Richard Haass on Ukraine, China, and the Price of Rewarding Aggression

Richard Haass doesn’t pretend his career was a master plan. He describes it as a sequence of exposures—first to Vietnam as the defining political issue of his teens, then to the Middle East through an undergraduate detour into comparative religion that turned into a summer, a junior year abroad, and eventually a first degree focused on the region. From there, graduate work in international relations followed “one thing led to another,” but the point—he’s explicit—is that he wasn’t optimizing for a pre-set path so much as chasing strong teachers, serious books, and jobs where he’d learn the most.
That openness shows up again when he talks about power. Haass’s core corrective is blunt: virtually nothing is inevitable. People make policy, and different people in the same circumstances produce different outcomes. He traces that lesson to early government work—especially 1979, when the Iran Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan collided with his recent field exposure and doctoral focus, giving him a real seat (and real memos) in high-level policymaking while he was still young.
The conversation then moves from individual agency to institutions: why consensus can be intellectually “bland,” why CFR avoided institutional positions during his tenure, and why “policy planning” is not “policy predicting”—especially in a top-heavy administration. From there, he defines what “rules-based order” actually means in practice: basic norms (like not acquiring territory by force) plus mechanisms that reward compliance and penalize violations.
We close with Haass on the strategic stakes: China’s nuclear buildup and why Cold War analogies distort more than they clarify; Europe’s deepening doubts after Munich; and why he rejects any endgame in Ukraine that “rewards aggression.” Finally, he offers unusually concrete advice for students—study history, rotate through multiple jobs early, and start with two books: Thinking in Time (Neustadt/May) and Bull’s The Anarchical Society.


—Richard Haass served as president of the Council on Foreign Relations for 20 years and previously held senior roles across Congress, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the White House.

Career origins: how it started
Ben Wolf (BW): For readers trying to understand your trajectory, what first pulled you toward foreign policy? And how did that turn into a real path?

Richard Haass (RH): A couple of things. I have some specifics about my case, and then one or two general thoughts.
When I was in my teens, one of the big issues was Vietnam—the war—so that immediately, or inevitably, got me interested in foreign policy subjects, but just as a political issue.
When I went to college, one of my early areas of focus was comparative religion. I took a course on the New Testament, became friends with the professor, ended up spending the summer—and then my junior year abroad—in the Middle East. I came back, focused then on Middle Eastern studies, got my first degree on that.
Went to graduate school and ended up doing my master’s and doctorate in international relations, and one thing led to another, led to another.
All of which is to say: I was not one of those people who had a long-term career focus. I’m not sure I even recommend that. I think it’s much better to be open—to things, to experiences, to good professors, to books. And it just happened.
I did not have a career, if you will, by design. It evolved because I always tried to study with the best professors. I took the jobs that I thought were the most interesting, where I’d learn the most. And yes, I’m interested in international things—but it just as easily could have been domestic politics or economics.
Indeed, when I originally thought about graduate school, I was looking at international relations. I was looking at international economics. I was looking at Middle Eastern studies. I didn’t know what I wanted to do—and in some ways, it’s impossible to until you do it.
My general advice is not to overthink it. When you’re young, try to expose yourself to the most interesting situations—the places where you learn the most. And if you’re lucky, you’ll stumble across what you want to do.


Power and policymaking: what he learned by doing
BW: When you first entered government, what did you not understand yet about how decisions actually get made—and what experience taught you the most?

RH: I didn’t have understandings about power and policymaking when I was young. So again: when I was young, those weren’t questions I thought about.
I worked in Congress in my early 20s. As a staffer, I worked in the Pentagon in my late 20s. I worked in the State Department in my early 30s, the White House in my late 30s, and so forth.
Usually the only thing I knew before I had experience was what I read in history books—what I studied.
The one thing I will say that I learned is that virtually nothing is inevitable—that at the end of the day, people make policy. Very different people put in the same circumstances will come up with very different policies.
That ought to motivate people to think about this, because you can make a difference.
When I was in the Pentagon in the late ’70s—in ’79—there were two enormous geopolitical events: the revolution in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. I happened to have just come back from Iran and Afghanistan. I did my doctorate on that part of the world. And suddenly, there I was, as a young person, with a chance to participate in policymaking at a pretty high level.
In many cases, if my voice didn’t make it into the meeting, my memos made it into the inboxes of the most senior people.
That’s what’s so interesting about government: you can have extraordinary opportunities at a young age, and nothing is set in stone. So I’m a great advocate for young people to get involved in government.


