So that you may have international students who set up a business in the United States and set up a business in their home country. So that you are able to have—it is less of a brain drain and more of regenerating and generating connections on both sides of that relationship. So the international students and scholars may serve as bridges to prosperity both home and away. FASKIANOS: Thank you, I am going to take the next question from John Murray, who is director of international engagement at Hesston College in Kansas. Q: Hello, good afternoon. It is a pleasure to be on this call, and thank you for your work at NAFSA. We are certainly among the colleges who benefit greatly from international students. Our current president of our college is a former international student, as is the current chair of our board of directors. Globalization is indeed an important part, and obviously, COVID has impacted us greatly. Before COVID hit, and this is anecdotal rather than data driven, but we have then from the data we have observed an increase in students in other countries, Canada, Australia, China. We had an experience with two Ethiopian students who had committed to come to Hesston College, and then de-committed because they were offered full-ride scholarships to a university in China. And I'm wondering about what kind of policies we might look at. Obviously, we are able to provide full-ride scholarships, but what policies might be available to keep our universities financially competitive with colleges and universities from around the world? Because indeed, we do want to keep the brain/creative power coming this direction. And we were beneficiaries of a CAST program a number of years ago, and that was a government policy. So just wondering about your comments about policies and things we could advocate for in that way. BRIMMER: Great, thank you for your question. Because, indeed, many countries also recognize the benefit of having international students and have developed national strategies to encourage international students to come. So our good friends in Canada and Australia and elsewhere have seen increases in the number of international students in 2018-19, before COVID. And so that is important because countries have said, we want to be sure to have international students. You saw the United Kingdom actually change a policy, they had their equivalent of OPT in the UK, which was their post-graduation employment, which they had discontinued and reinstated because they realized it was an important draw for international students and they want to have international students and they are looking at increasing the number of international students. So, indeed, some of the things that would be beneficial, first would be for things to be assessed by incoming administration, would be to actually have a national strategy on international education. As I say, it is already the sixth largest service export of the United States. We handle it in several different departments. So it would be actually really beneficial, for example, to either have at the State Department or at the White House, a coordinating team, a mechanism, to bring together the different departments. Whether it's the State Department, which works through the embassies on really getting the word out and getting information out about coming to the United States to study, but also the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Commerce, other aspects that are all part of helping support having international students here. That would be really helpful. Another area would be to encourage greater diversity in sending countries, and, indeed, there have been initiatives in the past that—actually, back when he was vice president—Biden supported the 100,000 Strong in the Americas and other aspects that encourage greater exchange with students. So we would see coming up with some sort of national strategy would be helpful in terms of bringing together the wide resources of the federal government to help encourage international students here. And in the short term, we recognize that the higher education sector has been profoundly impacted by COVID, as well. And we would hope to see that in whatever stimulus bill may be moving forward, that there's an element for higher education, which indirectly will also help those who are on campus would include international students, as well as obviously American students and administrators and others. So dealing with the immediate but also really seeing this as a holistic policy of the United States would be an important development for the future. FASKIANOS: Thank you. The next question is written, it comes from Pamela Waldron-Moore. "Thank you for sharing U.S. perspectives on international education. As a former international student, I am happy to learn that the United States acknowledges the benefits of IE. I'm currently professor of international and comparative studies at an HBCU and wonder if there's an opportunity for funding in the area of internationalizing the curricula at small institutions, as well as promoting, through access to data, the expansion of education in global interest areas, such as climate change, AI, knowledge production, etc." She is at Xavier University and she is the chair of the political science department. So over to you. BRIMMER: Great, thank you. Thank you for your question. And there may be some various different resources that might be relevant, and examples that might be useful. Indeed, while earlier I was talking about our research in big research universities, there are many different ways international students and scholars contribute to the academic life of institutions of a variety of sizes. And so one of the areas I will flag is, where there's some additional resources on our website that might be useful for you, is something called the assignment award named for Senator Paul Simon, who was a longtime advocate of international education. Each year, NAFSA gives out peer-reviewed selected awards for internationalizing the campus, both comprehensive for across the board internationalization, and spotlight awards for specific programs. And we've given those to a wide variety of institutions, large and small, community colleges to big research universities. Each year, we put out a publication that details what they did. So you can actually see from different institutions saying how did they take a particular program at an institution that might be like mine and say, what examples can I draw from that? Because from what we've seen is that institutions which have the institutional commitment, can actually make choices that can help support greater international access, and not all of them necessarily draw large research. Those are some specific examples. We have been publishing it for eighteen years, so you can go back and look at examples that might specifically be helpful. Another area, as you indicated, is the role of trying to—as we all do as academics—ask questions. And so I'll say another resource that is not out yet but coming, is one that I'll say for NAFSA, we have our NAFSA fellows, and the current NAFSA fellows that just started—they run for eighteen months—will be looking at sustainability, and sustainability in climate change and international education. And so we try to say with that discrete program, how can we help generate some working papers that might be useful for the community, as well. So those are two resources from NAFSA that are up on that website. But I think that looking at, drawing on these examples because a variety of institutions as they say of many different sizes have been able to create space for international programs and opportunities for their students and scholars. FASKIANOS: Great. I am going to take a follow-up question from Daniel Kristo, who is assistant dean of graduate enrollment management at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. "As a follow-up, has NAFSA explored funding incentives, including government subsidy, and perhaps advocate for its U.S. university members to entertain universal international graduate student tuition discount, especially since international students do not qualify for FAFSA and need U.S. citizen cosigners for private U.S. loans. BRIMMER: Indeed, international students do not qualify for FAFSA, in particular. While we have advocated for greater opportunities and support for international education, funding for international education, and supporting international students that come to the United States, we have not advocated for that particular program, but in our Connecting Our World, [inaudible] we talk about some of the specific programs to help greater funding for international students. And when we were looking at the support, again, for the impact of the pandemic, we also wanted to be sure that international students and scholars were not inadvertently excluded from support on campuses. And as you know, many colleges and universities in the U.S. actually went into their own pockets to support international students, especially in the spring when the virus first hit, campuses closed, people weren't able to go home. And at that point by the month of April, just the month of April, we did a survey and at that point, institutions had spent something like $638 million of their own money to support international students and scholars. So institutions need more support to help even beyond the crisis period. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I am going to take the next question from Karthika Sasikumar, professor at San Jose State University. And the question is—and I thought, Esther, before we started, you talked about the book that NAFSA has just released on social justice and international education, so this ties with that. "Do you find that the current discussion of diversity in U.S. higher education takes note of the contributions of international students?" So maybe you can tell us about that book and tie it in. BRIMMER: Thank you. Thank you for the question. Indeed, it is exciting in a moment of great social questioning, which is what actually leads to greater justice, to see that educators are very much part of this discussion. As Irina has mentioned, NAFSA has a new book out on social justice and international education. It is a book, there are over twenty-five authors, and it brings together both practitioners and scholars. It has been in the works for the past couple of years, and we brought it out this year, but it tries to look at how we incorporate questions of social justice into international education in our work as educators. It includes everything from theories of teaching to understanding cross-cultural dialogue to practical issues of designing programs for writing and different things. So there is a rich mix of things in the book, because we think that international educators have a contribution to make, we've long said they have a contribution to make to greater international understanding and social understanding. Those are precisely the questions and the skills we need now, to be able to talk about how we talk to each other. How do we listen to each other? And the skills we have developed with bringing together international students is also helpful on campus. We also see really interesting developments. So we see, for example, we see chief diversity officers and chief international officers begin to realize that they may have things to say to each other. There may be programs they want to do together when they are thinking about making campuses welcoming places for international students and U.S. students. So I think international educators really bring real skills to that, some of the materials we have been publishing we want to bring to that discussion. It is one of the great conversations and as educators, we are in the middle of it. FASKIANOS: Fantastic. All right. I am going to go next to Elsa Dias who has written a question. She is a professor at Pikes Peak Community College in Colorado. She started her adventure in higher education as an international student, and then in graduate school she represented graduate students in the department. She has seen the effects of this administration on international students and seeing the alienation of this group. "How can universities and community colleges educate their respective campuses on the contribution of these individuals?" BRIMMER: Thank you for the question. It sounds like I should be asking you that question based on your experiences, as well. But just some thoughts, some of things that you can see on campuses, and indeed, some of the Simon award winners I mentioned earlier are examples of doing exactly that. So that's a source for additional examples. But some of the things relate to within departments, looking for opportunities to bring international students' experiences into discussions, into planning seminars to bring their voices directly into some of the classroom discussions. But also on campus, finding ways for international students to more visibly demonstrate their contributions to the local community. So sometimes, it is the ability to talk about their own countries in campus activities, to be able to help organize and contribute to cultural and other activities on campus, and to interact with the community, being able to work with local business leaders about the contribution of international students, as consumers but also as people who enrich the community. We see examples of international students and scholars, for example, who are volunteering in local schools because of their language skills, and finding ways where students may be interacting more with local communities, as well. And then inviting in communities who might not otherwise go to the international house to be able to help take the international students out around the campus to make sure that they're getting to know students around the campus. These are all parts of elements that might be useful. But as I said, our Simon award winners have a lot of really specific examples about what they've done on their own campuses. FASKIANOS: Next question comes from Tom Roehl, professor of international business at Western Washington University. "Our mostly undergraduate university emphasizes six-month exchanges of students with partner universities, which allows for lower-cost study both ways. It gives an opportunity to increase international student levels in schools not on the radar school of applicants and gives an option to establish and deepen institutional relationships. So, what would you think about it? Can there be a national policy to make this strategy more effective for students in a similar situation?" BRIMMER: Thank you for your question. And indeed, you've identified one of the important trends, which is the greater use of partnerships. Indeed, one of the other books NAFSA has published is actually on partnerships in international education that came out earlier this year. Indeed, because we are seeing examples like the one you describe, where two institutions establish a longer-term relationship so that students go between the institutions for a more extended period of time, year after year after year, so that they're able to build longer-term relationships. And indeed, many institutions have found that to be a productive model. That could be a component of a larger national strategy. It may not fit all institutions, but it can provide a real sense of stability and building a relationship for many institutions. And this point you raised about being able to have education abroad experiences for, let's say, a full semester, is a great benefit. We recognize many students are not able to take that amount of time, but finding ways to make it more possible, given the responsibilities students may be carrying at home, is an attractive model, again, providing that longer-term ability to stay more than a few weeks. And again, that can be difficult, but sometimes those partnerships can provide the structure that makes it accessible for more students. FASKIANOS: Thank you. Next question comes from Mercedes Ponce, assistant vice president for academic planning and accountability at Florida International University. "What are your thoughts on moving the discourse toward creating a community of lifelong learners and building bridges to prosperity, as you mentioned, rather than focusing strictly on recruitment of international students?" BRIMMER: Thank you for your question. Indeed, Florida International University is very active in the internationalization space and you publish a lot on that area as well, so I appreciate the question and your perspective. One of the exciting things I think that we often see from international students and scholars is that you become, your experience, studying in another country, creates a lifelong interest in that country. And one of the skills that we talk about when we talk about international education includes a curiosity, a willingness to deal with the uncertain and the unknown, which can be part of an attitude towards life. And that may lead you to future opportunities, looking for future opportunities. And so looking at how one can create more opportunities, even in the workplace, for these international students is really interesting. And some of you on this call are probably on the forefront of working on this, but we do see interesting examples of employers who are working with educational institutions to both have their workforce trained, but also to create opportunities. And some of them are these international opportunities that make them able to work, let's say, with an international company that's investing in the U.S. International education can create those habits of mind of curiosity that really stand you in good status for seeing life is unpredictable, and being able to deal with the uncertain is a skill we're all having to acquire if we don't already have it. FASKIANOS: I have a follow up on that. Are you at NAFSA working on connecting international educators with workforce development? Specifically, forging the partnerships with the private sector, so that those skills can be brought to the fore. BRIMMER: Indeed, it is really interesting. There is a real natural link between people in higher education and those who hope to employ people who come out with the skills in higher education. Indeed, one of our other reports that we brought out earlier this year was a project jointly with an organization called Emsi and NAFSA, which actually looks at global workforce development. And NAFSA has worked on this issue in different ways, but in this latest report, we worked with Emsi, which was able to examine—and, again, use big data here—examine both job applications and job requirements. It is what employers were asking for and what people were putting on their resumes and go through large amounts of data on this. And what was fascinating to see was that employers were looking for the sorts of skills that we also match with international education, looking for the critical decision-making skills, understanding of the larger world, the sorts of things that people need for long-term management in senior positions. And so we are quite interested in this relationship between the business community, both large and small, and working with educators. This report, which just came out a couple months ago, is another example to contribute to that dialogue. FASKIANOS: Thank you. Any other questions? I think you covered so much ground, Esther. I wonder if you could just take this opportunity to leave us with some closing thoughts. And maybe leave us on an optimistic note, too. (Laughs.) BRIMMER: Yes, yes. First off, I will borrow this from our longtime colleague who reminded us that the modern university of the past on hundred and fifty years, or the university of the past thousand years, that universities are some of the great human institutions that have survived for centuries. And that having centers of learning has been crucial