America in the World 2020

By Foreign Policy Association

During the 2016 American presidential election, charges were leveled that foreign policy had become the preserve of specialized elites removed from the concerns of Americans outside the Beltway and Wall Street. Yet since 1918 the Foreign Policy Association and since 1919 the Hoover Institution have been at the forefront of encouraging informed public debate on vital international issues through the dissemination of relevant and timely scholarship. We are delighted that FPA and Hoover have come together at this crucial juncture to stimulate public discussion over the path forward for America in a troubled world. American in the World 2020 is a thought provoking collection of op-ed style essays from some of American's leading foreign policy makers and strategists. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Foreign Policy Association
• Release date: Sep 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393954408

Book preview

The Foreign Policy Association, founded in 1918, is the first independent national organization established to provide global affairs learning opportunities in all regions of the United States. Working to develop awareness, understanding, and informed public opinion on key current international challenges, the Foreign Policy Association is widely recognized as a leader in stimulating broader and more effective participation in world affairs. As FPA advances international affairs education, the organization enriches national debates about America’s role in the world and strengthens the U.S. democracy.

Nonpartisan and not-for-profit, FPA develops authoritative, balanced programs for geographically and demographically diverse audiences. FPA’s Great Decisions community and campus programming in virtually all U.S. states builds knowledge of the world, while providing lifelong tools for studying and analyzing global affairs.

In a democracy, the government functions with the consent of the whole people, President Franklin Roosevelt said over 75 years ago. His words continue to resonate today: The latter must be guided by the facts. The Foreign Policy Association is performing a high duty in facilitating the lucid presentation of the facts of the world problems and their impact upon the United States.

Foreign Policy Association

Henry A. Fernandez

Chairman of the Board of Directors

Noel V. Lateef

President and Chief Executive Officer

Karen M. Rohan

Editor in Chief

America in the World 2020 Editorial and Design Director Karen M. Rohan

Great Decisions is a trademark of the Foreign Policy Association.

© Copyright 2020 by Foreign Policy Association, Inc. 551 Fifth Avenue, 30th Floor

New York, New York 10176 All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher.

The authors are responsible for factual accuracy and for the views expressed. The Foreign Policy Association itself is nonpartisan and takes no position on partisan issues.

Printed in the United States of America by Graphic Communications Solutions, Holmdel, New Jersey.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020915511 • ISBN: 978-0-87124-274-7

AMERICA in the

WORLD 2020

CONTRIBUTORS

Russell A. Berman

Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Comparative Literature

Stanford University

Nicholas Burns

Roy and Barbara Goodman Family Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations

Harvard Kennedy School

William J. Burns

President

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State

Richard H. Clarida

Vice Chairman

Federal Reserve Board of Governors

Abby Joseph Cohen

Advisory Director Goldman Sachs

David B.H. Denoon

Professor of Politics and Economics New York University

Larry Diamond

Senior Fellow

Hoover Institution, Stanford University

Elizabeth Economy

Distinguished Visiting Fellow

Hoover Institution, Stanford University

James O. Ellis, Jr.

Annenberg Distinguished Fellow Hoover Institution, Stanford University former Commander of the United States

Strategic Command

Niall Ferguson

Milbank Family Senior Fellow

Hoover Institution, Stanford University

Jeffrey E. Garten

Dean emeritus, Yale School of Management

former U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade

Victor Davis Hanson

Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow Hoover Institution, Stanford University

William A. Haseltine

Chair and President

ACCESS Health International, Inc.

John D. Hofmeister

Founder and Chief Executive Officer Citizens for Affordable Energy former President, Shell Oil Company

Robert D. Hormats

Managing Director Tiedemann Advisors

former U.S. Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy and Environment

CONTRIBUTORS

Sarwar A. Kashmeri

Applied Research Fellow

Norwich University Center for Peace and War

Costis Maglaras

Dean and David and Lyn Silfen Professor of Business

Columbia Business School

Harley McAdams

Professor emeritus

Stanford University School of Medicine

Michael McFaul

Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow Hoover Institution, Stanford University former U.S. Ambassador to Russia

H.R. McMaster

Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow Hoover Institution, Stanford University former U.S. National Security Adviser

Joseph S. Nye, Jr.