Think tanks: expertise without groupthink
BW: You led one of the most influential convening institutions in the country. In that environment, how do you keep “expert consensus” from turning into groupthink—and make sure dissenting views don’t get filtered out?

RH: It wasn’t a problem, because when I was lucky enough to be president of the Council on Foreign Relations for 20 years, the institution never took institutional positions. So each individual member was free to have his or her own opinions. Each fellow on the staff could reach his or her own conclusions or recommendations on policy. Same held for authors in Foreign Affairs.
There was no attempt to reach a consensus.
By and large, I also find two things. One is: consensus is often bland—you find the lowest common denominator.
And in my experience, the best intellectual work is not done by groups. The best intellectual work is done by individuals. Think about it: how many great books can you think of that were written by committees? Great intellectual work is written by individuals.
Now, in government, you’ve got to have people working together. And I think in government it could be an issue where you reach the consensus and the rest—that it may not be the best policy. To me, the goal in government was never necessarily to reach a consensus. The goal was to reach the best available policy. Where there were differences, hash it out, and the president—or whoever was the decision maker—would hopefully reach the best possible decision.
But I’ve never lived my life with the goal of coming up with consensus.


Planning vs. predicting
BW: Looking ahead 12 months, what feels most likely to shape global politics—and what risk do you think is still being underweighted?

RH: When I ran the Policy Planning Staff, I used to say I was in charge of policy planning, not policy predicting. So I’m not going to go there. The answer is: I don’t know.
There are too many variables. And in particular, you’ve got an administration in this country that does not have a heavy institutional bias. It’s very top-heavy. The president makes a lot of policy.
So anyone going out on a limb and making predictions about events—honestly, I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next 12 hours with Iran or something like that. I’m not going to go there.


What “rules-based order” means in practice
BW: People use “rules-based international order” as shorthand. If you had to make it concrete: what are the core rules or norms that matter, and what enforces them when they’re violated?

RH: The slogan you hear is usually “rules-based international order,” whatever.
It’s the idea that international relations is conducted with respect for—or acceptance or toleration of—certain rules or norms.
The most basic one is that territory is not to be acquired by the use of military force. There are other norms: genocide isn’t to be allowed to happen, terrorism is unacceptable, and so forth.
Those are norms or principles on which order is based. And then you’ve got to have ways of encouraging people to respect those rules, and mechanisms or means for penalizing them if they don’t—whether it’s sanctions, the use of military force, or what have you.
That’s the basic stuff of foreign policy: you want to encourage certain behaviors and discourage others. And if you are not successful at discouraging them, you want to defeat challenges to order.


China: objectives, deterrence, and constraints
BW: On China, what should the U.S. be trying to achieve—what’s a realistic end state? And what does effective deterrence look like, especially around Taiwan?

RH: What the United States should be looking for with China is that China doesn’t use its growing power in ways that we think are inconsistent with order as we understand it.
In one narrow space, it’s obviously that they ought not use force to change the status of Taiwan. That’s been our biggest concern. But we also have other issues. They ought not be supporting Russia like they are in its war of aggression against Ukraine. We have all sorts of concerns about an export-led growth model, which we believe is inconsistent with a global economy that works to the benefit of most countries and people, and so forth.
With China, as with anybody else, you’ve got to encourage certain behaviors and discourage others. That’s the stuff of foreign policy. It’s not unique to China.
I always say the business of foreign policy is influencing the foreign policy choices of others. And China has gotten more complicated because their power has grown. Their ambitions are considerable.
And our ability, in some cases, to push back is limited. We may not have the military force, or we’re vulnerable to Chinese cutoffs of rare earth minerals, and so forth. We haven’t necessarily structured the relationship in ways that allow us to shape Chinese behavior as we’d like to.


