American Foreign Policy in a Turbulent Age

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

Secretary Blinken, thank you so much for taking the time for this conversation, given all going on in the world, and for the essay you wrote for the November/December issue of Foreign Affairs.

ANTONY BLINKEN

Thanks, Dan. Good to be with you.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

The essay starts out by noting how contested and complicated the world is today. And so I want to start with your analysis of this pretty challenging, to put it mildly, moment in the global landscape. I don’t imagine that when you started this job almost four years ago, you imagined you’d be contending with major wars in the Middle East and in Europe, that you’d see the kinds of provocations we see almost daily from the Chinese in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, that you’d be hearing nuclear threats from Vladimir Putin that are serious enough that you have at least most of the American intelligence community spooked.

And so I thought before getting into responses and the policy response from this administration, it’d be useful to step back and get your sense of what brought us here over these past years or decades. What forces or decisions account for this not especially orderly moment in geopolitics?

ANTONY BLINKEN

Dan, I think it’s evident that we are in a new era, a new phase. The post–Cold War era is over, and there is a very robust competition to shape what comes next. And we have a number of revisionist powers, in different ways but nonetheless joined in wanting to exert their own spheres of influence, wanting to perpetuate their autocratic rule, wanting to reshape the international system in ways that benefit them—whether that’s Iran, whether that’s North Korea, whether that’s Russia—or, in different ways, China—all coming to the fore.

I think you have the extraordinary rapidity of technological change, which has also contributed to this. And then you have to look at, when we came in, what we inherited, because it’s easy, with distance now, to forget where we were. We had the worst economic crisis going back to the Great Depression. We had the worst global health crisis going back at least 100 years. We had democratic divisions in our own country, and we had alliances and partnerships that were fraying, and partners that were looking to hedge their bets in different ways, and a perception around the world, including from these adversaries that were aligning in new ways, that the United States was in an inexorable decline.

And I think that’s easily forgotten. And what’s also taken for granted is what we were able to do to put the United States back in a position of strength. Historic investments at home—whether it was through infrastructure, whether it was through the CHIPS and Science Act, whether it was through the IRA [Inflation Reduction Act]—that restored our competitiveness. And if you just look at where we are now, leaving aside the extraordinary macro numbers on unemployment, on getting inflation down to the point that we’re the envy of other major economies, on household incomes going up. People are still hurting because they’re not fully feeling the benefit, but it’s moving in that direction.

Foreign direct investment, which I see as one of the most important measures that we sometimes overlook in both directions. We’re the largest recipient; we’re also the largest contributor. Those relationships on foreign direct investment exhibit trust and confidence in the future. People don’t make the investments without it. It also reduces our dependencies in significant ways on, for example, China.

So we were able to do that and restore our competitiveness and at the same time, and we can come to this, reengage, reinvest, and reenergize, and even reimagine our alliances and partnerships. The result is, despite the fact that you have a world that does have a greater multiplicity, a greater complexity, a greater interconnectedness of challenges than at any time since I’ve been doing this, over 32 years, we’re in a much stronger position to contend with those challenges.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

Let me focus on the dimension of this that I think is most surprising to many people, which is just the return of a kind of war that seemed like it was a relic of the past. There’s obviously a political version of this debate, which you hear from people in Trump world, but if we go a little bit deeper, this does seem like a real systemic change and something that people in your position and policymakers in the United States more generally will be grappling with going forward.

How do you understand that systemic change? What has brought, both in the Middle East and Ukraine, the kind of war that, again, seemed like a thing of the past back to a really central preoccupation of American foreign policy?

ANTONY BLINKEN

You have a number of countries that, for a variety of reasons, have calculated that first of all, their own interests could be advanced in that way, and they’ve also sought to align in different ways with themselves—mostly marriages of convenience, if not conviction, but ones that have an impact, and this is the product of choices that they’ve made.

But let’s take each of these individually. The Russian aggression against Ukraine didn’t start in 2022. It started in 2014. And the Russian aggression against neighbors, in an attempt to re-create a greater Russia, or certainly to exert a sphere of influence, goes back well before that—2008 and Georgia. Now, at that time, the United States had 200,000 troops who were either in Iraq or Afghanistan. So we were tied down in ways that we no longer are as a result of ending the war in Iraq and ending America’s longest war in Afghanistan, freeing up resources, freeing up focus.

But Russia has been on this effort for some time, culminating in the reinvasion of Ukraine in 2022. China has also made, I think, no mystery of the fact that, certainly going back to 2015, economically it was determined to dominate the industries and technologies of the future. But beyond that, we saw emerge over that period of time a policy that was much more overtly aggressive abroad as well as repressive at home. So, again, that’s been in the making for some time. These things don’t happen with a light switch. It’s an evolution of things. 