for societies overcoming change. And so we will have a crucial role to play in rebuilding after the pandemic, but also on these great questions I talked about earlier, about great countries figuring out of their relationship to each other, tackling the big issues, whether it's climate change or the rise of urban populations, the urbanization of the human species, learning how we get along, the fundamental philosophical questions of life. Institutions of higher education are fundamental to answering all of those. And so I think what I'm finding exciting is hopefully now we're seeing a return to respect for knowledge, expertise, and learning. We are part of the solution. The educational community is crucial to advancing social justice and human wellbeing and we are needed now more than ever. So while on a daily basis, sometimes we feel we are grappling with such life and death issues, that it's so hard on a daily basis dealing with the pandemic, but recognizing that what we do is crucial to the future. That is my final thought. FASKIANOS: That is a fantastic thought on which for us to end. Thank you so much, Dr. Brimmer, it has been great to have you with us. We appreciate everything you are doing both at NAFSA and what you do in government service. So, thank you. We circulated in advance of this webinar the link to your report. So I hope you all—I commend it to all of you. There are obviously so many amazing resources on NAFSA's website at NAFSA.org. So you should look for the reports and books that Dr. Brimmer referenced and we will also send a follow-up note with links, as well. You can follow her on Twitter @EstheratNAFSA, so I encourage you to do so. Also follow us @CFR_Academic on Twitter and please continue to come to CFR.org, ThinkGlobalHealth.org, and ForeignAffairs.com for resources and direct your students there. I hope you all are having a good end of semester such as it is, and we hope that you are able to enjoy the holidays safely. And we look forward to reconvening in 2021. We will be circulating—we will be reconvening in the new year with a new slate of topics. So happy holidays and, Esther, thank you again. BRIMMER: Thank you. (END)

Term members and U.S. based foreign correspondents discuss their experience covering the recent election and how the United States and the current state of U.S. politics are perceived internationally.

Mira Rapp-Hooper, CFR's Stephen A. Schwarzman senior fellow for Asia Studies and senior fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center, discusses the U.S. system of alliances and its importance for national security, topics covered in her new book, Shields of the Republic. FASKIANOS: Good afternoon to all of you. Welcome to today’s Educators Webinar. I am Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach at CFR. Today’s meeting is on the record, and the video and transcript will be available on our website, CFR.org/Academic. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We are delighted to have Mira Rapp-Hooper with us today to talk about her new book, Shields of the Republic: The Triumph and Peril of America’s Alliances. Dr. Rapp-Hooper is CFR’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Senior Fellow for Asia Studies and a senior fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center. At CFR, her work explores national security and strategy issues in Asia, including great power competition, alliances, nuclear issues, and territorial disputes, the implications of China’s rise for the international order and the future of American strategy toward Asia and China. All very much under topics of discussion today. Previously, Dr. Rapp-Hooper was a senior fellow with the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New America Security. She was a fellow with the Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and director of their Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative. She was also a Stanton Nuclear Security fellow at CFR. In addition to her first book that we will be discussing today that I just mentioned, she will be releasing a second book, co-authored with Rebecca Lissner, later this year entitled The Day After Trump: The Future of American Strategy and the International Order. So, Mira, thanks very much for being with us today. A great place to start is to talk about—give us an overview of the U.S. alliance system and discuss its significance for national security. RAPP-HOOPER: Irina, thank you so much for that very generous introduction. Of course, I’ll start by thanking you and your team for convening this wonderful event today as well as you all for joining us. These are really extraordinary times and we’re grateful you’re here with us for this conversation. The book that I’ve just put out is really a story of how the United States crafted and used a novel tool of statecraft—that is, a peacetime alliance system—and why, despite the extraordinary record of this system, it’s now at risk of collapse. And the tale goes something like this. In the early days of the Cold War, the United States crafted an alliance system that was remarkably effective, so effective that it buried its own record, because when alliances are working we do not see them at all. The system kept the peace during the Cold War when it easily might have been otherwise and did so at reasonable cost. But ever since then, American rivals have fixed it in their sights. Washington is running out of time to save these pacts but it needs them more than ever, and I’ll take the next few minutes just to unpack that argument. First, I’ll start with a little history, which may be familiar to some on the line, and that is, of course, the fact that for a hundred and fifty years the United States had a longstanding aversion to the formation of alliances. Between the end of the Revolutionary War and the Second World War, it took pains to avoid forming alliances with any country. But after the Second World War in as many decades it embarked on a novel project. World War II had shown it that in particular developments in military technology long-range bombers, the prospective missile age, and, of course, nuclear weapons meant that for the first time in its life the United States was geographically exposed. So it embraced a new strategy. For centuries, countries had used alliances to fight and win specific wars. But the United States crafted a system that sought to keep them from starting at all. It would seek to hold the balance of power in Europe and Asia using alliances for three interrelated purposes. First, for forward defense. That is, the establishment of troops and bases overseas. Second, for deterrence—efforts to dissuade rivals from ever attacking at all. And third, for the assurance and control of its allies. These elements featured in different amounts in each one of America’s different pacts, and this was an incredibly ambitious plan crafted primarily for the self-defense of the United States. Now, alliance success is very hard to measure. It comes in the form of wars and crises that never break out at all. But to the extent that we can divine it, this Cold War system succeeded on the terms set out for it. The Cold War, of course, stayed cold. No U.S. ally was ever the victim of an attack causing the United States to come to its aid, and hotspots that seemed all too likely to escalate, such as the Korean Peninsula, the Taiwan Straits, or a divided Germany, did not erupt. Crises that did occur stayed manageable. The spread of nuclear weapons was slowed. Former rivals, such as Japan and Germany, were transformed into democratic partners and regional leaders, and the United States bought widespread international support and good will for its preferred foreign policies, finding a global role that was cheaper and more effective than it possibly could have been otherwise. And contrary to recent debates that suggest that alliances have been expensive and politically taxing for the United States, the system was not nearly as costly as its critics allege. Financially, the United States has always spent a bit more on defense than its allies. But for a long time, it was because Washington wanted it this way. Alliances themselves, of course, are not all that costly. Rather, it’s the troops and bases that support them that really can impose costs. But where these have been used it’s because the United States has decided this was in its national security interest to have them. For most of the Cold War, in fact, the United States actually preferred to spend more than its allies on defense because it preferred to have more influence over their national security policies. Nevertheless, it’s reasonable to debate now whether burden sharing between allies should be equalized. But it’s important to note that direct comparisons between the United States and its allies’ spending often don’t tell us that much. The critical point here is that U.S. foreign policy with alliances is far cheaper than any U.S. foreign policy would be without them, and, therefore, the United States has actually gotten quite a good deal over recent decades. But this alliance system was also less costly than many IR scholars would have us believe in political terms. Scholars warn of the risk of entrapment. That is, the idea that allies will pull us into wars and crises that we wouldn’t otherwise join. But the trouble is there’s almost no evidence of this in the U.S. alliance system. The United States have never had to join a war on behalf of an ally, and while it’s occasionally joined crises to help keep them from escalating, it’s done so because of shared interests, which raises the question of why there has been so little entrapment in America’s alliances when we might have expected to see them. The answer that I found is smart alliance design. The United States has declined to form security pacts with countries that seemed too risky, it’s crafted treaty language to minimize the risk where it might occur, and it has retained the ability to exit alliances that no longer serve it, thereby really minimizing what we know to be one of the greatest risks of alliances, at least in the scholarly literature. But, in addition, the United States has also really never been abandoned by allies at a moment of need. This is the second warning that scholars often foretell with respect to alliances. There have been very few occasions, in fact, in which the United States ever could have been abandoned, of course, because its allies have not been attacked. In fact, the only time that one of these mutual security guarantees has ever been invoked is when the United States itself was attacked on September 11 and its allies clamored to its aid. In addition, the United States has often chosen to fight wars on foreign battlefields and had support from allies, despite the fact that they had no obligation to be there—places like Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan. So where it has faced conflicts, the United States has actually had more allied support than it ever should have expected. But after this Cold War success, something rather stunning happened. Of course, without war or revolution, the Soviet Union collapsed. This was exactly the type of victory the alliance system was designed to achieve, and American policymakers preserved alliances after the Soviet Union’s defeat, but it was no longer centrally focused on defense or deterrents and, inadvertently, this post-Cold War period would create some weaknesses that adversaries would later exploit, bringing NATO to Russia’s doorstep and creating a particularly soft underbelly for the U.S. presence in Southeast Asia. But along the way, American rivals did not forget the power of this system. As China rose in Asia and Russia became resurgent, both fixed America’s alliances in their sights through two-pronged approaches: focusing military strategies on preventing America from aiding its allies and coercive strategies that aimed to route around America’s alliances without ever activating them at all. And, of course, just three years ago, the United States joined China and Russia as a chief alliance antagonist now threatening to unravel the system from within—a set of threats that comes when the system itself was already fraying, which now puts America’s most successful strategic tool now in peril. Now, this brings me to the fact that we’re going to have to salvage this system for the future or else pay significant costs as the United States. The United States has, of course, passed the peak of its Cold War power and China will continue to rise in the years ahead. The reverberations of the pandemic that we’re currently living through and the economic crisis that follows will be with us for years to come. And, without allies, the geopolitical math simply does not favor the United States. As both countries recover from this crisis, China will continue to pass the United States in economic size and military heft inside of Asia, making it ever more difficult for the United States to keep up. While relative power is shifting against it, Washington will remain strong and its allies will remain highly-developed scientifically sophisticated countries. In fact, they are the one thing that China will never have. So the balance of power favors the United States for a long time if it has allies on its side. But if we do not salvage this trusty tool of statecraft we will face the prospect of twenty-first-century threats alone. Because of the success of this alliance system, the nature of conflict has fundamentally changed. So these pacts must now change to meet it. To stay safe and secure, the United States still needs a strategy that seeks to hold the global balance of power. But because so many threats of the future are nonmilitary, the United States will need to expand its alliance system to nonmilitary domains. This means bringing deterrents to some new areas like cyberattacks on critical infrastructure or election interference—types of assaults that are so grave that the United States and its allies should consider applying their treaties to cover them. But alliances can also be used to prepare for a far broader range of threats such as coordinating to respond to China’s use of 5G technology or for better global health preparedness, and the benefit of this approach is that it will give allies the opportunity to do much more. Allies in Europe and Asia can increasingly work together, and broader alliances give allies the ability to contribute more financially. They may not spend more militarily, but these contributions can come from foreign ministries and intelligence communities, allowing them to play to their strengths, so what has been a set of burden sharing standoffs for the last several years with a common opportunity to improve the breadth of these alliances and also give them more balance and the chance to excel for decades more. Now, this is an incredibly ambitious plan which may take new leadership in the United States as well as the consent and enthusiasm of our rather beleaguered allies. But the alternative is, one way or another, the collapse of a remarkably effective system. If this strikes anyone as hyperbole, we need only look at our headlines about the prospective drawdown of ten thousand troops from Germany or the burden-sharing standoff in South Korea to know that the future of this tool of statecraft is truly on the ropes. I’m sure we’ll talk about these issues and many more over the course of our discussion today so I’ll stop there and look forward to it. FASKIANOS: Mira, thank you very much for that terrific analysis. Let’s go now to our group for questions, comments. As you all know, you can click on the participants icon, raise your hand, and when I call on you please accept the unmute prompt so that we can hear what you have to say. And we already have people lining up. Terrific. And please identify your affiliation so that it gives Mira context. So we’ll go first to Mark Katz. Q: Thank you so much. This is Mark Katz from George Mason University. Very interesting presentation. I’m looking forward to reading the book. One thing—difference that strikes me between a cold war now is that during the Cold War that all of our—we, and all of our allies, were fearful of the Soviet Union and their allies, whereas now it seems to me that we have many, many allies in different parts of the world and that they prioritize different adversaries. You know, some in Europe prioritize Russia but not, obviously, Iran; where some in the Middle East prioritize Iran, but not Russia; and I can go on in that way. And it strikes me that is a complication in dealing with our alliance relations, and I’m just wondering how you think this might be addressed. Thank you. RAPP-HOOPER: Yeah. Thanks, Mark, for a great question. I should note, just as a proviso, that my book really deals with the United States system of formal treaty alliances; that is, countries with whom it has a mutual defense treaty. So that is our NATO allies in Europe and our treaty allies in Asia. But it doesn’t include security partnerships in the Middle East. I’d be glad to dig into the question of why I decided to choose that as my focus if folks are interested and also hear feedback on that. But just for the proviso that my remarks are covering these formal treaty guarantees. Mark brings up a really important point, but I would actually note that the problem or the complication in dealing with multiple adversaries has actually been a part of the U.S. alliance system from the beginning. The United States alliance system in Asia is—rather than, you know, a NATO multilateral set of unified alliances, is a set of bilateral treaties in Asia precisely because of this problem. That is, in the early Cold War days, America’s allies in Asia all faced different adversaries and sort of placed different rankings on what they saw as the primary regional threat. The alliance with South Korea was, of course, founded to counter North Korea and pull South Korea out of the Korean War. The alliance with Taiwan was primarily directed against mainland China, and Japan was primarily focused on the Soviet Union. So the problem of multiple adversaries actually has a lot to explain about the nature of our alliance design that has persisted toward—to present. Now, I would still absolutely share your concern that different views of different adversaries can make alliance coordination difficult, and in Asia we see some of these differences persisting. That is, South Korea remains focused on North Korea. Japan is primarily concerned with China. But it’s less of a disjuncture from the Cold War than we might think and I think actually something that American policymakers have managed to handle fairly deftly over the course of their history. FASKIANOS: Thank you. Let’s go to John Schuessler. And you might want to pronounce your name because I don’t think I got it perfectly. Q: Can you hear me? FASKIANOS: Yes, we can. Q: You were close. Schuessler. FASKIANOS: Thank you. Q: I’m from the Bush School at Texas A&M. Congratulations on the book. I wanted to ask about concept. So is alliances the right term for the relationship the U.S. has had with these other countries? These countries are not equals of the United States and there’s a fair amount of hierarchy in these relationships. I might call it maybe a sphere of influence. So does alliances obscure that or do you think it’s the best term for these relationships? RAPP-HOOPER: That’s an interesting question. Very thought provoking. You know, I do tend to think that alliances is still the right term. They are, you know, mutual defense treaties, security guarantees, defense pacts that holds a lot of the same power as alliances of similar types have held. But you’re absolutely right that one of the things that sets the American system apart is that for a very long time it was heavily asymmetric both in terms of the capabilities of their respective power disposal and the overall type of power that each wielded in the international system. That is, it wasn’t at all clear, based on the way that alliances have worked in the past, why the United States should want to form a vast set of alliance treaties with countries that were far less powerful than it that could not at the time contribute substantial defense capabilities, and that were not in any way its geopolitical power equal. But in some ways that was actually the logic of the system. That is to say that part of the way the United States was thinking about holding the balance of power was through these asymmetries. Nevertheless, part of what has changed so radically in our geopolitics in the last several decades is the fact that the relative power gap between the United States and its competitors have closed. But so, too, has the relative power gap between the United States and its allies. None of its allies are in any way a rival to the United States for geopolitical power. None of them is going to be a great power in the coming decade. But they’re, certainly, not nearly the weak and war-torn states that they were when the United States founded this system. So to the extent that it was very hierarchical at the beginning, I think there’s a lot of good reason to believe that it is already much less so that way, and part of what I’m calling for in the book is actually for those asymmetries to be corrected further, for both responsibilities and financial contributions to be equalized somewhat more because of these geopolitical shifts that we’re talking about here. FASKIANOS: Thank you. Let’s go to Mojubaolu Okome. Q: Hello. RAPP-HOOPER: Yes? FASKIANOS: I think you need to unmute. Q: Hello. I—(inaudible, technical difficulties). My question is, stipulating that we have a designated role in our system , what is your assessment of the—(inaudible, technical difficulties)—of this current administration? And what, also, is your best guess of what lies in the future with the alliance system that the U.S. has (held ?) constant since the end of the Second World War? Because China is on the rise, as you have said, and the U.S. under the current—(inaudible, technical difficulties). And I do think that the Europeans are also not very pleased with the (dearth of ?)—(inaudible, technical difficulties)—from the U.S. at this point in time. So what do you see in the future—(inaudible, technical difficulties)? FASKIANOS: Mira, did you get enough of that? Your audio was really hard to hear. RAPP-HOOPER: Sorry. Yeah. Yeah, I’m sorry. I had a little trouble understanding that question. I know it’s a question that I want to answer because you asked about the alliance system and the rise of China. So if there’s any chance of you repeating it.  FASKIANOS: And maybe coming off speakerphone. It sounds like you might be on speaker. Q: Hello? RAPP-HOOPER: OK. Our colleague—our colleague is in transit. Q: I’m having trouble because I’m in transit. FASKIANOS: OK. Q: My question is about the nature of the alliance system right now. What’s your assessment? And also, what lies in the future, given the fact that the Trump administration seems to be—(inaudible, technical difficulties)—the level of commitment to the European allies. And then China’s rise. It is here and, you know, what is the—happening in the future with this U.S. alliance system? FASKIANOS: OK. I think tackle whatever part of that you heard. Again, it was— RAPP-HOOPER: Yes. FASKIANOS: —it’s really hard to hear you, and I know you’re in public transit so you can’t chat us the question. So, Mira, just take a crack at it, and we apologize if it’s not completely on point. But your audio is really just not too audible. RAPP-HOOPER: Yeah, I’ll do my best, and thank you for what I think is a very good question. I’m eager to have an exchange with you on it. You know, you asked about the nature of the U.S. alliance system, going forward, particularly as China continues to rise, and how Europe is likely to respond to some of these dynamics, as best I heard you. I think there is no question that China’s rise will continue to place a lot of strain on the United States’ alliance system in Asia and, as I signified in my remarks, there’s really a twofold challenge here. The first is the fact that China has crafted a military strategy that actually aims to make it impossible for the United States to defend its allies in Asia. That is, China’s use of anti-access area denial approaches, which seek to raise the cost to the United States of intervening in a conflict in the Western Pacific, and, of course, if Washington can’t do this, can’t come to, for example, Japan’s defense, it can’t claim to be able to uphold its security commitments. But the other set of challenges is far slipperier than this. It is China’s use of lower level nonmilitary coercion to advance its aims in Asia in places like the South China Sea and East China Sea. And in some ways this is even more difficult for the U.S. alliance system to engage because many of these types of incursions never trigger America’s alliances at all. You can think of things like China’s island-building campaign in the South China Sea. And, of course, all U.S. allies don’t necessarily see China in the same way. Many of them are deeply concerned about these activities but place different priorities on different components of China’s strategy while also needing to be able to maintain their economic relations with China. So, to my mind, the charge to American policymakers is the need to be able to get American allies on board with a much more unified strategy towards China, which I think we’re still lacking, but to do so in a way that gives allies room to live alongside a stronger China in Asia, which they’re going to have to do for years to come. I’ll add a final note on the European dimension of this problem, which I believe you asked about, and that is the fact that our European allies have traditionally been much more hesitant to want to sort of stick necks out or tussle with China in any way. But note that the coronavirus pandemic has actually radically shifted public opinion in Europe when it comes to China, in large part because of China’s hard-edged pandemic diplomacy that is, in particular, its diplomatic messages that have criticized democracies or sought to vaunt the Chinese system as an exemplar of pandemic response. Europeans are actually much more concerned about China’s global role than I think they were a few months ago. I think we need to be modest in our assumptions about what that means Europeans are likely to do with respect to China. They’re not going to sort of clamber aboard all of our efforts in Asia. But I do think we will see much more circumspection in European policy towards China going forward. FASKIANOS: Thank you. Let’s go next to Brian Dille. Q: Hello. Thank you. Can you hear me? FASKIANOS: We can. Q: Excellent. My question is that the alliance structure you talk about—the domestic support for those alliances—relied on a consensus about grand strategy, and after the Cold War that consensus broke down, and as a country we have not really had a conversation about our grand strategy or America’s role in the world and I worry that such a conversation is not possible currently. So I’d like you to address the need to develop a grand strategy that would inform an alliance system that’s necessary to support that strategy and build the domestic consensus for that system. FASKIANOS: And, Brian, you’re with Mesa Community College, correct? Q: Correct. FASKIANOS: Great. Thank you. RAPP-HOOPER: Brian, that’s a wonderful question. Thank you. I really appreciate it. I think you’re absolutely right. You know, I describe the post-Cold War period that you allude to, which is the fact that the U.S. alliance system was preserved absent the evident need for it after the Soviet Union collapsed, which sort of meant that it was prioritized as a set of tools as opposed to for the end those tools could be put to. But I’m in absolute agreement that we are still lacking a national conversation about what our grand strategy should be for this world ahead. I tend to think that the conversation may be a bit more possible than I think you do. That is to say, that I think it is possible for the United States to develop a more coherent grand strategy than—that the public would, perhaps, support. In a world in which the United States is past its post-Cold War power peak, my personal view and the sort of set of priorities I’ve articulated with my co-author, Rebecca Lissner, is that the United States should relinquish its emphasis on primacy, particularly in Asia where both geopolitical primacy and military primacy are no longer possible, and should transition to a strategy that seeks to keep the world open. That is, that even without dominance, the United States can still work to ensure that China and any other power do not dominate any specific region or any functional area that might be especially important and valuable to the United States. We see the requirements of such a strategy as being lower, certainly, than the requirements of sustaining primacy in the post-Cold War era. We see this as being a strategy that is focused on Asia as the primary theater and Europe secondarily, and we also see it as a strategy that puts a lot of emphasis on things like the governance of the internet and information domains that will be so critical to national security and prosperity, going forward. But the reason that I think a conversation like this and the development of a grand strategy still remains possible is that there actually is a fair amount of coherence in American public opinion when it comes to the types of foreign policies that the public is willing to support. There is no question that Americans are done with the unilateral use of the military instrument, at least for a good amount of time. But they continue to favor the use of alliances, understanding that alliances actually reduce costs to the United States and reduce the chances that we will go to war on our own. They continue to