It's crucial for a nation to understand who its adversaries are - and aren't.
Former U.S. diplomat and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, R. Nicholas Burns, shared his insight Wednesday at the University of Charleston on the biggest challenges the next president will face, and how he or she can best manage them. Burns' lecture was part of the University of Charleston Speaker Series and was free and open to the public.
At the center of such challenges - terrorist groups, political aggression from Russia and climate change, to name a few - are tried-and-true solutions, Burns said: Diplomacy, negotiation and sincerity.
"In spite of [America's] awesome power in the world, we can't resolve every one of those issues acting alone; a lot of times, we have to be the coalition leader."
But it doesn't always take boots on the ground for the U.S. to address its myriad of threats, he said in an interview with a Gazette-Mail reporter.
The U.S. armed forces "can't be the world's policeman," Burns said, and a lot rests on the shoulders of its thousands of diplomats to use tools such as compromise, persuasion and sanctions to ensure disagreements with other nations are handled peacefully.
While he noted that "fighting terrorism is job number one" for America's incoming president, Burns explained the importance of working with, instead of against, some Muslim-majority nations in its fight against terrorist groups, such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
"We often disagree with the way they structure their society and the lack of rights for women, but they're trying to help us stop terrorist groups," Burns said.
Other Muslim countries with crippled governments, such as Libya, Syria and Yemen, can't protect themselves, and are usurped by terrorist groups.
Helping strengthen those countries, Burns said, will assist in their own fights against terrorist groups.
He's critical of the rhetoric that's been used by 2016 presidential candidates, specifically Donald Trump, with regards to Muslims and Syrian refugees.
"If the message to the Muslim community is, 'Stay out of America,' it's absolutely wrong," he said. "It's going to drive Muslims to be against the U.S."
Burns, who served as Senior Director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia Affairs on the National Security Council from 1990 to 1995, also noted the irony of Trump's public praise of Vladimir Putin.
"[Russia] is a tough adversary of the U.S., they are not friends with us," he said. "And then to turn around and criticize one of the best friends we have - Mexico - I think it portrays a lack of understanding on his part of how the world works, and a naive view about who our friends are and who our adversaries are."
Now a professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, Burns has also disagreed with President Barack Obama on a few foreign policy issues.
"I think President Obama has not been successful in the Middle East; he's kind of been all over the map," Burns said.
He disagreed with Obama's move to oust former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak from power, and also for failing to respond with military force after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons on the Syrian people in 2013. Obama threatened Assad with U.S. armed forces if he gassed his own citizens again, but changed his mind "at the last moment," Burns said.
"Our credibility took a major hit. If you threaten somebody, you'd better be able to back it up," he said. "The conclusion of that was, Arab leaders looked at the U.S. and said, 'That guy is weak.'"
But the biggest friend and competitor to the U.S. in coming generations is China, Burns said. The U.S. plays an important role amid rising tensions between Asian countries as China attempts to assert authority over parts of the South China Sea, which are considered international waters.
"It's the U.S. that's kept peace in Asia since the end of World War II," he said, before answering questions from the audience on topics such as Obama's nuclear deal with Iran (he supported it), cyber warfare and nuclear weapons in North Korea.
"Foreign policy is complicated. It's rarely black and white; it's almost always gray," Burns said. "We need politicians who understand compromise. Sometimes, it's the only thing that gets us to move forward."
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