And again, I think because these countries, as well as others, had a perception of the United States as being in decline when we took office, they were moving forward in those ways. I think we’ve put a big dent both in that perception—and, to the extent there was a reality to it, in that reality. The pushback against Russia has been quite remarkable, but so is the pushback against China. We now have greater convergence among allies and partners in Europe, in the Indo-Pacific, and beyond on how to deal with Russia and how to deal with China than we’ve had in any time since I can remember.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

The central focus of the Foreign Affairs essay, in many ways, is this grouping of countries that many people call an “axis,” though you do not use that word; the China-Russia-Iran-North Korea grouping. And as you noted, that group is cooperating in fairly alarming new ways that really seek to alter some of the basic principles of the international system and undermine U.S. leadership in that system.

As you project forward 15 years, long beyond your tenure here at the State Department, if they have succeeded, if we see that axis succeeding, that grouping succeeding, what will the world look like? What will that world that they seek to shape look like, and what will the decisions or mistakes that the United States and its allies have made that have allowed them to get there?

ANTONY BLINKEN

I think if you’re projecting forward and they have their way, you’ll certainly see, at the very least, a reassertion of spheres of influence that the United States and like-minded countries are kept out of. You’ll see greater bifurcation, greater divisions in the world. You may see, metaphorically at least, different kinds of iron curtains coming down, whether it’s on the way people are treated within countries or technology and the way it’s used among countries.

And I think it also portends, potentially, a world of conflict. Because I think what history teaches us, among other things, is that if you get into a spheres-of-influence world where countries are allowed to treat their own people, as well as treat each other, in ways that are inimical to everything we’ve tried to establish after two world wars to make sure that there wouldn’t be a third, you’re likely heading for a world of conflict—a world where, whether we like it or not, we’re going to remain interconnected, where we simply can’t put our heads in the sand and think that these things are going to happen and leave us immune, leave us unscathed. It will inevitably draw us in.

So I think the challenge is, we’ve, in my estimation at least, had a period of renewal—a renewal of our engagement around the world, a renewal of American leadership, a renewal of our alliances and partnerships—but using them in new ways, building a bridge between the Euro-Atlantic theater and the Indo-Pacific theater, creating a greater understanding that there is really an indivisibility of security that affects allies and partners in all of these areas.

I think if we lose that and if we retreat, then, far from protecting ourselves and staying out of wars and conflicts, we’re going to see more of them emerge. And inevitably, we’ll be drawn in. So that’s what I would be concerned about if we regress from this period of renewal. And the foundation that we’ve set—I think what we’re handing over is a strong hand for the next administration to play. It will have to decide how it plays it.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

There’s lots of commentary and lots of arguments in places such as Foreign Affairs about splitting this grouping, whether that’s a reverse Kissinger, bringing Russia away from China, or I guess a reverse-reverse Kissinger where you, again, split China off from Russia. You’ve spent a lot of time working and sitting in meetings with your Chinese counterparts, some meetings with your Russian counterparts, trying to do this. What is your sense of whether there are policy options that the United States has that could lead to divisions in this grouping that, over time, would become real rifts?

ANTONY BLINKEN

Look, I think many of these countries have made an affirmative choice, made an affirmative decision that’s less reflective of what we’ve done and is more the result of their calculation of what their self-interest is, what their weaknesses are. And that, in some ways, has brought them together. But it’s really been an affirmative choice, not a response to us.

I think Russia is on a course where that’s likely to continue, and I suspect North Korea, given some of the benefits that it’s getting, is likely to continue on that course. Iran, which, as a result of actions we’ve taken and others have taken, is in a position of increased weakness, is going to be even more dependent on some of these new relationships—particularly, for example, the relationship with Russia.

China has a different choice to make. It aspires to leadership. And in aspiring to leadership, it also has to, I think, assess how its own reputation is seen around the world. And in our efforts to demonstrate, for example, that Chinese actions have helped keep the Russian war against Ukraine going—because, for example, China is, by far, the biggest provider. Its companies are the biggest provider to Russia’s defense industrial base—70 percent of the components going into things that Russia needs to make for the war; 90 percent of the microelectronics are coming from China. [Beijing] doesn’t like the fact that we’ve exposed this, because on the one hand, it’s saying, “We’re for peace. We’re not taking sides. We want to get to peace.” And yet, it’s taking actions that are continuing to fuel this war, a war that poses not only the obvious threat to the Ukrainian people, but probably the biggest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War. So I think China has to ask itself hard questions about some of the alignment that it’s engaged in with these adversarial countries. I don’t pretend to know what decisions it’s going to make. 

There’s another aspect of this, Dan, too. What we’ve seen, very deliberately on our part, is this effort to, as I say, build these bridges between the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific theaters to show that what happens in one place is inevitably going to have repercussions in the other. And as a result of that, we have broken down silos in ways that I haven’t seen before. We have in NATO now four Indo-Pacific partners, who are part of NATO discussions, coming to the summits, and working on concrete projects. This is not an effort to bring NATO out of area. It’s because out of area is coming to the NATO countries.

