Mark Labberton:
What a joy and honour it is today to welcome Condoleezza Rice as our guest on Conversing. Secretary Rice is currently the director of the Hoover Institution and the Thomas and Barbara Stevenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy at Stanford University. She has had a legacy of public service for decades, having served as the 66th Secretary of State, the second woman and the first black woman to hold that post. She also served as President George W. Bush’s assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. In addition to these things, she is also a founding partner of an international strategic consulting firm.
To welcome Secretary Rice today is to welcome someone who is a polymath whose understanding of issues across the nation and across the world is pretty extraordinary. And it’s in that framework that I invite her into this conversation today about the state of US international affairs, the role of the church, our understanding of our national life, and this moment in American politics. Secretary Rice, what an honour and joy it is to have you on Conversing today. Thank you for making time for this.
Condoleezza Rice:
A pleasure to be with you.
Mark Labberton:
One of the things that many people are asking in this critical time is really how we understand now the state of US international relations. And since this has been such a field of involvement and expertise, tell us how you see and feel about where we are internationally as a country in relationship to our allies and some of our enemies as well.
Condoleezza Rice:
Well, it’s a bit of a chaotic time, let’s put it that way. But I would just say the beginning of any administration is a bit chaotic because you have circumstances in which the agencies, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Treasury, aren’t actually fully staffed up. So the White House tends to have a lot of activity, and we have more activity than usual, but I wouldn’t make early judgments about where all of this is going. The president’s been very clear, and he was elected on the basis that he wanted to see the allies do more. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I actually used to go to Brussels and beg the NATO allies to pay their 2%. I probably wouldn’t have threatened not to defend them, but he’s gotten their attention, and now we’re seeing Europe perhaps step up more.
I continue to hope that we will find a way to help Ukraine so that Vladimir Putin doesn’t benefit from the aggression that he committed, but they have very good people in place. Marco Rubio is going to be a fine Secretary of State. I know Mike Waltz, a national security advisor who worked with me when I was in government. So I think we need to let things settle out a bit. The United States will undoubtedly play a different role, but that is really the outcome of what’s been 80 years of post-World War II American engagement. So we need to ask, what are our values? What are our interests? And I think we’re going to see a good solid American role in foreign policy.
Mark Labberton:
So you would not then be among the voices that are saying that the world order is in the process of having just received shock treatment?
Condoleezza Rice:
Well, the world orders received something of a shock. There’s no doubt about that. But I was asked at one point, is this a revolution or an evolution? And I say a revolution is what happens when you don’t see an evolution coming, and this has been evolving for some time. I do think that the United States, it’s not that we’re overextended, but we’re pretty extended. We do need our allies to step up and do more. I made this point in a Foreign Affairs piece that was very much supportive of a strong US role in the world, but we can’t do it alone, and we don’t have the bandwidth to do it alone. Fortunately, we do have allies who can have a major role, particularly regionally, in making certain that our values and our interests are defended.
Mark Labberton:
So as you look at the things that are happening in the world, what would you say are of the greatest importance that America needs to be attending to? And what about for the sake of the world itself, especially, I’m thinking of things like the potential cuts to USAID and other such things?
Condoleezza Rice:
Well, let me start with the things that we need to pay attention to. We really do need to rebuild our defence industrial base. The Ukraine War showed us that we really have neglected our ability to produce ammunition. Shipbuilding in the United States is at a low ebb. You hear the president talk about Greenland, for instance. We have not a single icebreaker that is actually serviceable at this point. The Russians have several, the Chinese have several. So I would say start by rebuilding the basic infrastructure.
Secondly, we do need to take a hard look at some of the things that we’re doing. I’m going to separate the fate of USAID from the fate of American Foreign Assistance, because I’m a great believer that foreign assistance is one of the important tools in our toolkit of foreign policy. It hasn’t always been as well coordinated with USAID as it might be. And I actually am one who believes that the absorption of USAID into the State Department is the right answer. That doesn’t mean that a lot of the people who work for USAID are not worthy. They’re valuable people, but the Secretary of State needs to be the one who really is directing how we use US Foreign Assistance. A lot of what we do is humanitarian, and you know this, Mark, because the Christian community, the faith-based community is very much involved in this. A lot of what we do is purely humanitarian, purely lifesaving. We should just do that.
Some of what we do is also strategic. What countries do we help to develop to be less fragile so that they don’t become hubs for terrorism? As a matter of fact, Secretary Rubio talked about the problem of fragile states in his hearings. And sometimes, our assistance is to stabilize places in the world so that we don’t face a security problem down the road. If you go back to the period before 9/11, everybody could have seen that Afghanistan was a big problem. It was an unstable, fragile state run by frankly, a group of crazy people, the Taliban, and they had allowed Al-Qaeda to come and burrow in. It was from there that Al-Qaeda was able to train and carry out the attack that they carried out on 9/11.