favor the use of multilateral institutions and other forms of cooperation to advance American interests, and they continue to believe that the United States should have a leading role on the global stage, even if they’re less concerned with it necessarily having a role of primacy or being the world’s singular leader. So this is all to say that I actually do think the trappings of a new consensus could be in place, although I certainly agree with you and take the point that our domestic politics have been so volatile that they can make this conversation feel very difficult to have. FASKIANOS: Let’s go to Caroline Holley, and if you could please identify yourself that would be terrific. Q: Hi. Thank you. I’m from State University of New York at Buffalo. Previous administrations have used human rights as a sort of—a way to—a part of the negotiations in relationships between U.S. and China, and I was just curious, do you think that the current administration’s sort of lack of use of that tool is just a reflection of the current administration’s approach or is what we’re—or is the sort of—the minimization of the importance of human rights—particularly, I’m thinking about the situation of the Uighurs and the situation in Hong Kong—is that something that’s sort of a bigger trend than just this current administration? RAPP-HOOPER: Thanks for another very thoughtful question. I think there’s no question that the current administration’s views on human rights are quite anomalous in the tradition of American foreign policy. I won’t rehash anything that came out in John Bolton’s book yesterday nor will I opine on its veracity. But if some of what is contained there is true, that would paint a picture of a real anomaly in human rights policies and beliefs, indeed. But I think what you’re getting at is something a bit more complicated than that, which is the fact that the United States is likely to have persistent concerns about China’s human rights, whether we’re talking about the detention of a million Uighurs in Xinjiang or we’re talking about the autonomous status of Hong Kong, which is now in jeopardy, and the fact that these issues are not likely to go away. And, of course, the reason for this is that China will continue to rise and clearly sees its territorial integrity and the resolution of outstanding sovereignty disputes as a set of its near-term objectives, which it needs to resolve in its favor. That’s part of the reason why we’ve seen such, you know, really alarming action to try to detain the leaders in Xinjiang, as well as this really very stunning bill to try to change Hong Kong’s status, all at a moment when the United States seems to be especially distracted and divided and is ill-equipped to respond. So I believe that, unfortunately, under any future administration the United States and its allies are going to be grappling with the question of how to react to human-rights concerns with respect to China that is a country that is more and more powerful and yet seems to believe it has more and more incentive to crack down on dissent that it sees as occurring within its borders, is a more and more difficult partner with whom to raise human rights. I expect that the United States and its allies will continue to do so, particularly where existing international law and human-rights conventions support its position. But the question of what tools we bring to our disposal becomes ever more vexing as China gets stronger. FASKIANOS: Thank you. Let’s go to the next question—John Mathiason. Q: Thank you. John Mathiason. I’m with Cornell Institute for Public Affairs. You’re dealing with alliances, but there’s a larger context. And I’d like to see how you see that. The larger context, also postwar, is the system of international organizations and international agreements to be able to use these institutions as a vehicle for solving problems. Now, I argue nowadays that there are four what I call problems of the apocalypse, four types of problems that can’t be solved by sovereign nations by themselves, or even in narrow alliances, that are pandemics, they are climate change, they’re nuclear weapons, and they’re cybersecurity, which you’re mentioning. None of these can be solved by alliances. Now, the question is, how should the U.S. be building into that kind of a system, given that, in fact, for all of the four problems of the apocalypse, we’re basically withdrawing in every case? RAPP-HOOPER: That’s a great question. And you clearly crafted a very artful term for it. So I would be curious for your views as well. I’ll go ahead and give you my quick answer, but I’d like to hear, you know, genuinely what you think the best way forward on these four problems of the apocalypse is. You know, you are describing, by and large, problems that are borderless, that are some form of global threat, and that therefore it makes it incredibly vexing to apply either alliances or existing international agreements to them. And on that, I definitely share your concern. Alliances, of course, have been used to counter specific elements of some of the threats you name; on nuclear weapons, to establish nuclear deterrence and to reduce nuclear proliferation. Alliances have been successful in both of those regards, although they do not necessarily constrain the activity of the nuclear actor who lies outside of their membership. I actually also tend to believe that alliances do have some role to play in cybersecurity; that is, in potentially deterring certain types of cyber attacks. And NATO and the U.S.-Australia alliance have taken some small steps in this direction, although I think they could do a lot more. And I’d also point to the role of alliance cybersecurity efforts in protecting democratic processes and countering disinformation and election campaigns. But I think the problem you pose more broadly relates to the fact that global threats are not really amenable to closed systems of defense and deterrence and, in fact, need to be managed as problems of the commons or something that looks like the global commons. So on that score, I would be genuinely curious to hear how you see these fitting in a framework like this. FASKIANOS: John, if you want to unmute again. Q: (Inaudible.) FASKIANOS: There you go. Q: Ah, OK. But the answer is the alliance system is based on a concept of basically zero-sum game. Somebody wins; somebody loses. That’s how you use coercive force. The international system has to be based on a non-zero-sum game. And, in fact, all of the things that are agreed internationally are usually agreed by consensus. Everybody buys into it. Now, the problem is that a lot of these require the main players to buy in to it. For example, in—I like cybersecurity. There is no international agreement, period, on internet governance. I wrote a book on it. But there could be one if you could get an agreement on what it is that the states are responsible for, not to do bad things but to make sure that the system operates. Climate change more complicated, because we have—the best we have right now is a convention called the U.N. Convention on Climate Change, which has only—is only a partial convention. It agrees that there’s a problem, something ought to be done about it, but there’s no formal agreement on what to solve it. And the U.S. has just withdrawn from the voluntary agreement, the Paris agreement. As far as nuclear weapons are concerned, the fact that the U.S. pulled out of the Iran deal, which was set up using the international mechanism, tells us that, hey, that one, maybe we can’t even count on that anymore. And that’s run through the IAEA. And pandemics—what can I tell you? We’ve just decided to pull out of the World Health Organization. Now, what is the solution? The U.S. has got to begin to, if you will, reemphasize the role of these consensual agreements and that the U.S. will push them. The U.S. will argue for—the U.S. will do what has to be done on its part. And then we try to use the mechanisms, which include things like naming and shaming, to put other countries into compliance. But be very careful. On human rights—one of my favorite subjects—of all of the countries that are party to the human rights conventions, the U.S. is the second-worst. The worst is Tonga. RAPP-HOOPER: Well, you’ve certainly given us a lot to chew on there. And you get no quibble from me about we need to energetically reengage in our multilateral efforts on a number of these global issues. I’ll just add a final point, which is to say that I think one of the challenges going forward is going to be that on some of the big global issues, a number of the big actors don’t see the problem in the same way. When it comes to internet governance, as you know so well, Russia and China take a fundamentally different view of the model we should use for that governance than the United States and many of its allies and partners. So I tend to think that in this sphere we’re likely to see layers of international order forming that are based on groupings of the willing; that is, like-minded partners banding together in order to set norms and rules in cyberspace for internet governance, as opposed to universal treaties. So I think that in this area in particular we may see something that looks a lot more patchwork than we’ve expected in the past. FASKIANOS: Thank you. Let’s go to Timothy Crawford next. Q: Hello. RAPP-HOOPER: Hey, Tim. Great to hear you. Q: Hi, Mira. Congrats on the book. OK, so I recognize that your book is focused on formal treaty allies. But I wonder if you have or you and Rebecca Lissner have something to say about these sort of quasi-allies that we have, like Ukraine and Georgia and India. And there’s a certain tendency among policymakers, at least, and talking heads and so forth, to consider, for example, Ukraine as already an essential strategic ally, apparently. So my question is, is countries that fall outside the formal alliance networks but are sort of right there on the edge, are they part of your story in terms