Look again at the war against Ukraine by Russia. The two biggest drivers right now of keeping that war going, I mentioned China’s contributions to Russia’s defense industrial base—North Korea’s contributions, with missiles, with technology, and, of course, with now 10,000 or so North Korean forces. So the biggest drivers of keeping this war going are coming from the Asia-Pacific. European allies recognize that.

Similarly, what we’ve been able to do in opening people’s eyes is get a much bigger focus and much bigger interest from the Euro-Atlantic area on, for example, Taiwan. There’s a greater understanding now, since we took office, that were there to be a crisis over Taiwan as a result of actions that China takes, this would not leave anyone immune. You’ve got 50 percent of commercial container traffic going through the Taiwan Strait every day, 70 percent of the microchips made on Taiwan. You would have a crisis for the global economy if there were to be a crisis over Taiwan, and that has gotten these countries in Europe much more invested in going to China and saying, “No, we need to maintain peace and stability.” The Chinese like to say, “Taiwan is no one else’s business. It’s our business.” The world has said, “Actually, no, it is our business.”

So even though there is greater adversarial alignment out of necessity—the Russians desperately needed it after their initial efforts to erase Ukraine from the map failed—even though we see that, I think that’s far outweighed by what we’ve been able to do in bringing allies and partners much closer together with U.S. leadership, and also, as I said, creating bridges between them in ways we haven’t seen before.

There is now much greater de-risking when it comes to China that we see both in Europe but also in the Asia-Pacific area, Indo-Pacific area, and all of these things don’t just happen. They’re a result of very sustained diplomacy to focus countries on these common interests that we have, and we now see that playing out in ways that I think set a much stronger foundation for the future.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

Let me linger on the Ukraine dimension of this for a moment. You note in the essay that “while Washington doesn’t seek to climb up the ladder of escalatory actions, it must prepare for and manage greater risk.” This question of escalation and risk has, in some ways, been at the center of these conversations about U.S. support for Ukraine. You obviously know as well as anyone that some of the Ukrainians and the most pro-Ukraine voices in the United States will criticize the administration for being too scared of escalation and too sensitive to Russian threats. Others, including some going into the next administration, accuse you of courting nuclear catastrophe. As you’ve watched, wrestled with these decisions—

ANTONY BLINKEN

Sounds like the sweet spot.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

Well, that might be right, but as you’ve wrestled with these decisions and you’ve experimented in some ways, and learned from this back-and-forth over time, how do you understand escalation in the Ukraine context? What have we learned from the last three years of war as we’ve provided this unprecedented assistance to the Ukrainians?

ANTONY BLINKEN

A few things here, Dan. First, I think if you go back and look at every step along the way since the Russian re-aggression against Ukraine, we’ve worked to adapt and adjust to try to make sure that Ukraine had what it needed, when it needed it, to deal with what it was facing. And that’s evolved over time. Now, the fact that we had extraordinary information before the war—we were able to bring this to the world’s attention. We were able to bring it to the attention of allies and partners, and we were able to prepare.

Ukraine was in a much different place in 2022 than it was in 2014, when Russia took Crimea and then a chunk of the Donbas. And one thing that we did, for example, is, even before the Russian aggression, we did drawdowns of U.S. equipment going back to September, before the February aggression, and then again before the turn of the year. We did it quietly. But as a result, Ukraine had what it needed to fend off the Russian attempt to roll over the entire country and take Kyiv, and it failed. And Ukraine was able to push back the Russians and take back 50 percent of the territory that Russia initially gained.

And again, that didn’t just happen. It’s because we were well prepared. And then throughout, as the battlefield changed, we worked to adapt and adjust. But here are two things that I think are important. First, it’s very easy for everyone to make recommendations to assert we should do X, Y, or Z, but only one person in the United States bears the full responsibility for those decisions, and that’s the president of the United States.

And, of course, he rightly has to balance doing everything possible we can for Ukraine to make sure it can resist the Russian aggression and reverse it, on the one hand, but of course avoid getting us into a direct conflict with Russia and some kind of global conflagration. That’s a unique responsibility, and it’s easy, again, for anyone else to argue this, argue that. He is the one who has to decide, and I think President Biden’s navigated that very, very effectively.

Now, as you look at this escalation question, there are different forms of escalation. I think one thing that, in my mind, has been pretty clear is that NATO itself has been the strongest deterrent against Russia pursuing direct aggression against any of the NATO allies. It can’t afford to take on NATO. And so the great strength of NATO, and parentheses here, because it also gets lost in the mix—NATO is the single best investment in terms of avoiding war, preventing conflict of any that we could make.

