Executive Director for Studies at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs Thomas Wright's professional career has moved him up and down the East Coast, but he now finds himself right smack in the middle of the Midwest. In a continuation of the "5 Questions" series, Wright answers questions about the Chicago Council, the advantages and disadvantages of being a think tank in the Midwest and how hometown President Barack Obama is doing on foreign policy.
1) With so many global issues in the world, how does the Chicago Council on Global Affairs decide what studies to take on?
The Chicago Council is the nation’s second oldest foreign policy institute, founded in 1922 less than one year after the New York Council on Foreign Relations, so we have a track record of closely following a number of global issues. Foremost amongst them is America’s engagement with the rest of the world, which arises out of our original mission to educate the public on foreign policy and foster a sense of internationalism in a region known for its isolationist tendencies.
We are in the middle of a project on the relevance of the transatlantic alliance given the changing strategic priorities of the United States, which is looking at U.S.-European cooperation on nuclear weapons policy, protection of the global commons, counterinsurgency, and engagement of the Muslim world. Our Asia work has focused on the sources and trajectory of soft power and influence in East Asia. And a Chicago Council task force recently looked at how the United States can better engage religious communities abroad rather than dealing solely with regimes.
For the past thirty-five years, we’ve run the nation’s most in depth public opinion survey on American attitudes toward foreign policy—quadrennial from 1975 to 2002 and biennial since then. As it happens, we’re currently poring over the data for the 2010 survey which will be released in Washington DC, in partnership with Brookings, in mid September.
Since Chicago is a major commercial center, we have a long standing interest in the global economy, which is of direct and personal interest to many of our members. The international financial crisis has put us into overdrive on this topic. Looking ahead, we’re particularly interested in how the United States can regain its economic competitiveness, the economic dimensions of security, and the long term geopolitical implications of this period of economic stress.
Apart from that, the studies department also produces articles and reports by our staff and fellows on a range of topics, including Obama’s foreign policy, the future of multilateralism, the effects of globalization on the American heartland, immigration, and energy and climate policy. Outside of the studies department, we also have a significant research program on overseas development and food security, which draws on the region’s agricultural expertise and has helped shape and influence the national debate on those topics.
2) What are the disadvantages of being a think tank working on global issues outside the beltway?
I’m not sure that there are many disadvantages. It’s important to keep in touch with the debate in Washington so as to ensure that our research adds value. With that in mind, we’re in DC almost every week. Obviously, launching projects and reports is complicated by the fact that we don’t have our own facilities in Washington but we partner with other think tanks on a regular basis which works quite well. For instance for our transatlantic project Washington roundtables, we’ve partnered with the Hudson Institute, the New America Foundation, SAIS, and CNAS.
3) What are the advantages of being a think tank working on global issues outside the beltway?
We have a little bit of space and distance to research and write about issues without getting pulled into the need to be a part of the daily news cycle. The global context for U.S. foreign policy is in a state of flux but collectively it’s tempting for the think tank community to amplify the debates on the urgent while neglecting what’s important over the long term. This is turning into a problem because the political science academic community has largely abdicated its traditional role (back in the days of Kissinger, Huntington, and others) of providing in depth analysis on America’s major foreign policy challenges, preferring instead a more quantitative approach that tackles abstract puzzles (with some notable exceptions of course!). We’re a small outfit but we try to take advantage of the fact that we’re outside of the daily news cycle to provide some of that more in depth analysis. The other thing worth mentioning about our location is that being in Chicago provides us with access to expertise, particularly on the global economy that may otherwise get overlooked if one were to solely focus on the East Coast.
4) The Chicago Council’s membership is heavily drawn from the business community. How does that impact upon your research on foreign policy and global issues?
We’re a membership organization, open to all, with over 7000 members, which is unusual for a think tank and allows us to connect directly with a broader community than would normally be involved in foreign policy debates. Given that Chicago is a major commercial center, business is a significant part of what we do. As we pick up the pieces of the greatest financial crisis and recession since the Great Depression, one of our key messages have been reinforced, which is that America’s global role requires a healthy U.S. economy and a healthy global economy.
The geopolitical implications of the crisis also show that U.S. foreign policy will have to come to terms with a more confident and stronger China but also that Europe remains the bloc with interests and values most aligned with those of the United States on many of the key international challenges. Our members, and the Chicago Council as a whole, are keenly aware of their location between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans so increasing America’s expertise on Asia while simultaneously strengthening its relations with Europe is something we’re well positioned to look at.
5) You’ve recently written an article for the Washington Quarterly assessing President Obama’s foreign policy. How do you think he has fared so far?
The article you mention is about Obama’s strategy of engagement, which I think can be best understood as the first half of a worldview developed by critics of the Bush administration during the 2000s. This worldview conceptualized America’s foreign policy into two parts—cooperative partnerships with those states and non-state actors who operate within, or seek to join, the international order, and war, containment, or coercive diplomacy toward those, such as terrorist organizations, the Taliban, and North Korea who seek to undermine, destroy or operate outside of it.
This first part of this worldview—strategic engagement—is premised on the assumption that most states share the same challenges and it seeks to increase global cooperation near to the heights achieved by Western countries during the Cold War. While there have been some successes, including, at least until very recently, in engaging the Muslim world, several key challenges and problems have come into focus.
In particular, the experience of 2009 suggests that the premise of Obama’s strategy of engagement—that the interests of the major powers are broadly aligned in the need to tackle the same problems—was flawed. Some major powers, particularly China, accept parts of the international order but also have significant differences with the United States about the order’s shape, purpose, and future direction as well as their role in upholding it. Unfortunately, the administration is struggling to come up with a strategy to increase cooperation with these states that have less in common with the United States than members of the old Western order.
The United States is entering into a period of geopolitics unlike that which it has previously experienced. Americans are used to countries being friends or enemies but relations with rising powers like China will be a peculiar blend of cooperation and rivalry. It will be a more competitive world than the past twenty years but unlike the Cold War, it will be a competition within limits and between interdependent powers.
In order to succeed in this new environment, the administration will need to develop a more competitive form of engagement that is clearer about what it wants from the international order and has a strategy that will build support for it. A strategy of competitive engagement would recognize geopolitical realities while remaining faithful to the core insight of engagement that the world is interdependent and many of today’s foreign policy challenges can only be tackled multilaterally.
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