University Distinguished Service Professor emeritus

Harvard University Kennedy School

Evans J.R. Revere

Senior Advisor

Albright Stonebridge Group

William R. Rhodes

President and Chief Executive Officer William R. Rhodes Global Advisors, LLC

Kevin Rudd

President

Asia Society Institute of New York

former Prime Minister of Australia

Lucy Shapiro

Ludwig Professor of Cancer Research Stanford University School of Medicine

Paul J. Sheard

Research Fellow

Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government

Harvard Kennedy School

Joseph E. Stiglitz University Professor Columbia University

Recipient of 2001 Nobel Prize in economics

John B. Taylor

Robert Raymond Professor of Economics Hoover Institution, Stanford University

Michael Hao Wu

Vice President of Global Investment Research

Goldman Sachs

AMERICA in the

WORLD 2020

Introduction

America in the World 2020

Noel V. Lateef and Michael R. Auslin

We write at a time of unprecedented global disruption and uncertainty. When the Foreign Policy Association and the Hoover Institution began planning this special edition of Great Decisions, our intent was to help foster an informed debate on global issues facing America in 2020 and beyond. As scholars of international relations and practitioners of diplomacy, we were motivated by the conviction that profound shifts taking place around the globe require deeper public understanding and a sustained American commitment to engagement beyond our shores.

Just two decades ago George H. W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft could write in their book, A World Transformed: The United States is mostly perceived as benign, without territorial ambitions, uncomfortable with exercising our considerable power. Among our most valuable contributions will be to engender predictability and stability in international relations, and we are the only power with the resources and reputation to act and be broadly accepted in this role. Today, with the rise of China, Russia’s resurgence, the global digital revolution, and the COVID-19 pandemic, America’s unipolar moment is a distant memory.

Noel V. Lateef is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Foreign Policy Associ- ation. His recent books include In Pursuit of Peace: Conflict Prevention and World Order and The Future of Higher Education in the Age of Globalization.

Michael R. Auslin is the Payson J. Treat Distinguished Research Fellow in Contem- porary Asia at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His latest book, Asia’s New Geopolitics: Essays on Reshaping the Indo-Pacific, was published in May 2020.

The pandemic has linked domestic policy with global affairs to a degree almost hitherto unimagined. Actions taken by the Trump administration and governments around the world to close their borders, quarantine their populations, and shut down their economies have dramatically affected the global economy. According to World Bank forecasts, global output will shrink by 5.2% in 2020. That would represent the deepest recession since the Second World War, with the largest percentage of economies experiencing declines in per capita output since 1870. The world will be dealing with the effects of the pandemic for years to come, yet it already has had widespread diplomatic impact, not least in worsening U.S.-China relations and engendering calls in various countries to reshape global supply chains.

More than any set of writings or meetings ever could, the pandemic makes clear the interconnected nature of our world and the necessity of clear-sighted foreign policy. All the issues that have bedeviled American foreign policymakers for the past decade, from the rise of China to Russian revanchism, from a fracturing European Union to cyberwarfare, will remain unresolved after the pandemic subsides. Some, like the question of China’s role in the world, will have been exacerbated by the crisis. Others, such as the vulnerabilities magnified by globalization and the effectiveness of international institutions, will become far more prevalent in domestic and international discussions. The role of reasoned, informed public debate will be more important than ever during this election season.

Despite the continuing urgency of the COVID-19 threat, we have not changed our initial vision for this volume. We have assembled a distinguished, experienced and diverse set of authors. These authors are current and former senior policymakers, diplomats, economists, historians, social scientists, and scientists. Collectively, they represent well over a century of American foreign policy expertise. They are renowned in their fields, and many are prolific authors. They have in common the inclination to cut through empty jargon and unquestioned assumptions. At times, they also differ on what constitute U.S. interests and what are appropriate policies to adopt. Our purpose in bringing them together is not to impose a particular view but to consider and weigh many views.

