风萧萧_Frank
以文会友
Our domestic political situation is not only one that others don't want to emulate, but I also think that it's introduced a degree of unpredictablility and a lack of reliability that's reality poisonous. For America's ability to function successfully in the world, it makes it very hard for our friends to depend on us.
对于外交政策资深人士来说，真正的危险在国内
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/us/politics/richard-haass-biden-trump-foreign-policy.html
理查德·哈斯 (Richard N. Haass) 表示，对全球安全最严重的威胁是美国。
理查德·N·哈斯 (Richard N. Haass) 表示，美国已成为全世界最严重的不稳定根源。 图片来源：Karsten Moran for The New York Times
彼得·贝克 作者：彼得·贝克 2023年7月1日
彼得·贝克是白宫首席记者，他在华盛顿和纽约的办公室采访了理查德·哈斯。
作为外交关系委员会主席，理查德·哈斯 (Richard N. Haass) 所到之处，都会被问到同样的问题：是什么让他彻夜难眠？ 多年来，他不乏选择——俄罗斯、中国、伊朗、朝鲜、气候变化、国际恐怖主义、粮食不安全、全球流行病。
但当哈斯先生在管理美国最著名的专注于国际事务的私人组织二十年后辞职时，他得出了一个令人不安的结论。 目前世界安全面临的最严重的威胁是什么？ 让他失眠的威胁？ 美国本身。
“是我们，”有一天他悲伤地说道。
直到最近，这位全球战略家才想到这一点。 但在他看来，美国政治体系的瓦解意味着他有生以来第一次内部威胁超过了外部威胁。 哈斯表示，美国不再是动荡世界中最可靠的支柱，而是成为不稳定的最深刻根源和不确定的民主典范。
“我们的国内政治局势不仅是其他人不想效仿的，”他在周五在外交关系委员会的最后一天之前接受采访时表示。 “但我也认为它带来了一定程度的不可预测性和缺乏可靠性，这确实是有害的。 我的意思是，就美国在世界上成功运作的能力而言，我们的朋友很难依赖我们。”
哈斯先生穿着深色西装，站在楼梯附近。
哈斯先生将辞去外交关系委员会主席职务。
国内的挑战促使这位将整个职业生涯都当成政策制定者和世界事务研究者的人将注意力转向国内。 哈斯先生最近出版了一本名为《义务法案：好公民的十个习惯》的书，概述了美国人可以帮助治愈自己的社会的方法，例如“了解情况”、“保持文明”、“国家优先”——所有这些 诚然，这些都是陈词滥调，但如今却常常难以捉摸。 除了顾问工作外，他还想在人生的下一个篇章中花大部分时间来促进公民学教学。
“我自己的轨迹已经改变了，”他在两次采访中总结了在该委员会的二十年经历时说道。 “这本新书并不是我五年前或十年前就预料到会写的，但我实际上认为它几乎是对美国民主的重塑。 现在它已成为国家安全问题。 那是不同的。”
凭借地位和性情，71 岁的哈斯先生是建制派中信誉良好的一员，但在唐纳德·J·特朗普时代，他已不再受到青睐。特朗普是两党“现实主义”共识的代言人，认为对于特朗普来说， 二战以来四分之三个世纪的大部分时间里，好坏决定了美国在世界上的地位。 当然，这是一个俱乐部世界，总是会导致精英主义群体思维甚至阴谋论的指控。 哈斯先生上周作为理事会主席最后一次露面，他在台上和网上采访了国务卿安东尼·布林肯，他是第 27 位出席理事会的国务卿。
“很难想象还有谁比这更努力让这个机构成为现在这个样子，”布林肯先生称赞他的东道主。
“我要为此感谢他，”哈斯先生微笑着回答道。 “但我仍然会问他一些尖锐的问题。”
哈斯先生是四届政府的资深人士，其中一位是民主党，三届是共和党，但他通过定期出现在 MSNBC 的《早安乔》节目中，超越了智库政策专家的狭隘世界，在节目中，他以谨慎但明确的措辞对政治两极分化和过度行为表示遗憾。 近年来并试图理解这一切。
哈斯先生（右）曾在乔治·W·布什总统领导下担任国务院政策规划主任。图片来源：Stephen Crowley/《纽约时报》