The bargain at the heart of NATO, Article 5, an attack on one is an attack on all, means that any would-be aggressor knows that if they attack one of us, they have to take on all of us, which is why Russia has gone after everyone not in NATO, on the periphery, but hasn’t gone at NATO. So I think that’s been an effective deterrent.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

You could call that “peace through strength” if you wanted to.

ANTONY BLINKEN

It is. It is, and I hope that the investments in that strength, our engagement, our leadership of NATO, the necessary investments in defense, continuing to encourage allies and partners to do more—and there again, when we took office, nine allies were meeting the Wales pledge of investing two percent of GDP in defense. Now it’s 23 [allies], and the others are on track to meet the two percent. And by the way, that’s a floor, not a ceiling. We’re going to all need to do more.

But those investments and our engagement in the alliance, our leadership in the alliance, really is the best guarantor against war and against conflict. But at the same time, Russia has found many new ways of committing aggression in hybrid dimensions. That is a growing and increasing threat. And whether it’s in cyberspace or in outer space, whether it’s through using various means short of war in Europe and beyond, whether it’s acting in other theaters outside of Europe in ways that are inimical to our interests—that hybrid response, or a response that is not direct but in some other sphere, that’s a rising concern.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

President-elect Trump has, of course, said he would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours—what he means by that, who knows. As you look at the question of endgame, do you see a formula that would be acceptable to Ukrainians and is also plausible given where things are on the battlefield at this time? And do you see any willingness on Putin’s part to enter into a serious negotiation at this moment?

ANTONY BLINKEN

So right now, I don’t see the willingness on Putin’s part. Maybe that changes over the course of 2025. But as we look at 2025, we’ve worked very hard to make sure that Ukraine has what it needs, if necessary, to fight through 2025 or, if there is a negotiation, to be able to negotiate from a position of relative strength.

But what does success look like? First, it’s important to remember what Putin was trying to accomplish. He was trying to erase Ukraine from the map. He was trying to subsume it back into a greater Russia. And you don’t have to take my word for it. He said it repeatedly. And that’s failed, and that’s a strategic failure that he cannot and will not reverse.

And in the course of doing that, he’s precipitated so many of the things that he’s tried to prevent, including a NATO that’s stronger—that’s bigger, literally, by two new members; that’s better resourced than it was; Russia that is bearing an incredibly heavy burden because of the sanctions and export controls that we put in place. Everything Russia needs to do is harder, takes longer, and is more expensive.

But when it comes to Ukraine, the failure to succeed in getting what he wanted, erasing it from the map—that’s already a success for Ukraine. But success going forward is a Ukraine that is strong, independent, increasingly integrated with Western institutions, and that can stand on its own feet, militarily, economically, democratically, and Ukraine is on track to do that as a result of the support that we built up in all of these dimensions.

Now, the one thing that it will need for sure in any settlement is some kind of assurance, some kind of confidence, some kind of guarantee about its ongoing security. Because what we know is this: If there is going to be a ceasefire of some kind, or some kind of settlement, in Putin’s mind it’s going to be temporary. And almost certainly, he will try to use whatever time he has to rest, refit, rearm, and eventually re-attack.

So what’s going to be critical is making sure that, one way or another, Ukraine has what it needs to deter any future Russian aggression and, if necessary, defend against it. I think that’s going to be the key to any ceasefire resolution that’s really going to hold. And, of course, over time, the territories that remain in Russian hands—something will need to be done about those. But I really strongly believe that we can see a successful Ukraine, irrespective of where the line is drawn in the near term on the ground, and a Ukraine that’s able to stand strongly as an independent country and stand for itself militarily, economically, democratically.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

You lay out in the essay the steps that you and your colleagues took ahead of the invasion of February 2022 to try to deter Putin—and it was military support, it was the very creative use of declassified intelligence. That failed to deter him. What are the lessons that you draw from that deterrence failure in some sense? Not to say it was possible to deter him, but [the United States] did not succeed in deterring him. And when you apply those lessons to China and to the Taiwan Strait especially, what does that mean about where we are in deterrence in the Taiwan Strait and what do we need to be doing more of?

ANTONY BLINKEN

So when we had this extraordinary information, and we were able to use it in ways that we’d never been able to use it before, I wished we’d been able to do the same thing in 2014. We weren’t. There was so much that we knew but couldn’t share in 2014—not ahead of time but, for example, with the downing of the airplane, to try to rally the world in different ways.

We were able to do it, and it was quite remarkable. But even as we worked to deter the Russian aggression, including by testing out whether Russia was actually serious about alleged security concerns it had, we engaged them. I spent a lot of time with [Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey] Lavrov on this. We engaged them at NATO. We engaged them at the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe]. And then it became apparent that this was not about purported Russian security concerns posed somehow by Ukraine or NATO, but all about Putin’s imperial ambitions.