The following op-ed style essays cover both regional and functional topics. Broad essays on American foreign policy and diplomacy, geopolitics and the global economy, pandemics and COVID-19, energy and the environment, democracy, and cyber security are complemented by discussions of China, Russia, Europe, the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula. Timely and far-reaching policy recommendations are proffered.

Noel V. Lateef and Michael R. Auslin

During the 2016 American presidential election, charges were leveled that foreign policy had become the preserve of specialized elites removed from the concerns of Americans outside the Beltway and Wall Street. Since 1918 the Foreign Policy Association and since 1919 the Hoover Institution have been at the forefront of outreach to encourage informed public debate on vital international issues through dissemination of relevant and timely scholarship. We are delighted that FPA and Hoover have come together at this crucial juncture to stimulate public discussion over the path forward for America in a troubled world.

AMERICA in the

WORLD 2020

The World COVID Crisis and U.S. Policy Choices

World War III:

Not What Strategists Anticipated

Robert D. Hormats

We are now engaged in a Third World War—very different from what strategists during the Cold War ever expected. World War III was long expected by national security experts to be a military event involving

major superpowers. It turns out it was triggered by a small virus and has involved virtually all nations—producing major causalities around the world.

This pandemic could have been prevented, or well controlled, but those who warned us were ignored. Largely because for seventy years our national notion of security was defined in narrow, purely military terms—not as a health threat. A huge mistake and omission. It is imperative that this no longer be the case.

The world is now engaged in what legitimately can be called the Third World War. It was not what strategists had imagined decades ago. No nuclear weapons. No missiles or destructive cyber technology. But massively lethal and devastating to economies and the lives of hundreds of millions of people, nonetheless. And countries are not fighting one another but a small, unseen and unpredictable virus that poses a threat to virtually all nations regardless of the nature of their governments or political philosophies.

Robert D. Hormats was U.S. Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment from 2009 to 2013. His experience in the financial sector includes serving as Vice Chairman at Goldman Sachs International, and he is currently a Managing Director at Tiedmann Advisors. [This article has been updated from the author’s essay World War III Isn’t What the Strategists Thought It Would Be, which appeared in The Hill in April, 2020.]

Tragically, many scientists and medical experts in this country and around the world warned that this would happen. There were thoughtful reports in this country on the prospects of a pandemic. And even preparations for one of this sort; lots of work was done on treatments and vaccines. But after the SARS virus petered out, officials in the United States and elsewhere assumed we had dodged a bullet and much of this work was cancelled and planning for another, and even worse pandemic came to a halt.

The fundamental, underlying mistake made by our strategists—and those in other countries as well—was that security was defined too narrowly. Almost entirely in military terms. The notion that a pandemic—or environmental catastrophe—could constitute a threat with massive human and economic consequences was not seen as a true security threat. And whereas the Pentagon had large numbers of people and vast financial resources to plan for a military threat, the agencies focused on health and the environment had little money and few people and only small amounts of political support or attention. And in fact, of late the small offices and bureaus that were focused on such threats were disbanded or defunded—and few if any congressional hearings took place on the subject.

And leaders of both parties regarded such nonmilitary threats as those that might occur in the future—or at least not on their watch. Some saw them as highly implausible—and the science that underpinned this analysis was often given too little consideration. Indeed an anti-science attitude that has spread to various quarters of our political system and national narrative further diminished the attention this analysis deserved.

Our strategic analysts were trapped in a mindset of the past, while future types of security threats were given too little attention.

Our nation and the world are now paying a high price. So as we fight the current virus, we need to understand a few fundamental points. Whereas World War III was seen by strategists in the past as a war between nations and groups of nations, this war needs to mobilize the best minds and resources of all nations—regardless of the state of political relations between them. Chinese and American (as well as British, French, German, Israeli, Japanese, etc.) scientists, drug companies, research labs and doctors need to work together to exchange information and conduct advanced research. Common norms of transparency, safety, efficacy, data sharing, intellectual property protection, preparation for producing treatments and vaccines on a massive scale once discovered and