October 30, 2019
The conference room is filled with respectful silence as a voice from the speaker in the middle of the room says,
“On the basis of watching the President and trying to follow his actions, I am at a loss to explain how he thinks. ”
The voice belongs to Robert D. Blackwill. Blackwill served as deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for strategic planning under President George W. Bush. Under the Bush Administration, he was responsible for government policy planning to help develop and coordinate the direction of U.S. foreign policy. Currently, Blackwill is the Council on Foreign Relations’ Henry Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy.
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is a think tank that was founded in 1921 and specializes in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs. It provides detailed information, and background, on current events from the protests in Chile to the Kurdish quest for independence.
The CFR has been an invaluable resource for one half of my dual-degree major - international relations - and I came into this conference call hosted in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs with the highest of expectations.
This conference call is a part of the Academic Conference Call series that provides students across the United States, and around the world, the chance to participate in a conversation with a CFR fellow, a Foreign Affairs author or other expert. Today’s discussion allows us the opportunity to glean from the perspective of a man who has a long history in foreign policy making, and hear his opinions on foreign policy under the Trump administration.
The conversation begins with a discussion on China-U.S. relations and Russia-U.S. Relations.
“I do not believe we are in a new Cold War.”
Several questions from students and academic professionals across the country, including Jill Dougherty from Georgetown University, express their concern over current relations with China and the former Soviet Union and how we can foster better relations in the future.
Blackwill believes that Donald Trump misunderstands the likelihood for agreement. The U.S. is unlikely going to change the way China internally organizes its economy through a trade agreement. He suggests that the Administration instead finance external economic behavior.
“Try to get the best trade agreement you can get now, then go to work on the next phase.”
He also chided the President’s tendency to send tweets regarding U.S. policy in the middle of the night. With regards to social media and the age of technology, he says,
“In this globalized world, every country watches carefully what every country does on a real time basis.”
With the biggest economy in the world and the most developed military, we must persuade Putin and other world leaders that the U.S. hasn’t withdrawn from the world. Primarily, he says, the world fears American reliability, stamina, and commitment to create an equilibrium world order is no longer a certainty.
One question asked how to get younger generations to better understand the drastic impact of foreign policy in the long term.
“It begins with the study of history.”
He cites a recent poll that stated that 53% of Americans can’t name the three branches of government. This understanding, he says, must start with an understanding of history. Blackwill revealed a trick he used during his 14 years at Harvard University.
“I would ask my students to ‘tell me what newspapers you read in the morning’.”
If they said none, he expressed concern that they got their news from the networks (traditional media and social media). He would then try to persuade his students to read a good newspaper every day, whether it was based in America or abroad. Doing so will then begin to accumulate a basis of knowledge. Knowing history, and how the past produced the present, is the best way to help students understand the impact of foreign policy decisions and why what is happening in Washington D.C. is so significant.
When further probed about his opinion on Trump, Blackwill noted that in America’s past, there were presidents who had deep character flaws but lead successful diplomacy. For Nixon, he admitted to being impressed by how little his personal weaknesses affected his foreign policy. However, he does not share the same opinion on Trump.
“I worry constantly about how his character affects our foreign policy … [and] things are going to get worse.”
In connection with his theme of looking to the past to see how it influences the present, Blackwill admits that the U.S. did enjoy dominance in the international system for a time. During those decades, the U.S. did not believe that the UN was an effective instrument of American international interests. He suggests that the United States should now preoccupy itself in international diplomacy by strengthening the Security Council. We should, as he suggests, make it the instrument its founders imagined it to be: a means to secure international peace and security.
The U.S. must make a psychological shift with how it views itself on the global stage. It has lost the dominance it once enjoyed in the international system and must prove to foreign nations that it is not backing out from international responsibilities.
Blackwill will be publishing a report on U.S.-China relations in January, and it will most assuredly be a necessary perspective as U.S. foreign policy becomes increasingly more unpredictable under the current Administration.
You can listen to CFR’s new podcast, Why it Matters, where they cover more topics such as this on Spotify.
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