of where we can go in the future with allies? Are they—can we—should we, can we, try to rope India and Ukraine into these other forms of deterrence and stuff like that, or should we continue to try to reinforce those relationships, maybe, and eventually to bring them into the formal network? RAPP-HOOPER: That’s a great question, Tim, and a challenge that I would certainly expect coming from a mind like yours. Tim has, of course, done extraordinary work on alliances that were very influential—that was very influential on me, particularly when I was in graduate school. So thank you so much for being here. I tend to think, Tim, that these states that sort of fall right on the bounds of our alliances, states that are almost allies but non-allies, actually take on a very different role than formal treaty allies; that is, tend to be the places we see a lot of the messiest action, in part because the designation of their status is so much less clear. Of course, part of the reason that or an essential reason that Russia invaded both Georgia and Ukraine was because both were at some point being auditioned for NATO membership but had not yet made it into the alliance. So it had the opportunity to show NATO that bringing either one of these states in would be dangerous, without risking the possibility of a war with NATO because they were not yet members. Likewise, you know, the United States declined to form alliances with Israel and Pakistan, both of whom have been close defense partners at critical junctures of its national security precisely because it was worried about getting pulled into wars by one of these states or the other. So a lot of the places where a lot of the risk actually lies is in these cases that are very close calls, that are almost U.S. treaty allies but not quite. And that’s part of the decision calculus about where the United States ultimately decides to form alliances or not. That says when it comes to countries that are on the edge, there certainly is opportunity to try to pull them into policies and grand strategies. I tend to think that if we are living in a world where we’re promoting an openness strategy like I laid out, a strategy that accepts that the United States is past primacy but seeks to prevent China from dominating Asia, India is going to be a critical partner. But I think it should be one that the United States has modest goals for. For the longest time, of course, Delhi has maintained a non-aligned security strategy. And while the recent border conflict with China could certainly tilt India more towards the United States and its allies for some time to come, I think we would be remiss to assume that it’s going to simply clamor on board with the alliance structures we have, for example, with Japan and Australia and become something like a treaty ally. So this is all to say that where strategies align and we can work closely with non-allied partners, this is a great thing to do. But we should also recognize that a lot of messiness in terms of both alliance formation and potential conflict tends to happen right on these things. FASKIANOS: Thank you. And Tim is with Boston College. So many know that, but just to say it. We have so many hands up. I’m going to—let’s try to get through—to as many of you as possible. Let’s go to Mary Meyer McAleese next. And please state your affiliation too. Q: Yes. Good afternoon. Thank you. My name is Mary Meyer McAleese. I’m at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida. My question: Talking about margins and marginalized spaces, I’m curious about Latin America and the Rio Pact. I notice in your book, at least according to the index, there are only two pages devoted to Latin America and the Rio Pact. China’s been making strong advances diplomatically, economically, and financially in the region. And I just wonder what your reading is at the moment about U.S. policy, grand strategy in the hemisphere, the rivalry with China, et cetera, in Latin America and the Caribbean. Thank you. RAPP-HOOPER: Another great question. Thank you. So my book does not deal terribly in-depth with the Rio Pact, precisely because it doesn’t meet my definition, or rather Washington’s definition, of a formal alliance. The Rio Pact, of course, actually predated NATO but was, in many ways, a different structure in what it sought to guarantee from the beginning. It was, of course, the formalization of a wartime negative-security guarantee that President Roosevelt had given to Latin America to try to reduce the risk of excessive Nazi influence in Latin America during the war. So, unlike NATO or treaty alliances in East Asia, which were effectively promising positive American support should any one of them being attacked, this was more of a formalization of the Monroe Doctrine; that is, a doctrine that—or rather a treaty that sought to prevent undue outside influence in Latin America during and after the Second World War. A central difference also between the Rio Pact and the rest of the alliance system is that it does not use Article 51 of the U.N. Charter; that is, the collective self-defense article. Rather, it’s established as a regional organization, and therefore has a different purpose under international law. That said, there is no question that China has been very active in Latin America of recent years. And I think we’re likely to continue to see a lot of Belt and Road activity. In particular, since the pandemic has been under way, China has sort of been starting to rebrand the Belt and Road, despite the fact that it’s facing all kinds of debt crises. And it’s pretty clear that it’s going to try to make even more of a push into Latin America as it seeks to use Belt and Road to try to get countries to sign new contracts as part of their recovery. And part of what this is actually going to do ultimately—or may do ultimately is raise a question about the fundamental basis of the Rio Pact; that is, this formalization of the Monroe Doctrine. And the question that may be increasingly salient to the United States is how much China’s presence in Latin America represents some form of a threat to what the United States has thought of as its sphere of influence under the Monroe Doctrine. The Rio Pact certainly doesn’t tell us any particular action that the United States should take or what to do about it, but there is no question that the dynamics that you are citing here are going to be increasingly salient in the years to come. FASKIANOS: Thank you. Let’s go to Hiroki Takeuchi, and after that we will go to Bob McCoy. Q: Hi. It was a great discussion, and I really am looking forward to reading your book. I’m Hiroki Takeuchi, teaching at Southern Methodist University—SMU—in Dallas, Texas. My question is regarding the nonmilitary domains, so the importance of alliance in the nonmilitary domains. So I have two brief questions. One, which issue area do you think is most important in the nonmilitary domains? And the second question is which issue area will be damaged most in terms of alliance in the nonmilitary domains if Trump is reelected and the Trump administration lasts for four more years? RAPP-HOOPER: Thank you. On both parts of the question it’s hard to pick exactly, but I think there is no question that cybersecurity and the cyber domain is one of the most critical areas where I think our alliances are thus far relatively lacking. Of course Russia has demonstrated, with its election interference in both Europe and the United States, its ability to really exploit the cyber domain to incredible effect. Russia, unlike China which is a true great-power competitor to the United States, is really a power on the decline, and yet has managed to jeopardize the sovereignty and political independence of the United States as well as several Western European countries with it exploitation of cyberspace. So I see that as perhaps the most urgent nonmilitary domain around which American allies need to coordinate. I would note that I think—I would note also that I think this is a particularly important area, not just for the United States and NATO to cooperate, and the United States and its Asian allies to cooperate, but for our allies to increasingly cooperate across regions. On a lot of these nonmilitary issues, allies in Europe and Asia increasingly share threat perceptions or at least concerns, and a lot of these issues aren’t confined to any specific region. So, to my mind, there should be a set of working groups or standing channels for European and Asian allies to increasingly share information with one another and develop common cybersecurity procedures. The question about whether President Trump may be reelected and what the effect on America alliances would be, I think obviously it is a far reaching one. The central problem, I think, would be if this happened, it is not going to be any one particular nonmilitary domain and the way that it may be damaged, but rather the signal that this sends to American allies. The president’s approach to alliances has departed radically from his predecessors, and seems in several cases to be particularly focused on trying to dismantle American alliances, as in South Korea or in Germany. So I think the overall message that the United States has decided to ratify this alliance approach would be chilling indeed. That said, I think some of the challenges that we’re talking about here today, whether the rise of China or the importance of alliance coordination in nonmilitary domains will be with us even if President Trump is not reelected. So it’s very important that his predecessor or any other U.S. leader realize that they can’t merely restore themselves to their former alliance leadership role, but rather have a significant charge on their hands to remake this system for the road ahead. FASKIANOS: Thank you. Let’s go to Bob McCoy, and then we’ll go to Chris Sands. Q: Thank you so much, and I’m enjoying the presentation very much so far. My name is Bob McCoy. On paper I’m Robert McCoy. But I’m with the