Richard Haass To Step Down As Council On Foreign Relations Chief
By Michael Morgan Oct 19, 2022
The United States had just overthrown the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, and their power seemed unparalleled. China remained a modest regional player and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia offered himself as an ally to the US. American democracy seemed relatively healthy, with a bipartisan stance strong enough to give President George W. Bush an approval rating in the 1960s.
It’s a grim picture today as Mr Haass prepares to resign from the Council on Foreign Relations, whose board he notified on Wednesday of his plans to leave in June. The 101-year-old nonpartisan organization, based in New York, aims to inform and influence US foreign policy, and also publishes Foreign Affairs magazine. Its membership includes dozens of former and likely future government officials.
“It’s impossible for me, or anyone else, to claim that we’ve put these decades to good use,” Mr Haass said in an interview about the United States. “We are facing a world where we have a revival of the classic geopolitics about steroids. My own opinion is, if you’re not worried, you’re not paying attention.”
Most worrisome for Mr. Haass, a former White House, Pentagon and State Department official, is America’s domestic politics, which he says threatens to undermine the country’s strength abroad. “I’ve come to think that the biggest threat to national security facing the United States isn’t Russia or China or climate change, it’s ourselves,” said Mr Haass, 71, who is writing a book on the subject and hopes a familiar voice in public debates about US foreign policy.The Council on Foreign Relations may carry an image of elite machinations far removed from the general public. Its membership assemblies, sometimes with world leaders, have animated conspiracy theorists on the political fringe who see it as a sinister institution exercising silent control over the world.
The reality is more mundane – which is not to say that the council has no influence, as evidenced by the (full public and live streamed) conversation Mr. Haass held at the council’s Washington office in December with Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, who was himself once an intern with Mr. Haass’ predecessor on the council, Leslie Gelb.
Mr Haass admitted the council could be seen as “somehow closed or elite,” something he said he was working hard to change. During his tenure, he put more effort into what he called “talent development” in foreign policy, including hiring 125 paid interns a year and making the 5,000 council members younger — and more diverse — on average.
There’s still work to be done: Mr Haass said only about a third of those members are women, even though the organization was all male until 50 years ago. About 20 percent are people of color, he said.
mr. Haass also sought to expand the council’s reach beyond Washington and New York, creating an educational branch that provides resources on global affairs to high schools and college classrooms, and even local religious leaders.
Mr Haass also emphasized his pride in what he called the council’s true impartiality, although critics might say it fills a relatively narrow political bandwidth. Allies of former President Donald J. Trump might see the council as an arm of the so-called “deep state,” while many progressives scoff at what they see as an embodiment of the wrong foreign policy “Blob.”
Haass, a Rhodes scholar who never quite lost his Brooklyn accent, was appointed to the post after serving in four presidential administrations, three of which were Republican. His last position was as director of policy planning for the State Department in the George W. Bush administration. Haass wrote books, opinion essays, and commentary on television and newspapers on the council, and was known for his unbiased commentary, although he was a sharp critic of a Trump presidency after informing Mr Trump, then candidate, in the summer of 2015. (A spokeswoman for Mr. Haass noted at the time that he had offered to hold briefings for all candidates from both parties.)
As for Mr Biden’s foreign policy today, Mr Haass offers a mixed, if sympathetic, overview. He said the president had done a “relatively good job” in responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and made significant steps toward rebuilding frayed US alliances.
He opposed Mr Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021 and said Mr Biden has no trade policy. He has also been one of the most prominent figures at the behest of the Biden administration to end its official policy of “strategic ambiguity” towards Taiwan and more explicitly pledge to defend the island against a Chinese invasion.
But, he added, the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot and economic turmoil have complicated Mr Biden’s work.“
It is very difficult to conduct a successful foreign policy against the background of a domestic crisis,” he said.