Talking US national security with returning Senior Fellow Thomas Wright

Thomas Wright:
I grew up in Ireland and moved to the United States for graduate school in 2001, four weeks before 9/11. I always had a deep interest in international history and world politics. When I was pursuing my doctorate at Georgetown, I was fortunate to work closely with John Ikenberry, who is one of the leading scholars in the field of U.S. strategy and international order and used qualitative methods in his work. Through him, I also had the opportunity to engage and work with practitioners of U.S. foreign policy. After I finished my doctorate, I considered a career in academic international relations, but was more drawn to policy and think tanks.

Thomas Wright:
I can think of three lessons: First, pay attention to the linkages between different regions and issues. Those are often critically important but can fall through the cracks if the process is siloed. Second, even if you don’t think something will happen, if there is a 20% chance that it might, you should have a contingency plan. Third, think about your strategy for the medium term and long term, but always keep in mind what it means operationally for the short term. What do you need to do now to get to where you want to go?

Thomas Wright:
We tended to prioritize the regional geopolitical issues that our leadership was grappling with the most. In practice, this meant that we spent about half our time on Russia-Ukraine and then a decent chunk of time on U.S.-China relations, major power competition globally, and geoeconomics. All of this involved cooperating closely with the other directorates working on these issues.

Thomas Wright:
National security strategies often fall into two traps: the Christmas ornament problem, whereby everyone insists on including their pet issue, and the tendency to sand down the edges so much that it doesn’t actually say anything. The way around this is to make sure the senior leadership takes ownership of the document, and you have a clear understanding of what it is that you want to say. We were fortunate that Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor, was very intensely engaged in the document and that we were broadly aligned from an early stage about what we wanted to say.

Thomas Wright:
The central argument on strategic competition in an interdependent world holds up well, I think, but the thing I missed was the extent of the domestic dysfunction in the United States, particularly with the return of Trump to the presidency in 2025. I’m still coming to terms with what that means for the trajectory of strategic competition and the international order.

Thomas Wright:
I plan to focus on many specific issues, including Russia-Ukraine, strategic competition in an interdependent world, the impact of artificial intelligence on national security, and geoeconomics. But I think the overarching question I’m thinking about is how should we try to rebuild the international order after Trump’s second term. It almost certainly cannot just be a restoration, so what comes next? 

Thomas Wright:
For the Trump administration, the blind spot is obvious. The administration really has no idea how the global economy works and why trade is not zero-sum. That, of course, comes from the top down. More generally, I think we still have a lot to do to integrate economics into mainstream foreign policy thinking. We did a lot on it in the Biden administration. Sullivan, for example, laid a lot of that thinking out in two speeches at Brookings. But the foreign policy community writ large still conceives of its role primarily through the lens of military power, diplomacy, and sometimes development, rather than fully appreciating the effects of economic and technological interdependence.

Thomas Wright:
Read history, especially biographies. Learn about international relations theory, but also know how to leave it behind and not be defined by it. Read The Financial Times or The Wall Street Journal every day in hard copy, cover to cover. Grapple with real-world problems. Recognize that there are no easy solutions. Write even if it’s just for yourself to start with. Focus more on networking with your peers and helping them network with each other rather than networking up. Remember that, regardless of party, we’re all trying to deal with the same set of international issues, and there are people acting in good faith on both sides. Be willing to change your mind as more facts come to light.