But even as we were working to deter by exposing, by engaging, we also used that time to prepare and, as I said, to put Ukraine in a position where it could defend effectively against the Russian aggression. And it did, given what Russia’s ambitions were in taking over the country. It stopped it. It pushed them back, only because we had incredible courage on the part of Ukrainians, but also because we were prepared. We’d given them things that they needed. We’d gotten the world ready, and then we were able to move on sanctions, on pressure against Russia immediately. We were able to move on reinforcing NATO’s eastern flank immediately, which I think helped deter any kind of wider aggression that could have taken place.

When it comes to China and the lessons learned, there are a few things that really stand out. One of the, I think, extraordinary moments was when early on in the aggression against Ukraine, the Japanese prime minister at the time, [Fumio] Kishida, stood up, and Japan stood strongly with Ukraine, and he said, “We’re doing this because what’s happening in Europe today could be happening in Asia tomorrow.”

And there was this recognition that it was so important to stand together against an aggression not only against Ukraine and its people, but against the principles at the heart of the international system that had been put in place to prevent conflict in the first place—territorial integrity, sovereignty, independence—these concepts that are at the heart of the United Nations Charter. Countries understood that it was strongly in their interest to stand up for those principles, even if the violation of those principles was happening half a world away.

And I think that’s been readily apparent to China as they’ve seen the response to the Russian aggression, as they’ve heard, increasingly, a chorus of countries saying, “We have to preserve stability. We have to preserve the status quo. We have to preserve peace across the Taiwan Strait because, were that to change, it would deeply affect our interests.” And our diplomacy has very much worked on that.

And then, again, because countries are seeing that the Russian war effort has been fueled in part by China’s support for Russia’s defense industrial base, and what North Korea is doing—that’s caused them to shift, I think, dramatically in their approach to China. If you look at where we were when we took office, because we were so divided from allies and partners, they were all hedging their bets. Europe was on the brink of signing a trade agreement with China. You had countries that were joining Belt and Road [Initiative]. You had the BRICS process as well.

But fundamentally, what we’ve now seen is a convergence, a convergence in how to approach the challenge posed by China. If you read what European leaders are saying and major leaders in Asia are saying about how to deal with China, we’d basically be reading from each other’s talking points. And the efforts to de-risk, the efforts to come together on everything from investment screening to export controls to secure supply chains—all of these things, as well as protecting technology, protecting as well our workers against unfair trade practices and against overcapacity. The convergence is extraordinary, and I think that’s been a product of the fact that eyes have been opened to this fact that so much of this is really indivisible.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

You write in the essay about the need to compete intensely but responsibly with China, which means, in your words, “making clear that the United States’ goal is not regime change and that even as both sides compete, they must find ways to coexist.” At a high level, that seems very sensible. But when you look at China’s role in the world and the way that role is changing over time, it is hard to imagine how you could change the current leadership in China or how you could have the current leadership in China and have a China in the world that is powerful and prosperous and quite active that would be consistent with the kind of world the United States wants to see.

Do you see a path to that given where Chinese behavior is now, and how do you see the arguments, Matt Pottinger and Mike Gallagher made in our pages, that you really need to change the nature of government in China in order to have true coexistence?

ANTONY BLINKEN

We cannot, will not, in my estimation, change the nature of China’s governance, its regime, call it what you want. And embarking on that course would be a fool’s errand. But we can, we must, and we are standing up strongly and building convergence with other countries to make sure that China can’t do what it’s setting out to do, which is to reshape the rules of the road, to reshape the international system in ways that allow it to advance its interests where they’re in conflict with ours, to advance its values where they’re in conflict with ours. And that’s exactly what we’ve been able to do over these last four years.

China is not going anywhere. We’re not going anywhere. And we have to start from that premise. But I think the notion of regime change policies is incredibly misguided. Policy change, that’s different, and that’s what we’re focused on. And we’re going to be much more effective in doing that when we have this convergence with other countries.

When we’re dealing, for example, with some of the unfair trade practices or overcapacity that China is engaged in, and countries, not just the United States, are deeply fearful of another China shock that we experienced a decade or 15 years ago—when any one of our countries is trying to deal with that alone, that’s one thing. Even the United States dealing with it alone, as the most powerful country in the world, where we have greater GDP than the next three countries combined, nonetheless we’re still 20 percent or so of world GDP. When we’re aligned with major partners in Europe, with the European Union, with partners in the Indo-Pacific, we might be 50 or 60 percent of world GDP—a much heavier weight that’s going to have a much greater impact on China changing its policies.

China also has reputational concerns. As I said, if it pretends to leadership, well, it can’t do it in a way that is simply through coercion and through bullying, because other countries eventually will stand up against that. Its own soft power is something that it takes seriously, even if it’s not been especially effective yet in asserting it, and that also gives you an ability to shape its policies and approach. The support for Russia’s defense industrial base, we’ve exposed that. China is very uncomfortable with that.