China’s nuclear buildup and the “new Cold War” analogy
BW: China’s nuclear modernization is accelerating. How should we interpret that strategically? And when people call this a “new Cold War,” as David Sanger has in his recent book, what does that analogy get right, and what does it get wrong?

RH: I think you’re conflating two things. Let’s walk it back.
One is the growth of China’s nuclear weapons. The other is whether the Cold War model fits U.S.-China competition.
Look—China has the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal. It’s the fastest growing. I think China has made the strategic decision: over the next decade, they want to reach rough equality with the United States and Russia. They see that as central for great power status.
They also look at the war in Ukraine, and they notice that the United States supported Ukraine much more under the Biden administration than under the Trump administration, but we supported it indirectly—with arms and intelligence. We didn’t send U.S. forces to the battle.
China would love to replicate that when it comes to Taiwan. They would love to limit U.S. support for Taiwan to arms or intelligence, but they would much prefer U.S. military forces not get directly involved. So my guess is they think their chances of succeeding increase significantly if they have a nuclear arsenal that’s roughly on par with that of the United States.
So I think for the next decade China will increase its nuclear arsenal significantly—say by 100 warheads a year—which would get them to 1,500 plus or minus a decade from now.
I think then there’s a possibility China would be open to participation in some type of arms control framework. I think until then there’s negligible chance China would participate. So I just take that as a fact of life.
Now: what’s the nature of the U.S.-China relationship? I don’t much like Cold War analogies, because there were unique qualities to the U.S.-Soviet Cold War.
The U.S. and China will have elements of significant competition. We could have elements of conflict. We could have elements of limited cooperation.
The Cold War had a large ideological dimension—I’m not sure that’s at play here. The Cold War had two large alliance systems arrayed against each other—I don’t see a parallel there with China. Unlike the Soviet Union, China is integrated into the world economy. So, all things being equal, I find the Cold War parallel more distorting than illuminating.


NATO, Munich, and Rubio
BW: After Munich, where do you think European confidence in U.S. commitments actually stands? Specifically, what did Rubio’s speech clarify, and what did it fail to resolve?

RH: I thought it was an impressive speech. It was well delivered.
On the other hand, it didn’t deal with Ukraine, didn’t deal with tariffs. It didn’t settle any of the doubts about Article 5 and America’s commitment to Europe. You also have Vice President Vance a year ago in Munich, and you’ve had any number of comments by the president of the United States.
It wasn’t clear exactly who Marco Rubio was speaking for. I thought there was a serious disconnect between elements of his speech and elements of U.S. foreign policy.
At the end of the day, the most important thing to say is: the Europeans didn’t come away reassured. Some liked the speech; some didn’t, depending on what they focused on. But the biggest—and I think correct—conclusion is it didn’t change any of the fundamentals.
The U.S.-European relationship has changed fundamentally for the worse. And a speech—even a good speech by the Secretary of State—couldn’t change that.
He didn’t help himself by not dealing with Ukraine in the speech. He certainly didn’t help by flying off to Hungary afterwards and all the sympathetic talk to Mr. Orbán.
Again, Munich didn’t happen in a vacuum. It happened in the context of a year of Trump foreign policy: tariffs, a tilt towards Russia, often non-support of Ukraine, harsh criticism of allies over cultural issues as well as defense-related issues.
So the speech did not turn things around. Most Europeans increasingly think they’ve got to look to themselves for their security—not to the United States.


Ukraine: negotiations, concessions, and red lines
BW: With U.S.-brokered talks underway with Russia and Ukraine, what kind of settlement framework is even plausible? And from the U.S. perspective, what should be non-negotiable versus potentially negotiable for Ukraine?

