WASHINGTON — When Richard N. Haass took over as president of the Council on Foreign Relations almost 20 years ago, becoming the de facto dean of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, the world was a very different place.
Richard N. Haass is preparing to step down from the Council on Foreign Relations.Credit…Win Mcnamee/Getty Images
The United States had just toppled the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, and its power seemed unmatched. China remained a modest regional player, and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was offering himself as a U.S. ally. American democracy seemed relatively healthy, with bipartisanship strong enough to give President George W. Bush an approval rating in the 60s.
It is a grimmer picture today, as Mr. Haass prepares to step down from the Council on Foreign Relations, whose board he notified on Wednesday of his plans to depart in June. Based in New York, the 101-year-old nonpartisan organization sets out to inform and influence U.S. foreign policy, and it also publishes the journal Foreign Affairs. Its membership includes dozens of former and likely future government officials.
“It’s impossible for me, or anyone, to argue that we’ve used these decades well,” Mr. Haass said of the United States in an interview. “We face a world where we’ve got a revival of classic geopolitics on steroids. My own view is, if you’re not worried, you’re not paying attention.”
Most concerning to Mr. Haass, a former White House, Pentagon and State Department official, is the state of America’s domestic politics, which he said threatens to undermine the country’s strength abroad. “I’ve come to think that the biggest national security threat facing the United States is not Russia or China or climate change, but ourselves,” said Mr. Haass, 71, who is writing a book on the subject and hopes to remain a familiar voice in public debates about American foreign policy.
The Council on Foreign Relations can carry an image of elite machinations far removed from the general public. Its members-only meetings, sometimes with world leaders, have animated conspiracy theorists on the political fringes who see it as a sinister institution exerting quiet control over the world.
The reality is more humdrum — which is not to say that the council lacks influence, as evidenced by the (wholly public and live-streamed) conversation Mr. Haass hosted at the council’s Washington offices in December with President Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, who himself was once an intern for Mr. Haass’s predecessor at the council, Leslie Gelb.
Mr. Haass conceded that the council could be seen as “somehow closed or elite,” something he said he worked hard to change. During his tenure, he put more effort into what he called “developing talent” in the foreign policy field, including by hiring 125 paid interns per year and making the council’s 5,000 members younger — and more diverse — on average.
There is still work to do: Mr. Haass said that only about one-third of those members are women, though the organization was all male until 50 years ago. About 20 percent are people of color, he said.