So very often these things are connected to our own security. It’s not just largesse. I’m a big believer in largesse. That’s my Christian value. But I also believe that some of this foreign assistance is for security reasons. And when we talk about challenging China worldwide, we have to recognize that we need to help states create stable environments in which they can get foreign direct assistance, foreign direct investment, private investment. We’re never going to have enough foreign aid to challenge China’s belt and road, but we can bring real jobs to places. We can bring real investment, but sometimes we have to help states develop the infrastructure to do that.
Mark Labberton:
Now, that sensibility seems to me to suggest, as I am assuming is true, an absence of what is mounting up in ever more visceral ways of Christian nationalism in our country. And it does affect a lot of things that are happening, and it maps onto some of the steps that have been taken by the government as well as just the cultural moment that we’re in. What comments would you offer about Christian nationalism?
Condoleezza Rice:
Yeah. I don’t know that it’s a very useful term. I don’t actually really know what it means. I do think that if we think about, am I patriotic, do I love my country? Am I a nationalist? Absolutely. Am I Christian? Yes. So I hope that people who are both patriotic and Christian are not being painted with a broad brush. But if we think about what it means to be Christian, it means to care about every human being because every human being is created in the image of the Lord, and therefore, every human being has worth. And that has been a lot of the impulse, a lot of the reason that, for instance, faith-based institutions are so involved in life-saving elements, whether it’s World Vision or Catholic Charities or PEPFAR. Often, the base of that has been people who are faith-based and believe that it is their responsibility to care about those who have less.
When we launched PEPFAR in the Oval Office, I’ll never forget, one of the closing comments from President Bush was, “To whom much is given, much is expected.” That is the core of our Christian belief. It is also the core of our Christian belief. If you look at the work of Jesus Christ, he was willing to sit with those who were different, those who were dispossessed. He didn’t just draw around him people who were like him. So I think we could learn from that.
Mark Labberton:
Yeah. One of the things about this period is the way the Christian Church is involved in American politics, and in particular, the so-called evangelical part of the Christian Church, and that’s a complicated term like Christian nationalism, that could easily be worked out for quite some time before getting to clarity about what it really actually means. But in the middle of that, there is a reorganising of categories and the way the Christian faith is being talked about in the public square. I’m just curious, as a community, Christian yourself, how would you describe the state of the Christian influence in American politics and life?
Condoleezza Rice:
Well, Christian influence I think comes through adherence to Christianity first and foremost. And I would like to think that the early church, we would be the people who would be seen to care about people. Really, before the early church orphanages and hospitals and caring for those who had been cast aside, that wasn’t really the ancient world, and Christianity made a big difference in that. So I think that’s one thing that I would love to see from Christians. It’s recognizing how much you have and therefore being willing to be a voice on behalf of those who are dispossessed.
Another place that I hope will continue to speak up is about religious freedom worldwide. I do believe that the people who can’t make voice for themselves about the right to worship who you please, and the right to worship without fear of retribution is one of the most important things that Christians can do. And by the way, when I was Secretary of State, not because I was Christian, but because I was Secretary of State, I would take a list of religious objectors with me to countries like China and say, “You need to let house churches operate.” So that’s another element that I think the church should be involved in.
The evangelical church has been very involved in human trafficking issues. We actually do have a problem of modern slavery, and that’s another place that I think we can see. So I think there’s actually a lot of a good record to the degree that it feels exclusionary you don’t belong. That’s not to me where you want the church to be, but the church has a lot of potential to be a really good force in the world. And by the way, with other religions too, not just with Christianity.
Mark Labberton:
What would be some of your most passionate prayers for our nation and for the world right now?
Condoleezza Rice:
Well, my most passionate prayer is that our leaders would have, and I actually pray this prayer, that they would have judgment and discernment. That they would have compassion. That they would lead from a position of knowing how much America has, and that they would understand that our role in the world derives from our universal belief in human freedom, and that it is the only way that human beings have the dignity that they should have as having been created by God. By the way, I would say turn that inward as well. Maybe we haven’t been focused enough on Americans who don’t have those benefits.
At our churches, I’m sure at churches around the country, there’s a movement to do something for the homeless. There’s a movement to do something for kids who are going to go to school without shoes or without backpacks, and to try to make more, even more equal what it is like to be an American too. So it’s not all about international. And I do want to say that I think one of the reasons we’ve had a bit of a backlash against some foreign assistance is that people wonder, “Well, are you thinking about Americans in the same way?” So I think we have a big challenge ahead of us in that regard.
Mark Labberton:
Secretary Rice, I know your time is limited, and I just want to say again, how much gratitude I feel for your willingness to come on today, and in particular to just say more personally how grateful I am for you and for the witness of your life and the integrity with which you have served. So thank you very, very much, and God bless you in all that you’re doing.
Condoleezza Rice:
Thank you very much. And thank you for your leadership for many, many years in Christian formation and in teaching the next generation of great pastors across the country and across the world.
Mark Labberton:
Thank you.