And I’ll say this: I’ve spent a lot of time with my Chinese counterpart, [Chinese Foreign Minister] Wang Yi. Many, many, many, many hours. And every meeting, almost every meeting, starts the same way. It starts with him complaining about a litany of things that we’ve done, which, to me, is the greatest evidence of the success of our approach. And it often focuses on everything we’ve done to bring these other countries into some kind of alliance against China, which he says is an anachronism of the Cold War. Well, the very fact that they spent so much time complaining about it is the most powerful evidence of the success that we’ve had.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

You’ve spent probably more time than you anticipated or want to traveling to the Middle East in the last year. You got back from Jordan yesterday. So let me turn to that set of crises. On Israel, you write in the piece that, “Without an end to the war in Gaza and a time-bound, credible path to statehood that addresses the Palestinians’ legitimate aspirations and Israel’s security needs, normalization cannot move forward,” this normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. At this particular moment, the prospects of a ceasefire in Gaza still seem quite remote from where the rest of us sit at least, and a path to Palestinian statehood seems even more remote, just given the consolidation of forces in the Israeli government, the lack of support among Israelis and among Palestinians at this point.

What do you see as the prospects for a ceasefire in Gaza before January 20, to start? And then second, the centrality of the two-state solution to American policy seems somewhat fantastical given where things are. What is the case for making that so central, and is there a way to shift to grappling with what is now what some people call a one-state reality that would, in fact, be more constructive?

ANTONY BLINKEN

So, Dan, on the ceasefire and return of hostages, we’re intensely focused on that, and we have been for many months, as the quickest and most effective path to ending the conflict in Gaza. Ending it in a way that helps ensure that October 7 can never happen again, ending it in a way that we have something that is durable, and ending it in a way that deals with the needs of the Palestinian people and ends the suffering of so many children, women, and men who’ve been caught in this crossfire of Hamas’s initiation.

And I think in this moment, Hamas, over the last couple of weeks, has reengaged in a more productive way on trying to get this over the finish line. And I think that’s because they’ve seen that the cavalry is not coming to the rescue. One of the things that they’ve tried to do throughout is to get a wider war, with Hezbollah coming in, with Iran coming in, with other Iranian-aligned proxies coming in. And that’s not happening, as we’ve seen, and that’s not happening because of the effective policies we pursued.

From day one, we wanted to ensure, to the best of our ability, that there wouldn’t be a wider war, both because that would lead to more death and destruction and because it would only prolong Gaza. Now that there’s clarity, because of the way we’ve been able to work with Israel to effectively defend against unprecedented attacks from Iran in a way that Iran is on its heels, because we’ve been able to work with Israel now to get an effective ceasefire in Lebanon, but also a much-weakened Hezbollah so that it’s not coming in, Hamas has to contend with that, and I think that does offer the possibility of landing this.

But then the question is, where do you go from there? And I think there are two things that are critical. First, we have to have something that makes sure that the ceasefire that’s achieved, if it is, is durable. And that means a post-conflict plan that allows Israel to withdraw its forces from Gaza but that ensures that there’s going to be security, effective governance, reconstruction in Gaza.

We spent a lot of time working on just that plan with Arab partners; engaged the Israelis, the Palestinians on this. And if we get the ceasefire and hostage deal, that’s what we’re going to have to move forward on almost immediately, and then probably hand over that work to the next administration, and it will decide what it wants to do.

Second, though, is the question of the long term, and there are two paths for Israel and for the region. There is a path that leads, I believe, to Israel’s enduring security. It’s integration with the region; it’s integration with a common security architecture that can further isolate Iran and deal with any aggression coming from Iran. We saw that in embryonic form when Iran attacked Israel in this unprecedented way, and the United States, for the first time, took part in Israel’s active defense—but also other countries, with our diplomacy bringing them in, not only in Europe but in the region. So you could see where this can go.

And of course, the key to that is the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. I think the incoming administration will have, I hope, a historic opportunity to build on the Abraham Accords, which is a terrific achievement, and one that we sought to deepen and expand, and get to Saudi-Israeli normalization that will also bring in other countries. But in order for that to happen, we need calm in Gaza, and that’s clear from the Saudis. But we also need a credible pathway to a Palestinian state. To the extent that Saudi Arabia insisted on that before October 7, it’s now even more convinced. And I’ve heard this directly from MBS (Mohammed bin Salman), about his views on the necessity of having a clear and credible pathway to a state.

Seventy percent of the population of Saudi Arabia is younger than its leader. They’ve seen what’s happened since October 7 in Gaza. They’re seized with this. Populations around the region are seized with this. So I think the premium on that is there. Now, there’s no question that people in Israel and Palestinians in this moment are not ready for that conversation. We’ve had, in all directions, this dehumanization where neither side can, in this moment, see the humanity in the other. And while that’s afflicting everyone, while you have these traumas in Israel from October 7, the traumas among Palestinians about what’s happened to people in Gaza since October 7, it’s very hard.

But when there is an end to the conflict in Gaza, when people are able to take a little bit of distance and look at the long term and how they can best assure their security, I think this pathway will become more credible again. Look, there are seven million Israeli Jews. There are five million or so Palestinians. Neither is going anywhere. That’s a fundamental reality. And I think if you look at what the possibilities are for how they coexist as opposed to resist, you still come back to two states, and the Palestinians deserve self-determination and a state of their own. But they have to answer Israel’s security concerns. This can’t go forward unless there’s an answer to those very well-placed concerns. Israelis look at the history of the last 20 years, and they say, “We got out of Gaza in 2005, unilaterally. We took down the settlements. We left, and what did we get? We got Hamas. We got out of Lebanon, Southern Lebanon, in 2000. We had another war in 2006, but it ended, and it ended with an agreement that Hezbollah would pull back, wouldn’t attack Israel. What did we get? We got rockets and mortars from Hezbollah.”

So they can’t accept, shouldn’t accept, a state based on resistance—a Palestinian state based on resistance, not coexistence. But I believe strongly that we can have something, a pathway, that is both time-bound and conditions-based. Palestinians have to know that there’s going to be the realization of a state within a certain period of time. Israelis have to know that that can only come about if certain conditions are met that really assure Israel’s security.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

And the difficulty of a ceasefire seems very clear, sitting from the outside. What seems more perplexing for many observers is the difficulty of getting adequate humanitarian assistance into Gaza and what appears to be a kind of lack of real U.S. pressure over time to get enough assistance to civilians in Gaza. What has not worked there? Why has that been such a struggle? And are there moments when the United States could have used more leverage, more pressure to make sure that there was adequate access?

ANTONY BLINKEN

I think there’s a lot that’s gone on over the last year plus on this, where, from day one, we’ve focused on trying to ensure, in the middle of a war, in the middle of a conflict that’s among the most complicated I’ve ever seen, because the population couldn’t go anywhere. . . Countries beyond Gaza made it clear that they would not take Palestinians to get them out of harm’s way, for very understandable reasons, which is that they didn’t believe the Israelis would let them back. But uniquely, you’ve had a situation where the population was trapped in a small area, and then uniquely, you’ve had a situation where the enemy, those responsible for October 7, were deeply enmeshed with the population, hiding in and underneath homes, apartment buildings, hospitals, schools, mosques. That does not obviate Israel’s responsibility for doing everything possible to protect civilians and to make sure that they could get the assistance they need. It does make things extraordinarily complicated. It has from day one.

But from day one, we were working to make sure that assistance could get through to people. I had a very, very lengthy argument with the Israeli government three or four days after October 7, when I went there, to just start to open a pipeline, which we did get open, through Rafah and then, ultimately, Kerem Shalom. And we expanded that, and it was moving forward insufficiently, but still moving forward.

We had an initial ceasefire and hostage agreement in November. The amount of assistance getting in during that week period doubled. At that point, we thought we were on a better trajectory. And then the conflict persisted into the new year, and the campaign in different parts of Gaza continued. It made things very, very difficult. We got to a point in April or May where there had been a significant degradation in the assistance that was going in. At that point in time, the president made some public comments, but I also wrote to my counterpart about what we needed to see happen, and if not there would be a change in U.S. policy. That letter actually didn’t become public until a lot later. And we saw changes, and Israel made additional efforts to try to ensure that assistance got in, and we saw improvement and progress, and then it went downhill again toward the end of the summer. Lloyd Austin and I engaged our counterparts as well. And since then, we’ve seen, especially in recent days, some real improvement.

But all of that said, the bottom line is that in this kind of conflict, it’s going to be very, very hard to do what’s really necessary for the people until the conflict comes to an end. One last thing. Israel has accomplished what it set out to accomplish strategically, and it did so several months ago, in order to make sure that October 7 couldn’t happen again. It wanted to dismantle Hamas’s military organization, and it’s done that. It wanted to get the leadership responsible for October 7. It’s done that. At this point, I believe that if it can get the hostages back, this should move to an end of conflict and a ceasefire. But that also requires the necessary arrangements to give Israel confidence that when it pulls its forces out, there won’t be a vacuum refilled by Hamas or something bad.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

On a less grim note, Syria has, I think, shocked all of us, and you’ve been working on this issue since the beginning of the civil war there during the Obama administration.

ANTONY BLINKEN

Yeah, that’s right.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

You’ve been in government during so many examples of this kind of change gone wrong, whether the Arab uprisings, what we’ve seen in Egypt, or Libya, or in Tunisia, or so many cases. What are the lessons of those failures for U.S. policy? And if we look back a couple years from now in Syria as the rare success story, what will have happened in the interim to get it there, and what role should U.S. policy have played to get it there?