大多数早晨，哈斯先生都会从纽约洛克菲勒广场的片场出发，向北行驶约 20 个街区，前往该委员会位于上东区的总部。 他位于四楼的相对中等规模的办公室看起来和你想象中的外交关系委员会主席杂乱的办公室一模一样，里面塞满了数千本书、几十个地球仪、成堆的纸张、荣誉学位。
多所大学的荣誉学位以及与家人、前任总统和同事的合影。
很难想象没有他的理事会会怎样。 作为这个具有百年历史的组织历史上任职时间最长的主席，他为保持其在天空中的地位而感到自豪，同时增加其成员并使其成员多元化，开设一个扩大的华盛顿办事处，专注于教育并维持两党合作的方式，尽管不是一种包含 美国第一特朗普主义。 他的继任者将是巴拉克·奥巴马总统领导下的美国贸易代表迈克尔·弗罗曼。
哈斯出生于布鲁克林，在长岛长大，曾就读于欧柏林学院，在那里他制作了一部关于学生对肯特州立大学枪击事件反应的纪录片。 1973年毕业后，他成为罗德学者。 他在国会山为罗德岛州民主党参议员克莱本·佩尔工作，并于 1974 年在那里结识了一位名叫乔·拜登的年轻参议员。
哈斯先生随后在吉米·卡特总统领导下的五角大楼、罗纳德·里根总统领导下的国务院以及乔治·H·W·布什总统领导下的国家安全委员会任职。 衬套。 在乔治·W·布什 (George W. Bush) 总统领导下，他曾担任国务院政策规划主任，但最终因对伊拉克战争失望而于 2003 年离职，他后来称伊拉克战争是“执行不力的糟糕选择”。
年轻时，哈斯先生反对越南战争，并认为自己是自由派，但后来受到亚历山大·索尔仁尼琴的著作、玛格丽特·撒切尔的崛起以及里根-布什关于美国在国外发挥领导作用、在国内实行克制政府的愿景的启发。 40多年来，他一直是共和党人，尽管他有时也会投票支持民主党。 但到了 2020 年，他放弃了被特朗普抓获的政党，并在 2021 年 1 月 6 日袭击国会大厦后公开宣布自己不属于党派。
在过去的一个世纪里，美国经历了其他分裂和不和的时期——种族隔离、麦卡锡主义、越南、民权、水门事件。 1968 年的暗杀、骚乱和战争常常被认为是这个国家生活中异常悲惨的一年。 但哈斯先生认为现在的情况更糟。 “这些并不是对系统、结构的威胁，”他说。 “这就是为什么我认为这更重要。”
哈斯同意在 2015 年与特朗普会面，就外交事务向他提供建议，就像他对待任何总统候选人一样，他承认自己错误地判断了这位夸夸其谈的房地产开发商。
“我大错特错的是，我认为办公室的影响力会让他变得温和或正常化，无论你想用什么词——他会更加尊重传统和遗产，”哈斯先生说。 “而我在这一点上错了。 如果说有什么不同的话，那就是他变得更加激进。 他加倍努力。”
问题是，从长远来看，美国是否已经发生了变化。 “我应该给每一位对我说：我不知道什么是常态、什么是例外的非美国领导人和外国领导人，”他说。 拜登政府是否会回归我认为理所当然的美国，而特朗普政府将成为历史的昙花一现？ 还是拜登是个例外，而特朗普和特朗普主义才是新美国？”
哈斯先生是四届政府的资深人士，其中一届是民主党，三届是共和党。 图片版权：Karsten Moran，《纽约时报》
在过去半个世纪的大部分时间里探索其他国家之后，哈斯先生准备探索自己的国家。 他暂时把自己的外交政策放在一边，说他希望扩展书中的信息，并帮助国家重新关注《独立宣言》所体现的核心价值观，因为三年后该文件即将迎来 250 周年纪念日。
尽管有种种担忧，他坚称自己并不悲观。 “当我四处谈论这个话题时，人们知道美国的民主出了问题，”他说。 “他们知道事情正在偏离轨道。 我们可能不一定就如何解决这个问题达成一致。 但对话确实是开放的。”
彼得·贝克（Peter Baker）是白宫首席记者，曾为《泰晤士报》和《华盛顿邮报》报道过最近五任总统。 他是七本书的作者，最近与苏珊·格拉瑟 (Susan Glasser) 合着的《分裂者：特朗普在白宫，2017-2021》。 关于彼得·贝克的更多信息
To Foreign Policy Veteran, the Real Danger Is at Home
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/us/politics/richard-haass-biden-trump-foreign-policy.html
Richard N. Haass says the most serious threat to global security is the United States.
