Joseph S. Nye, Jr.
Says More…
Nov 10, 2020
This week in Say More, PS talks with Joseph S. Nye, Jr., a professor at
Harvard University.
Project Syndicate: Donald “Trump’s electoral appeal
may turn on domestic politics,” you wrote in September,
“but his effect on world politics could be transformational, particularly if he
gains a second term.” Well, he hasn’t gotten his second term. Is this enough to
ensure that we really are at “the end of an historical accident”? What changes
cannot be undone, at least not easily?
Joseph Nye: Had Trump been re-elected, the damage to the international system of
multilateral institutions and alliances would have been very difficult to
repair. As one European friend told me, “it is hard to hold one’s breath for
four years; eight years is impossible.”
1.
But Joe Biden has promised to rejoin the Paris climate agreement and the World Health Organization, and to strengthen America’s strained alliances. This bodes well. Nonetheless, it will take time to restore trust, not least because more than 70,000,000 Americans cast their votes for Trump. This suggests that Trumpism will live on, even without Trump.
PS: In your book Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR
to Trump, you rated the 14 presidents since 1945 and gave Trump a
formal grade of “incomplete.” What score would you give him now? What initial
policies would put Biden on the path toward becoming a “top-quartile president”?
JN: The Washington Post’s fact-checkers claim that Trump has told over
20,000 lies in his single-term presidency. All politicians occasionally lie,
but the frequency and magnitude of Trump’s lies – which include ongoing
attempts to delegitimize the results of the 2020 election – debase the currency
of trust that is essential in a democracy. In fact, among the 14 presidents I
rated, Trump is the most amoral. So, with his presidency all but over, I will
now change my grade of “incomplete” to “fail.” For Biden, charting a path to
the top should begin with an emphasis on honesty and trust at home and abroad.
PS: “Obviously, great power competition remains a crucial aspect of
foreign policy,” you noted recently, “but we
must not let it obscure the growing transnational security threats that
technology is putting on the agenda.” What are the pillars of an effective US
cybersecurity agenda? Does the growing political and regulatory scrutiny of
tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter – which, you pointed out, are
not “instruments of American power” – portend progress on this front, or are
policymakers focusing on the wrong issues?
JN: Earlier this year, the bipartisan Cyberspace Solarium Commission laid out a
thoughtful agenda that included improved defense and deterrence at home, as
well as an effort to negotiate international norms. Domestically, improved
regulation, like that we are beginning to see in some areas, will be essential.
At the international level, the Global Commission on Stability in
Cyberspace (of which I was a member) concluded in its report last year that a binding legal
treaty would be premature. But we can establish norms of expected behavior – a
flexible middle ground between rigid treaties and inaction. The commission’s
report proposed a set of eight norms, which address gaps in previously declared
principles and focus on technical issues that are fundamental to cyber
stability. Such norms can be seen as common points of reference in evolving
international discussions. But, even if they are broadly accepted, we will
still have a long way to go.
PS: In August, you praised the late
Brent Scowcroft – who served as national security adviser to Presidents Gerald
Ford and George H.W. Bush – as “the model for a modern public servant.” Trump
ran through four national security advisers in as many years, and there was an
exodus of civil servants during his tenure. How should Biden’s administration
go about rebuilding the civil service and reinvigorating the idea of public
service? Are there figures other than Scowcroft from whom he should be taking
inspiration or listening to during this process?
JN: There remain many model public servants in both political parties. In the
just-concluded election alone, workers carried out an honest count of a record
number of votes during a pandemic, and various cyber-officials helped to
prevent the feared external and internal hacking of ballots.
During Trump’s impeachment hearings, civil servants risked their careers to
testify – a display of honesty and bravery that amounted to a civics lesson for
the rest of us. And, as the US has grappled with COVID-19, government scientists
like Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, spoke truth to power.
But nearly four years of Trump’s manipulation has done great damage,
particularly to the diplomatic corps of the State Department. Biden will have
to start there.
BY THE WAY . .
.
PS: What is the most important lesson Biden’s administration should take
from the last four years?
JN: Democracy rests on moral values and norms as much as on votes. Biden must
try to reinstall those guardrails. Likewise, foreign policy depends not just on
our military and economic strength, but also on the soft power generated by our
moral example – soft power that has been severely reduced over the last four
years.
