Larry D. Lauer

After reviewing my notes from last week’s stimulating Chautauqua lectures on foreign policy, I noted that Richard Haas’s new book, Foreign Policy Begins at Home: The Case for Putting America’s House in Order, was mentioned several times.

Haas, a former diplomat and current President of the Council on Foreign Relations, argues simply that fixing our own economy and the current dysfunction and polarization of our political system is a prerequisite to formulating a credible way of approaching the rest of the world. This seems obvious, but no one in Congress seems to be listening.

When you think about it this is not rocket science. Most thinking Americans were embarrassed to watch the Republican primary’s so-called debates! The incredible extreme statements and disrespectful personal attacks undermined any hope of our appearing to be a rational thinking society. And the current polarization in Congress has done nothing to improve the situation. How can any society that cannot find rational compromises in crisis situations expect admiration or even respect from other societies? How can we think we are a model of democracy for the rest of the world when we cannot not even get our own house in order?

A major lesson from a life in the communication business is that you have nothing if you do not have credibility. It’s a fact that the credibility of the source of a message  either reinforces its truth, or cancels out everything. Communication from sources without credibility not only fails, it stimulates counter communication and even hostile responses. Indeed, it can cause negative ripple effects that reverberate on and on indefinitely.

Haas’s point is certainly well taken. It clearly got the attention of Chautauqua speakers. And it really is a “no brainer:” How can we expect to influence other countries when our system at home appears so broken?