ANTONY BLINKEN

Well, I think you see in what’s happened in Syria almost the most powerful proof point in the argument we’ve been making and the policies we’ve been pursuing to show the indivisibility of security and progress around the world, and the connections between different parts of the world, and the effect that what’s happening in one part of the world can have on another.

And so in the case of Syria, there are two reasons why we saw the collapse of the Assad regime. One is Assad’s utter failure to engage politically and to try to find a way forward that somehow brought his country back together after all he’d done to tear it apart. And you were actually seeing many countries in the region basically rushing to normalize with Assad, and they’d concluded he wasn’t going anywhere. We were holding the line on that. That was fundamental mistake number one that Assad made.

But much more determinative was the fact that the powers in countries that he was relying on to prop him up and to keep him going all of a sudden were massively distracted by problems of their own making that we exacerbated. Russia, because of being bogged down in Ukraine, a war of its making but bogged down because of everything we’ve done to contest what it was doing, was not able to turn around and support Assad. Iran, because of the work that’s been done to weaken its position economically, to not only stand up when it committed this unprecedented aggression against Israel but also to help enable the Israelis to deal with it in a way that has fundamentally weakened Iran, including taking out its air defenses—it was unable. And, of course, Hezbollah, as a result of the work that was done, both to weaken Hezbollah but also to get in place a ceasefire that they desperately wanted, keeping them focused on Lebanon, not on Syria. For all of those reasons, the bottom dropped out.

So I think that’s instructive. But the other thing is this. We’ve now rushed in to try to create alignment among all of Syria’s neighbors and the broader international community about the direction that the world and the region hopes this will go in, because we want to make sure that as the new powers assert themselves in Syria, notably the HTS [Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham], they’re hearing clearly the expectations of the world, of the surrounding countries, because they need support. They’ll want recognition, and we’ve set clear expectations now.

Just over the last week, you saw the joint statement that emerged from our meetings in Aqaba, hosted by the Jordanians, about what is expected. And there again, I think this shows—we’ll see where it lands, but when the United States is leading and engaged, when we can build alignment, when we can build convergence about the direction that we want something to take, we’ve got a much better chance of actually seeing that come to fruition.

So I think we have a real stake in making sure that we stay engaged. We know what Syria can become if we let it become a breeding ground for terrorism, a source of mass displacement of populations—both things that have had profound consequences for countries well beyond Syria. So I hope that our diplomacy, our leadership, our engagement will continue to try to move countries and move Syria in a direction that takes advantage of this extraordinary moment for the Syrian people.

There are no guarantees at all. We’ve seen too many times, one dictator can be replaced by another. One set of outside influences can be replaced by another set of outside influences. One extremist group can give way to another extremist group. So this is fraught, but we know almost certainly that absent our engagement, absent our leadership, that’s the way it will go. We have a chance and the Syrian people have a chance if concerned countries, including the United States, work to move this in a good direction.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

Let me close with the observation that so much of what you’ve talked about today, what you’ve worked on over the past four years, what the president has talked about, is about the importance of alliances, about new groupings and convergences. You have a president coming in that speaks in very different ways about all of those and, in some cases, has threatened to undo the work you’ve done. Are you confident about the durability of our alliances and of the new kinds of groupings that you’ve helped build over these past four years, even in the face of a Trump administration that might take a very different posture towards them?

ANTONY BLINKEN

Look, Dan, I’m not going to prejudge what the incoming administration is going to do. They will have to make these decisions. And I hope that as they look at this in a clear-eyed way, that they’ll see the merits of sustaining these alliances and partnerships, the merits in terms of making sure that America’s interests are protected, advanced, defended.

I think we’ve shown the results that come from building these partnerships, building these alliances, building this convergence, and my hope would be that that continues. And look, I think if you look at where the world is now, what I’ve heard these last four years is a strong desire across the board for that engagement, for that leadership on the part of the United States. And I suspect that’s what the Trump administration will continue to hear, and I believe it has every possibility of standing up and doing exactly that. But again, it’s not for me to judge. We have to see where this goes.

But what I want to do is this. I want to make sure, even in the short amount of time that we have left, about a month or so, as we speak, that we do everything we can to hand over the strongest possible hand for the next administration to play. That’s my goal. That’s my objective. We want them to succeed for the country, and anything that we can do, both in terms of sharing information, sharing our own perspectives, but also making sure we use every single minute we have left to pass the baton in a way that gives them a strong hand. That’s what I’m focused on.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

Secretary Blinken, thank you for such a rich conversation. Thank you for the essay in the November/December issue, and good luck with this next month.

ANTONY BLINKEN

Thank you, Dan.

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

We hope that lots of this comes to pass.

ANTONY BLINKEN

Great to be with you. Thanks.