RH: I don’t think Ukraine should be conceding. You do not reward aggression.
We should be supporting Ukraine. We are not, for the most part. We should be supplying them directly with military arms. We should be putting much more pressure on Russia.
So I do not support the thrust of the Witkoff–Kushner diplomacy towards Ukraine.
I’m sympathetic to a desire to end the war. I think peace is too ambitious; a ceasefire, in principle, would be good. But I think the way we’re going about it is dead wrong. And Ukraine is not interested in it.
Russia keeps upping its demands.
But we’re about to end the fourth year of this phase of the war—start the fifth. And I’m sad to say we’ve already had, what, on the order of two million casualties between Russia and Ukraine. It’s quite stunning—quite awful.
But I don’t want to see the war ended in ways that reward aggression, or simply tee Russia up for renewed aggression after some kind of pause. So I think the U.S. approach is deeply flawed, and from what I can tell, neither Ukraine nor the Europeans want any part of it.

BW: A lot of people would argue that conceding territory could be justified simply to stop the killing. Why do you reject that logic?

RH: It’s for Ukraine to decide, but I certainly wouldn’t pressure them to do so.
And it’s not just “some territory.” It would have strategic significance. Russia’s economy is on a wartime footing. And I don’t believe a pause in the war would be anything more than a pause.
So, no—I think the best thing we could do is support Ukraine far, far more than we are, and pressure Russia far, far more than we are. We’ve got to disabuse Vladimir Putin of his view that time is on his side.
If we want to end the war and we want to end it on terms that are supportive of our interests and our principles, that’s the way to do it. We do not want to be in a position of peace at any price. That, to me, would be a deeply flawed diplomatic path.


Advice to students: skills, rotation, and history
BW: For students who want a career that moves between government and institutions like yours, what should they do in their 20s to build real leverage, and what should they avoid?

RH: I’m not so arrogant to think my career path is meaningful for others.
One of the good things about being an American is you have options of going in and out of government. So I was never a career anything. I was not a career Foreign Service officer, what have you. I liked the opportunity to move back and forth between government and think tanks.
I got my doctorate. I thought I would be an academic, but there’s a lot of what goes on in modern academia that doesn’t excite me. Too much of it is theory-based and quantitative, has no real application to the real world. It’s not particularly relevant.
I’ve never heard, in all my decades in government, anybody talk about theoretical models or quantitative models of international relations or foreign policy. So much of what goes on in academia, sorry to say, is irrelevant.
If I were going to recommend for students what to study, I’d say history. For the most part, I find it the most valuable background and analytical tool to think about policy-relevant history—the kind of work that people like Alexander George, Ernest May, Richard Neustadt, and others championed. I found that really useful.
More conceptual works I like: Hedley Bull, Henry Kissinger, Hans Morgenthau.
But I would say the best thing is to read as much history as you can, get some experience in government, and don’t put pressure on yourself early on to discover or figure out what’s the right thing for you.
I always tell people in their 20s—maybe early 30s—the goal should be to have five different jobs. Imagine you had five jobs, two years each. It’s almost like a doctor having a rotating residency: you get exposed to five different specialties, you learn from each, and maybe come closer to figuring out what’s right for you.
If you’re interested in foreign policy or government, go work in different places. Be exposed to different things. Find out if it’s for you. Some things may interest you more than others—maybe a certain part of the world, maybe a certain discipline, what have you.
Don’t expect a 22-year-old—whatever the age is—to know what’s right for you. The best thing you can do is invest in yourself, build up skills, and expose yourself to different situations.
Those ought to be the two considerations when you’re young:

1. How do you add value? How do you tool up no matter what?
2. How do you begin to figure out what’s right for you—what really excites you, what you’re really good at, where you think you can make a difference?

If you can do those two things in your 20s or early 30s, then you’re way ahead of the game. Then you’ve got the next 40 years to go make a difference.


Two books to start with
BW: Last question: which books most shaped how you think about foreign policy decision-making, and why those?
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RH: I alluded to a couple.
One is Thinking in Time by Dick Neustadt and Ernest May, about the uses of history for decision makers.
Probably Hedley Bull’s The Anarchical Society—my single favorite book about how to think about international relations.
The former is the best book for would-be policymakers. The latter, I find, is the best work for how to think about international relations. So I would start with those two.