Richard Haass - The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens

The World: A Brief Introduction

A World in Disarray

Foreign Policy Begins at Home

War of Necessity, War of Choice

The Opportunity

The Bureaucratic Entrepreneur

The Reluctant Sheriff

Intervention

Conflicts Unending

Beyond the INF Treaty

Congressional Power

Honey and Vinegar

Transatlantic Tensions

Economic Sanctions and American Diplomacy

Superpower Arms Control

I have spent my career studying, practicing, writing about, and speaking on American foreign policy, and a question I frequently hear is Richard, what keeps you up at night? Often, even before I get to answer, the person posing the question suggests potential answers. Is it China? Russia? North Korea? Iran? Terrorism? Climate change? Cyberattacks? Another pandemic?

In recent years I started responding in a way that surprised me and many in the room. The most urgent and significant threat to American security and stability stems not from abroad but from within, from political divisions that for only the second time in U.S. history have raised questions about the future of American democracy and even the United States itself. These divisions also make it near impossible for the United States to address many of its economic, social, and political problems or to realize its potential. Many Americans (for a range of reasons) share my concern; according to a recent poll, a plurality (21 percent) believe that threats to democracy is the most important issue facing the country, surpassing cost of living, the economy, immigration, and climate change.

The deterioration of our democracy also has adverse consequences for our countrys ability to contend with Russian aggression, a much more capable and assertive China, and a host of other regional and global challenges. Deep political divisions make it difficultor even impossibleto design and implement a steady foreign policy at a time when what happens in the world deeply affects what happens at home. Similarly, a country at war with itself cannot set an example that people elsewhere will want to emulate. If democracy fails here, democracy will be endangered everywhere.

The storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, along with other attempts to overturn a free and fair election, made clear Americas internal divisions had reached a qualitatively different and dangerous level. There is overwhelming evidence that members of Congress as well as the then president of the United States and his close associates were not only aware of what was being planned but were intimately involved. And even though Inauguration Day took place two weeks later, even though American democracy proved resilient, the outcome might have been different had it not been for the courage and character of a few state officials, Capitol police, and the serving vice president. It was a close-run thingmuch too close for comfort.

What is more, the threat to American democracy is not limited to those who stormed the Capitol or the elected officials who cheered them on. An equally serious threat stems from the slow but steady erosion of popular support for democracys underpinnings.

Before going on, I should perhaps say a few things about myself and what motivated me to write this book. I am not particularly partisan. I have worked for one Democratic senator, one Democratic president, and three Republican presidents. I began my political odyssey as a liberal Democrat, someone opposed to the war in Vietnam. My ideas began to change when I did my graduate work at Oxford in the 1970s, during which time I studied more history, read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyns powerful denunciations of the Soviet system, and watched up close the illiberalism of the British Labour Party and the rise of a principled Margaret Thatcher. For most of my adult life I was a registered Republican, although in the summer of 2020 I reluctantly concluded I was no longer comfortable in that party and changed to no party affiliation. But even when I was a Republican I would at times vote for Democrats. Party was never as important to me as individual candidates and issues. As I write this, I serve as the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, an institution dedicated to being a nonpartisan resource for Americans across the political spectrum on questions of U.S. foreign policy and the countrys relationship with the world.

In short, what led to this book is not my political preferences. I am motivated by what keeps me up at night: our democracy is imperiled, and its demise would be an incalculable loss to this countrys citizens and to the world. My belief is that it can be saved only if Americans across the political spectrum come to accept that citizenship involves more than their assertingor the governments protectingwhat they understand to be their rights.

I have come around to the view that our very concept of citizenship needs to be revised, or better yet expanded, if American democracy is to survive. As two leading political scientists wrote in a classic study, The development of a stable and effective democratic government depends upon more than the structures of government and politics: it depends upon the orientations that people have to the political processupon the political culture. Yes, respect for individual rights remains basic to the functioning of this or any democracy, but rights alone do not a successful democracy make. A democracy that concerns itself only with protecting and advancing individual rights will find itself in jeopardy, as rights will come into conflict with one another. When they inevitably do, it is essential that there is a path for citizens to compromise or a willingness to coexist peacefully and work with those with whom they disagree.