Richard Haass

80 years after the end of World War II, 35 years after the end of the Cold War, the world faces a future far more uncertain and potentially turbulent than the recent past. Four strong countries – Russia, North Korea, Iran, and, above all, China – have forged a new alignment that seeks to challenge the world as it is. Two geographies (Europe and the Middle East) are experiencing conflict, while the Asia-Pacific could easily become a third. Other regions, above all parts of Latin America and Africa, but also the Middle East, are home to many weak countries that cannot meet basic needs of their citizens or prevent terrorists and drug cartels from operating. Populations outside of Africa are getting smaller and older. Democracy and the rule of law are under pressure. Conventional military and nuclear inventories are modernizing and growing. Meanwhile, the world is failing to come together to meet common challenges such as climate change. And the United States, which has since World War II has played an outsized international role, is now more divided and inward-looking, increasingly lacking the will and ability to act decisively. Richard Haass, a veteran of four administrations, Republican and Democrat alike, for two decades the president of the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations, and the author or editor of 14 books on American foreign policy, discusses the implications of this more turbulent world for both corporations and citizens and assesses the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries.