The road to innovating competitive statecraft

March 16, 2023

The current strategic imperative for U.S. foreign policy is to develop a competitive statecraft, or the ability to integrate all elements and efforts of like-minded partners. A competitive statecraft would coordinate the advancement of partners’ national interests, overcome obstacles and capitalize on new opportunities as they emerge — in every part of the world.

ASU Distinguished University Fellow and former National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster expanded on the concept of competitive statecraft in a workshop hosted by the Arizona State University Competitive Statecraft Initiative at ASU’s Barrett and O’Connor Washington Center in late February. The discussion, moderated by ASU Ambassador-in-Residence Michael C. Polt, served as a precursor to the ASU Forum on Innovating for Competitive Statecraft, being held March 29–31 in Tempe, Arizona. Speakers standing in front of an audience at ASU Form on Innovating for Competitive Statecraft. Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster expanded on the concept of competitive statecraft during the workshop, which was moderated by Michael C. Polt and served as a precursor to the ASU Forum on Innovating for Competitive Statecraft, being held March 29–31. Photo courtesy ASU Download Full Image

“I think for so often, too often, especially since the end of the Cold War, we did recognize the continuous interaction with enemies, rivals and adversaries, but it was a linear concept,” said McMaster when explaining his definition of competitive statecraft. “It really was based on the assumption that we would make linear progress toward advancing our security interests, advancing our prosperity, advancing our influence in the world, and that undermines our strategic competence if you don't recognize the competitive nature of foreign policy and national security.”

A key component of competitive statecraft, and a longstanding blind spot in American foreign policy, is strategic empathy, or considering the ideologies, emotions and aspirations of others. A lack of strategic empathy can create foreign policy traps, such as unwarranted optimism and proximity bias. An alternative to competitive statecraft, “leading from behind,” has sometimes created regional voids that American adversaries have exploited for their own purposes.

“You see this with everything in connection with the war in Ukraine, you saw it in Kosovo, in the Balkans in the 1990s. That it really took the United States to do something,” said McMaster. “This vacuum, this perception of us leaving has allowed Russia to portray itself (and) play the role of both arsonists and firemen in the region, and, of course, they're hedging its confrontation with China's long-term investments and arms, procurements and so forth.”

A related problem is chronic American underinvestment in defense. As McMaster pointed out, the U.S. defense budget is much smaller in total compared to the relief checks that were sent to Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. And the COVID-19 pandemic itself revealed U.S. vulnerabilities in terms of critical supply stockpiles, as well as the country’s industrial and manufacturing base.

McMaster identified three lessons from past U.S. foreign policy mistakes that should be instructive for future decisions:

Don't under underestimate the amount of time you should take to think about the nature of the challenge you're facing.
Identify the assumptions on which the planning effort is based, especially assumptions concerning the degree in which you assess like-minded partners who have agency and influence over that challenge.
The president deserves multiple options to illuminate the disadvantages for the decision-maker, and to ultimately point out the best option.

Despite the significant and complex challenges facing the country, McMaster believes the future is bright.

“I think our confidence is shaken. And I think there has to be a deliberate effort on the part of our leadership, but not even wait for a political class to do this,” McMaster said. “I think we should be Ameri-cans. We’ve had to do this in the past. It's going to take years, but it's gonna take even longer if you don't start now.”

Watch McMaster’s full discussion on innovating for competitive statecraft, organized in collaboration with the ASU Leadership, Diplomacy and National Security Lab.

Annie DeGraw

Strategic communications manager , Media Relations and Strategic Communications

Annie.DeGraw@asu.edu

Physician and longtime ASU office director who treated refugee women takes on new expanded role at UMass

The announcement that Dr. Crista Johnson-Agbakwu was leaving Arizona State University was — as you might expect when it is about someone held in such high esteem by her colleagues — made “with somewhat mixed emotions, but mostly great excitement.”Sabrina Oesterle, director of the School of Social Work-based Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center (SIRC), recently wrote those words to s...

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Physician and longtime ASU office director who treated refugee women takes on new expanded role at UMass

Crista Johnson-Agbakwu says she is pleased she could set 'a very high bar to uplift communities of color'

March 16, 2023

Sabrina Oesterle, director of the School of Social Work-based Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center (SIRC), recently wrote those words to school faculty about Johnson-Agbakwu, a physician who since 2008 has served as founding director of SIRC’s Office of Refugee Health and as founding director of Valleywise Health’s Refugee Women’s Health Clinic. Portrait of Crista Johnson-Agbakwu Crista Johnson-Agbakwu, formerly of the ASU School of Social Work, is the new executive director of the inaugural Collaborative in Health Equity at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School in Worcester. Photo courtesy Crista Johnson-Agbakwu Download Full Image

Johnson-Agbakwu is the new executive director of the inaugural Collaborative in Health Equity at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School in Worcester. She began her new duties Feb. 1, and plans to move from Phoenix to Massachusetts in June.

“This is an incredibly amazing and important opportunity that will take Dr. Johnson-Agbakwu’s work to the next level,” Oesterle wrote. “Her new role will be an institution-spanning leadership role to center health equity throughout the entire health enterprise in terms of innovations in patient care, research, training/education and community-partnered engagement and embeddedness.”

Johnson-Agbakwu said that in her new role she will oversee health equity matters for UMass Chan’s three schools — medical, nursing and graduate — as well as the university hospital and its regional health care partners, community stakeholders and global health initiatives.

She said she needed the 15 years she spent at ASU “to hone my craft, be in the weeds, building community partnerships, learning how to build trust, teach trainees, all using the precise skills, now on a much bigger playing field. ... I’ve just stepped from one platform to an entirely different, new one.”

‘With a team you can move mountains’

She came to ASU “brand-spanking new out of two fellowships,” but encountered strong support from a team of colleagues who had a shared vision and understanding of what was possible, she said.

“With a team you can move mountains, and I’m blessed to have had that kind of team with the heart and the soul and the dedication,” she said.

Johnson-Agbakwu said, already, the duties at her new position are challenging.

“I’m literally drinking from the fire hose right now — and I haven’t even set foot there,” she said with a laugh. “It’s a huge new platform I will have to truly effect change, to advance change for underserved people of color. I will have the role to create pathways to not just recruiting underrepresented learners and faculty, but ensuring the graduation of these scholars, not merely to help them survive but to thrive.”

Johnson-Agbakwu said what she accomplishes in her new position will be based on a moral responsibility she takes seriously “as a woman of color who has dealt with bias not only in society but in the academy and medicine.”

It’s not a complete goodbye, she said, as she is co-principal investigator on two grants received while at ASU that she will see through to completion.

‘I was embraced with open arms’

“What I really value from my time at ASU is that collaborative spirit. When I came on in 2008 as a clinician, actually the first clinician to join SIRC, and the unique role in my duality as a physician as well as a researcher,” she said. “I was bringing a unique skill set in not only minority populations, but broadly regarding all new arrivals. I brought something very unique, and was embraced with open arms.”

Johnson-Agbakwu said she often describes her ASU work as a trifecta of community engagement/partnership; research, both community-driven and through leadership; and clinical care. All of these components combined to profoundly impact learners she taught and worked with, she said.

“I’ve been privileged to have such legions of learners and be a part of inspiring them as they pursue their careers, wherever they might go, that they would take away important skills. I’m overwhelmed when I get that kind of feedback, even years down the road, about the impact it’s had on their lives,” she said. “You think about how you set an example and lead by example, setting a very high bar to uplift communities of color, especially those that have been marginalized.”

Reflecting on what she hopes her students gained, Johnson-Agbakwu cited “cultural humility, advocacy for those without a voice and those who have pursued similar careers (in the health professions). You say, wow, you passed the baton, and they are running with it.”

Oesterle said she and her colleagues are very proud of Johnson-Agbakwu and wholeheartedly congratulate her.

“We will miss her as an integral partner of our SIRC team, but we also know that our work together will continue,” Oesterle wrote.

Johnson-Agbakwu said she will miss the camaraderie at ASU, where she found not merely lifelong colleagues, but lifelong friends.

“The people I have met are people for whom I have a deep bond with,” said Johnson-Agbakwu, who states she will return often to visit. “This isn’t the end, it’s just the transition, and we will always remain close.”