Peter Baker is the chief White House correspondent and interviewed Richard Haass at offices in Washington and New York.
Everywhere he has gone as president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard N. Haass has been asked the same question: What keeps him up at night? He has had no shortage of options over the years — Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, climate change, international terrorism, food insecurity, the global pandemic.
But as he steps down after two decades running America’s most storied private organization focused on international affairs, Mr. Haass has come to a disturbing conclusion. The most serious danger to the security of the world right now? The threat that costs him sleep? The United States itself.
“It’s us,” he said ruefully the other day.
That was never a thought this global strategist would have entertained until recently. But in his mind, the unraveling of the American political system means that for the first time in his life the internal threat has surpassed the external threat. Instead of being the most reliable anchor in a volatile world, Mr. Haass said, the United States has become the most profound source of instability and an uncertain exemplar of democracy.
“Our domestic political situation is not only one that others don’t want to emulate,” he said in an interview ahead of his last day at the Council on Foreign Relations on Friday. “But I also think that it’s introduced a degree of unpredictability and a lack of reliability that’s really poisonous. For America’s ability to function successfully in the world, I mean, it makes it very hard for our friends to depend on us.”
Mr. Haass is stepping down as the president of the Council on Foreign Relations.
The challenges at home have prompted a man who has spent his entire career as a policymaker and student of world affairs to turn his attention inward. Mr. Haass recently published a book called “The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens,” outlining ways Americans can help heal their own society, like “Be Informed,” “Remain Civil,” “Put Country First” — all admittedly bromides and yet somehow often elusive these days. In addition to consultant work, he wants to spend much of the next chapter of his life promoting the teaching of civics.
“My own trajectory has changed,” he observed during a pair of interviews summing up two decades at the council. “This new book is not something I would have predicted writing five or 10 years ago, but I actually think it’s almost a recasting of American democracy. Now it’s become a national security concern. And that’s different.”
By dint of position as well as temperament, Mr. Haass, 71, is a member in good standing of the establishment that has fallen into disfavor in the era of Donald J. Trump, a voice of the largely bipartisan “realist” consensus that for better or worse defined America’s place in the world for most of the three-quarters of a century since World War II. It is a clubby world, of course, one that invariably leads to charges of elitist groupthink or even conspiracy theories. For his final appearance as president of the council this past week, Mr. Haass interviewed Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken onstage and online, the 27th secretary of state to appear before the council.
“It’s hard to think of anyone who’s done more to make this institution what it is,” Mr. Blinken said, praising his host.
“I want to thank him for that,” Mr. Haass replied with a smile. “But I’m still going to ask him tough questions.”
A veteran of four administrations, one Democrat and three Republican, Mr. Haass has nonetheless transcended the insular world of think tank policy wonks through regular appearances on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” where in measured but unmistakable terms he has lamented the political polarization and excesses of recent years and tried to make sense of it all.
