2024-09-06 15:05:27
In an interview for Aktuálně.cz, former US Secretary of Homeland Security and influential Republican Michael Chertoff criticizes presidential candidate Donald Trump for his approach to NATO and Russia.
Chertoff admits that he, too, was “grossly mistaken” when, like other American officials, he thought that the Kremlin would no longer pose a threat after the attacks of September 11, 2001. That is why he considers the presidential elections in the USA to be one of the most important in his life.
“Depending on who becomes president, we could witness efforts to fundamentally change the basic principles and standards on which the United States stands,” warns Chertoff, who spoke at the Globsec Forum 2024 weekend conference in Prague.
Former US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff. | Photo: Michal Cizek / AFP / AFP / Profimedia
I recently spoke with journalist Jan Kaliba, who after six years in the United States wrote a book with the subtitle “an angry country”. Do you agree with this assessment?
I don’t think we’re more divided than ever. You know, we had a civil war and that was when it was the worst. In the last maybe fifteen years, we have seen divisions in society appear and disappear. People have had and will always have different opinions.
And if you look at the last fifty years?
I would agree that we are indeed in a period of slightly greater division than perhaps twenty years ago. I think part of it was due to the economic crisis. The pandemic has also made it worse. And perhaps how people have moved geographically over time, often resulting in a large concentration of people of a certain opinion in one place.
Perhaps the most significant contributors to this have been social media and phones, as they allow people to seek out like-minded people online while avoiding views that might conflict with their beliefs. They can tailor their news coverage to only reinforce what they want to believe.
He began his career in 1983 as a federal prosecutor in New York, where he led the prosecution of the heads of five major mafia families. After that, at the Department of Justice, he oversaw, among other things, the investigation of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Between 2005 and 2009, he served as Secretary of Homeland Security in the George W. Bush administration, leading the largest reorganization of federal civil servants since World War II.
He remembers working for the former Republican president as a privilege. “Bush was very bright, articulate and had an excellent memory. When we met weekly on terrorism, I had to be perfectly prepared because he remembered details from past conversations and often referred to them,” he recalls.
Chertoff, now 79, founded and built a global security risk management and growth consulting firm after retiring from politics. Although he is a member of the Republican Party, he supported Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election against Donald Trump.
But the division of American society was not always there. After the attacks from On September 11, 2001, as the top Justice Department official, you sat in the FBI command center leading the response to Al Qaeda terror. The US was united by this threat.
Yes, a few days after that terrible event, I went to Congress with the FBI director at the time. Congressmen gathered in a large room, Republicans and Democrats stood side by side and sang “God Bless America” at the end of the meeting. That unity of effort is something I still remember.
Unfortunately, in recent times we have seen a tendency towards what I call the football team approach, where each side retreats to its own side and, with a few exceptions, adopts the views held by that team.
The Republican administration you were a part of built on the legacy of former President Ronald Reagan. She believed in a strong NATO and wanted to strengthen US relations with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. How are Republicans doing today under Donald Trump?
You are right, President Bush was still one of the supporters of strong alliances and would do anything for it. He wanted a free market with little regulation and held that people had an uncompromising need for unrestricted freedom of expression and belief. I think that over the years, a large part of the Republican Party has become more populist. They are much more willing to try to influence the economy, there is a greater willingness to impose ideologies on people. I also see growing isolationism as a big problem.
The presidential election in November will be one of the most important in my life. Depending on who becomes president, we could see efforts to fundamentally change the basic principles and norms on which the United States stands.
For example?
Observance of the rule of law, respect for freedom of speech and the opinions of others. All of this could be weakened. We could also have a government that would be much less willing to stand by our allies.
If Donald Trump wins, what kind of president will he be? Could he, for example, take the United States out of NATO?
I can’t predict or read his mind, but I think it’s important that we realize that our alliances with other countries in different parts of the world are critically important to our own well-being. It means we have friends and allies to help us when we need help. Of course, it is fair to say that each NATO member country should do its part, but we have certain resources and technologies that others do not, and it is appropriate that we share them with our allies.
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What development do you personally hope for in terms of NATO’s role in the world?
Most of the NATO countries are rightly investing more in defense now. I think we’re all interdependent, and with an aggressive Russia, that’s more important than ever.
When NATO stood very firmly with the US after 9/11 and the Allies were helping us in Afghanistan with terrorism, I remember thinking how remarkable it was that we as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization were operating in the Middle East. At that time, we all believed that Russia was no longer a threat, that this was the so-called end of history, and that we could focus on other problems. We were terribly wrong. I was wrong too. NATO is more important now than at any time in the last 25 or 30 years.
It’s not the first time I’ve heard that you’ve made a terrible mistake. Former adviser to President Barack Obama, Michael Kimmage, told me the same thing in an interview recently. How is it possible that two successive US administrations underestimated Russia like this?
In retrospect, I ask the same question. I think we may have – and I’m not sure if this is the right word – underestimated or rather underestimated that there will be forces in Russia that will not welcome democracy and freedom and will use the opportunity to return to an autocratic regime.
Vladimir Putin got along quite well with both Bush and Obama, but somewhere along the way, whether he planned it from the beginning or came to it gradually, he decided to become an autocrat. Part of this was that he began to perceive the West as an enemy, which began in 2014 (that’s when the war in Donbas started – editor’s note) and culminated in the start of a full-scale war in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump is trying to distance himself from European problems and has repeatedly made it known that the United States under his leadership will not help Ukraine. Can you imagine such a situation?
I think it would be a truly tragic mistake for us to go our separate ways. Yes, it is important that all NATO members contribute assets, personnel and capabilities to the common alliance, it is not a one-way street. If the alliance fell apart, the Americans would suffer.
It is important to send a signal to Russia that we are aligned, that we have the same basic values, and that Putin is not acting in our interests, but is trying to undermine and weaken us. We have to be realistic about who our friends are and who our adversaries are. Trump is just building his campaign on it.
An important part of Donald Trump’s campaign is also the argument that his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, was in charge of the border with Mexico, where – in the words of the former president – there is a critical situation and criminals are penetrating through it bringing crime and disease. Could this issue decide the election and is it putting Harris at a disadvantage?
It is not, and for one simple reason. I think it has not been appreciated enough in recent months how dramatic the changes have been brought about by the new policies implemented by the Joe Biden administration. They have made it much more difficult for someone to remain in the U.S. simply claiming to be seeking asylum and then disappearing from the authorities.
Now the process of assessing asylum applications is much stricter and faster. When applicants do not meet the conditions, they are turned back. As a result, we now have the lowest rate of illegal crossing of the southern border since the beginning of the Biden administration, which is an achievement by any standards.
If Harris is elected president and continues this approach, we can have a fair and tough policy that discourages breaking the law. But at the same time, we should work with some countries in the south to improve their economies and the rule of law so that people don’t feel like they have to flee their home country to the US.