Mansfield Center of the University of Montana. And in light of your remarks so far today, and given the striking differences between recent American administrations, how do you see us going forward in how we define or, if necessary, redefine our alliances to work effectively with our allies? RAPP-HOOPER: Thanks, Bob. You know, this is what I really wrestle with in the conclusion of my book. My argument is basically not that we need to redefine who is included in our alliances. I actually think we happen to be allied with most of the countries we should want to be allied with at exactly this moment. Rather, what I’m suggesting is that we need to broaden what our alliances include. Twentieth century alliances were of course centrally created to deter and defend against nuclear and military conflict, and the landscape in front of us is far broader and more diverse than that. So what I’m arguing for is that we pull a whole bunch of additional coordination and defense activities into our alliance structures to be able to counter nonmilitary threats. That includes things like national security implications of new technologies, as I mentioned; that includes things like cyberspace, cybersecurity, and cyber defense; but it also includes things like coordinating alliance responses to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Now this probably sounds like a very ambitious effort, which it is, but what I would note here is that these are all areas in which the United States and its allies are already doing a lot of independent work, and in some ways, we’re all expending more resources and more effort than we should be because we should be undertaking these tasks together. So what I’m really calling for here is not an overhaul in who constitutes our allies—I think we’ve got exactly the right set of team members on our side, but rather on how we define what constitutes an alliance. And by broadening that definition to include nonmilitary spaces, we also give our allies the ability to take on more burden in terms of what they can contribute in their activities and what they can contribute financially. FASKIANOS: Christopher Sands. Q: Thank you very much. I’m Chris Sands, and I work on Canada at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. And I wanted to ask a question about the Canadians. It seems to me from my slightly parochial perspective that we are currently struggling to think about how middle powers fit in our alliance system. We’re very focused on great power rivals. Could you reflect a little bit on how middle powers can be part of the alliance structure, contributing even when we don’t ask them to? RAPP-HOOPER: Yeah, that’s a great question, and it’s something I do reflect on a bit in the book although I certainly would love to hear your views with respect to Canada in particular. You know, I think the crisis that we’ve actually been living through these last few months shows us case in point why the role of allies as middle powers is more important than ever; that is, while the United States has been on its knees in its own pandemic management, and China has acquitted itself quite assertively on the global stage, some of the best pandemic performers and crisis managers have really been middle-power allies, whether you are pointing to Germany in Europe or South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore—who is a partner, not an ally—in Asia. So this is sort of exactly the case for why we should want exactly this group of countries on our side for the road ahead. To my mind, the best way to think about allies as middle powers and the role that they can play in a more symmetric alliance system is to identify which issue those allies are inclined to take on themselves, and make those areas where they can take initiative to stand up new alliance structures or initiatives. I’ll give some specific examples here. What I’m thinking of is the fact that Japan and Australia have frankly been far more innovative and proactive than the United States up until this point in thinking about ways to respond carefully to China’s Belt and Road Initiative; that is, offering alternatives for infrastructure development, helping countries to identify problems in China’s approach, and doing so without necessarily ruffling too many feathers in Beijing. And they’ve already shown us that they know how to do this well, so the United States should not only take a page out of their book and join them in those efforts, but encourage European partners and Canada to come on board with some of these more constructive responses. Likewise, in NATO, Estonia really excels at cybersecurity and cyber resilience efforts, so the United States and other NATO allies should increasingly be following Estonia’s lead, encouraging it to take on a leadership role in some of these efforts, but supporting it as it does so, particularly because, as I think you indicate, a lot of allies have different views of China and aren’t necessarily excited to conduct their freedom of navigation operation in the South China Sea or confront China on trade issues. Looking for those areas where allies have already started to take on their own initiative gives us a sense of where we can actually ask them to do more by way of expanding those activities and by allowing the United States to join them in those efforts. FASKIANOS: All right, I’m going to try to squeeze in one last question from Jide James. Q: Hello. Thanks for the presentation. My question is in relation to what John Mathiason and probably Hiroki asked earlier. But using the events in the U.S. in the last three years, especially our approach to international agreements and common consensus, along with the emerging—(inaudible)—attitude of our global partners and interest group as a backdrop, can you please offer any reflection, and perhaps a prognostication, on what the future of U.S. global alliance will be in times of strength and efficacy, or if there is any significant shift impending on the horizon? RAPP-HOOPER: Well, I think we could prospectively see a lot of variation in this outcome. You know we had one colleague just talk about the prospect of President Trump’s reelection, and obviously it is possible under those circumstances that the president would try to significantly withdraw the American troop presence from Europe, from Asia, or even try to exit one of the United States’ treaty guarantees. And this has been something that’s been openly discussed, and we certainly can’t count it out, although I would note that no president needs to withdraw from a treaty to significantly weaken it. The U.S. president retains such commanding authority over alliance management that it’s possible to significantly erode American alliances from within without ever ending a treaty commitment. But I also think it’s possible that the United States is in a moment of true transformation, both at home with respect to what is taking place in our streets right now and with respect to our role abroad. I think it’s possible that under new leadership the United States would seek to recommit itself to its alliance system and really try to rebuild some of the structures that we’re talking about here. And in this more optimistic view of things, I would like to think that not only will the United States preserve the alliance structures that it has in Europe and Asia, but that it will increasingly find ways for allies in Europe and Asia to work with each other; increasingly find ways for allies in Asia to work with each other; and increasingly find ways for partners to work with treaty allies more broadly. So I think we really are at a crossroads, at a moment in time where it is possible that this extremely successful tool of strategy may be significantly damaged or really on the brink of collapse, or that it may be at a moment of reinvention where it gets pulled into the twenty-first century in ways that it has needed for the last several decades. And I hope, you know, this conversation has drawn out—I know it has for me—that there just an enormous number of issues to contend with here. This would be a remarkably ambitious effort at overhaul if any U.S. administration were to conduct it, but I think the value to the United States is clear. But I hope we’ll learn from history and, rather than letting the system collapse, do what we need to do to bring it into the twenty-first century and bring it along on the road ahead. FASKIANOS: Wonderful. Well, we are at the end of our time, Mira, so my apologies for not getting to all the questions. But this has been a really rich conversation for the past hour, so thank you very much for being with us and to all of you for your questions and comments. If you are interested in using Mira Rapp-Hooper’s book in your class, she can be persuaded to do a Skype session, or a Google Hangout, or a Zoom session with your students. So you can email us at—if you are interested in that. So thank you all very much for being with us. Again, the name of her book is Shields of the Republic: The Triumph and Peril of America’s Alliances, and her second book will be out in the fall, right around the time of the—shortly after the election, right, Mira? RAPP-HOOPER: Actually, just before—it will be out in mid-September. FASKIANOS: Oh, mid-September, OK, terrific. You can follow her on Twitter @MiraRappHooper, and also follow us at @CFR_Academic. Visit CFR.org, ThinkGlobalHealth.org, and ForeignAffairs.com for information about COVID-19 as well as many more resources. And you can email comments and thoughts to [email protected]. So thank you all again. Stay well, stay safe, and we look forward to your participation in the next Educators Webinar. RAPP-HOOPER: Thanks so much for joining us. (END)

Panelists discuss the escalating geopolitical tensions between the United States and China and an assessment of the current relationship, with a focus on the decoupling of the two economies, competing spheres of international influence, and areas for potential collaboration.