Mr. Haass, right, served as director of policy planning at the State Department under President George W. Bush.Credit...Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
From the set at Rockefeller Plaza in New York, Mr. Haass would head most mornings about 20 blocks north to the council’s Upper East Side headquarters. His relatively modest-sized fourth-floor office looked exactly like what you would imagine that the cluttered office of the president of the Council on Foreign Relations would look like, crammed with literally thousands of books, dozens of globes, stacks of paper, honorary degrees from various universities and photographs with family members, presidents and colleagues from past administrations.
It will be hard to imagine the council without him. The longest-serving president in the century-old organization’s history, he takes pride in preserving its place in the firmament while increasing and diversifying its membership, opening an expanded Washington office, focusing on education and maintaining a bipartisan approach, albeit not one that embraces America First Trumpism. He will be succeeded by Michael Froman, who was the U.S. trade representative under President Barack Obama.
Born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island, Mr. Haass studied at Oberlin College, where he made a documentary on the student response to the Kent State shootings. After graduating in 1973, he became a Rhodes scholar. He worked for Senator Claiborne Pell, Democrat of Rhode Island, on Capitol Hill, where he met a young senator named Joe Biden in 1974.
Mr. Haass went on to serve in the Pentagon under President Jimmy Carter, the State Department under President Ronald Reagan and the National Security Council under President George H.W. Bush. Under President George W. Bush, he served as director of policy planning at the State Department but ultimately left in 2003, disenchanted with the Iraq war, which he later called “a poor choice poorly implemented.”
As a young man, Mr. Haass opposed the Vietnam War and thought of himself as liberal but then became inspired by the writings of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the rise of Margaret Thatcher and the Reagan-Bush vision of American leadership abroad and restrained government at home. For more than 40 years, he was a Republican, although he sometimes voted for Democrats. But by 2020, he renounced the party that had been captured by Mr. Trump and after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and publicly declared himself unaffiliated.
Over the past century, America has experienced other periods of division and discord — Jim Crow, McCarthyism, Vietnam, civil rights, Watergate. The assassinations and riots and war of 1968 often come to mind as a singularly miserable year in the life of the nation. But Mr. Haass sees this moment as even worse. “These were not threats to the system, the fabric,” he said. “That’s why I think this is more significant.”
Mr. Haass, who agreed to meet with Mr. Trump in 2015 to advise him on foreign affairs, just as he would any presidential candidate, admitted that he misjudged the bombastic real estate developer.
“Where I was dead wrong is I assumed the weight of the office would moderate him or normalize him, whatever word you want to use — that he would be more respectful of traditions and inheritances,” Mr. Haass said. “And I was wrong on that. If anything, he became more radical. He doubled down.”
The question is whether America has changed for the long run. “I should have a nickel,” he said, “for every non-American, every foreign leader who said to me: I don’t know what’s the norm and what’s the exception anymore. Is the Biden administration a return to the America I took for granted and Trump will be a historical blip? Or is Biden the exception and Trump and Trumpism are the new America?”
Mr. Haass is a veteran of four administrations, one Democrat and three Republican.Credit...Karsten Moran for The New York Times
After exploring other countries for most of the past half-century, Mr. Haass is ready to explore his own. Putting his foreign policy hat aside for now, he said he wants to expand the message from his book and help refocus the country on the core values embodied in the Declaration of Independence as the 250th anniversary of the document approaches three years from now.
For all his worries, he insists he is not pessimistic. “When I go around speaking about this topic, people know there’s something wrong with American democracy,” he said. “They know it’s going on off the rails. And we may not necessarily agree on how to fix it. But there’s a real openness to the conversation.”
Peter Baker is the chief White House correspondent and has covered the last five presidents for The Times and The Washington Post. He is the author of seven books, most recently “The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021,” with Susan Glasser. More about Peter Baker