PS: Biden campaigned on the legacy of Barack Obama’s administration, in
which he served as vice president. What aspects of that legacy should Biden
uphold, and what mistakes should he make sure not to repeat?
JN: Biden won the popular
vote by more than four million votes (and counting), and won the Electoral
College by a significant margin. But the public remains divided by regions, and
by rural-versus-urban cultural orientations. Identity politics complicates
matters. Biden should follow in Obama’s footsteps on policies like improving
health care and tackling climate change seriously, while also searching for
ways to ease polarization and build consensus. It will not be easy.
PS: Before the election, you tweeted, “Trump is trying
to delegitimize votes counted after Nov 3. The press must resist the temptation
for an early call.” To what extent do such challenges to what is possibly the
most fundamental democratic process – free and fair elections – affect the country’s
soft power? What do the election’s results – in which support for Trump came
overwhelmingly from white voters – tell us about the evolution of the concept of
America as “an idea, not an ethnicity”?
JN: While Trump is attempting to delegitimize the election results, and while
minor discrepancies in counting may be found, the outcome is clear. And, in
fact, the election is a testament to the functioning of American democratic
processes, even in times of crisis.
The bad news is that the American public remains deeply polarized – a
condition that makes governing much more difficult. But we have recovered from
polarization in the past. The 1968 election was marred by riots,
assassinations, the openly racist candidacy of George Wallace, and the Southern
strategy of Richard Nixon. Reconnecting with the “idea” of America will be
essential to ease polarization again.
PS: In Do Morals Matter?, you suggest ways to apply moral reasoning to
foreign policy. Which leaders – in the US or elsewhere – have done so
successfully? In the same vein, you’ve praised Alexander
Vindman, the former National Security Council official whose congressional
testimony last year in the Ukraine scandal laid the groundwork for Trump’s
impeachment. Yet, given that Vindman’s morality-driven behavior came at high
personal cost, ending his military career, why should other officials follow
his example?
JN: I am impressed that in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, some democracies
have done better than many autocracies. Moreover, the most successful
democratic leaders are not populists like Trump or Brazilian President Jair
Bolsonaro, but pragmatic consensus-builders like German Chancellor Angela
Merkel and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who paid attention to
facts and science.
As for officials like Vindman, it is true that they may pay a price for
honesty, but they also earn honor, dignity, and the ability to sleep with a
clear conscience. That should be reason enough.
NYE, JR.
RECOMMENDS
We ask all our Say More contributors to tell our readers about a few books
that have impressed them recently. Here are Nye, Jr.'s picks:
·
A World Safe for Democracy: Liberal Internationalism and
the Crises of Global Order
by G. John Ikenberry
This book is the result of a lifetime of work by one of the liberal
international order’s leading theorists. Ikenberry reaches back to the
nineteenth century to examine the roots of liberal internationalism and uses
those insights to illuminate its crisis today, resulting in an important
examination of the quest for an open, rules-based, and progressively oriented
world order.
·
by Margaret MacMillan
MacMillan is a distinguished historian, who has written skillfully about
World War I and its aftermath at Versailles, among other topics. Now she
broadens her scope to the vast topic of war, from ancient to modern times and
even into the future. This book is eminently readable and full of interesting
insights.
·
To Build a Better World: Choices to End the Cold War and
Create a Global Commonwealth
by Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice
A former US secretary of state, who now directs the Hoover Institution at
Stanford, teams up with a distinguished professor of history at the University
of Virginia to describe the crucial decisions that shaped the post-Cold War
international order. As skilled scholars and diplomats who were present during
key events, Rice and Zelikow capably describe how the old world ended, and the
current world emerged.
FROM THE PS
ARCHIVE
From 2019
In Nye’s first Say More interview, he untangles the power dynamics among
the US, China, Iran, and others; proposes ways to stave off cyber-war; and says
why fiction can sometimes reveal more than analytical prose can. Read more.
From 2019
Nye shows why the conventional wisdom exaggerates China’s strengths and
overlooks five key weaknesses. Read more.
AROUND THE WEB
In a recent online talk, Nye presented his thoughts on the US election and
the role of morality in international relations. Watch the webinar.
In a commentary for Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative,
Nye discusses the crisis in foreign-policy leadership that the COVID-19
pandemic exposed. Read the article.
Writing for PS since 2002
212 Commentaries
Joseph S.
Nye, Jr. is a professor at Harvard University and the author of Is the American Century Over? and Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy
from FDR to Trump
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