Joshua Walker (Global Head of Strategic Initiatives and Japan in the Office of the President at Eurasia Group) lectured at Providence Magazine’s Christianity and National Security Conference on Nov. 2, 2018.
With an introduction like that, he’s already aired all my dirty laundry, so I don’t really need to do much else. It’s also unfair to have to follow Robert, who said he had the worst slot of the day. I clearly have the worst slot to follow him, but I actually want to throw away the notes I had, and Mark will get mad at me because I really don’t want to focus my remarks directly on millennials, but I think everything I’m going to say in terms of foreign policy making fits directly with the millennial experience.
As Mark said, I do look young enough to be a millennial. Anytime I go into my classroom and teach, every one of my students is kind of like, how can you be Dr. Walker? I expect somebody who looks like my father, who is also a doctor. But my own personal experience is grounded in my faith in a few ways.
I grew up as a Southern Baptist missionary kid in Japan. My parents have been missionaries there for close to 40 years, and one of the things I found interesting is from a young age, I always wanted to be like my dad. I think we all have that feeling in us, so being a pastor was the most obvious thing. Whether it was when I came back to a university and focused on ministering to the inner city, or focused on preaching, when I did a Fulbright Fellowship in Turkey, I ended up pastoring a church there.
As Robert was talking about the Middle East, it’s a complicated place. In Turkey, you’re not allowed to proselytize. As an American, clearly identified as a Christian, I could pastor a church, but many people from around the world studying there couldn’t be open about it. It was easier to have me as the public face of a predominantly African congregation. I was doing research on Turkish national identity formation and working with the U.S. Embassy. I had a chance to work in the State Department. I’ve had a varied career in both politics and foreign policy, and now on the geopolitical risk analysis side.
One thing this conference is focusing on, and I want to contribute to, is breaking down the silos we have in policymaking and walks of faith. We try to make sure they don’t mesh because in some ways it makes us uncomfortable. What I do on Sunday in my church groups is one thing, but when I put on my pinstripe suit and go to the State Department, I want to leave those things at the door. That’s true in a lot of walks of life, and it’s a real challenge because if you don’t bring that personal part of your faith, if you don’t talk about it in the difficult work of foreign policy making, it’s almost impossible to bring all of yourself there.
We all wear multiple identities, right? I’m a proud Christian, and as Mark already identified, I have a lot of denominational creeds. I’m still proudly from the Baptist tradition, but I happen to go to a Methodist Church now. It’s where my son goes to day school, and it’s convenient, plus my wife is Methodist by tradition. I don’t see that as apocalyptic. The differences we argue about denominationally between Methodists and Baptists are very small compared to how the Turkish government views American Christians. They would look at differences between Protestant groups and think it’s not significant, just as we sometimes look at Muslims and think they’re all the same. But there are significant divides in sectarianism between Sunni and Shia, and even within the Sunni tradition, depending on which group you’re talking about.
As Robert laid out eloquently, the Ottoman Empire, the world’s greatest Islamic empire for 600 years, might have viewed things differently than today’s Wahhabi version or the protectors of Mecca and Medina. They see things differently than Istanbul, where the last caliphate was.
I’ve been in the middle of these conversations, on both the academic and policy side. I want to share some of my personal experiences and how they might inform how you, as Christians who think about foreign policy making, approach things. Also, I hope to encourage you because I think it’s time, and I’m glad Providence is filling this space, to let our voices be raised and not be afraid of being labeled. I wear my different identities as a Christian, an American, a white Southerner with pride, while understanding how that impacts others. Robert talked about the need for cultural empathy, and to understand people in different parts of the world. That’s equally important here in D.C.
As someone who lives across the river in my home state of Virginia, in Alexandria. I’m amazed at the cloud over D.C. in the last couple years. It feels like you can’t catch a breath. Politics and the news move so fast, it seems like the only thing going on is bad news. The only stuff we see out of the Middle East is horrible, and over the last few weeks, we haven’t focused on anything but ourselves. Maybe the same could be said for the last few years. America is becoming more inward-facing, and to me, that’s the biggest danger we face.
As Christians, we’re called to love one another. While there’s tough love at times and hard truths to be spoken, we do it as followers of Christ. The challenge comes when someone from a religious perspective says, “God told me to do this.” That’s not politics, and it’s not compromise. When someone says, “God told me to do this,” you can’t argue with that. But when you put God in the middle of it, things get even more complicated.
This bifurcation in our own politics, particularly where Republicans are good at talking about religion and Democrats try to stay away from it, has roots that make that division problematic, especially at the water’s edge. The parts of the world I work in—Japan, Turkey, Europe, the Middle East, Asia—everyone has a view of America. The irony is, when you represent our country, or just go around the world as an American, you carry the responsibility of the nation with you. We don’t necessarily make policy, but policymaking has gotten more complicated.
If I were to unpack decisions made in Syria, or sanctions, or John Bolton’s speech yesterday, I could see different pieces of the administration coming into action. While it’s easy to say, “This is what the president wanted, this is what the president tweeted,” there’s an entire foreign policy apparatus behind it. Particularly at the State Department, the Pentagon, or the National Security Council in the White House, we as Christians have a responsibility to step back and try to be empathetic. That’s one of our strongest suits.
When I think about my experience in foreign policy making, especially in a place like Turkey, it’s difficult. Robert talked about the hostility Americans face, and the responsibility we have as a superpower. It’s funny. When I land at Atatürk Airport in Istanbul and get in a cab, the driver starts assuming things about me and lectures me on all the failed U.S. foreign policy decisions in the Middle East. The irony is that I’m coming to Turkey to lecture on these topics, but I’m being lectured by a cab driver. He doesn’t ask me what I do; it’s a one-sided conversation. When I get out, and he asks where I’m going—whatever university, think tank, or government agency—the response is always, “You should take what I told you and go tell your president.” There’s an assumption that you know everyone in your government.
I listen, and appreciate that U.S. politics and foreign policymaking are daily conversations worldwide, while their policymaking is never discussed here. Everyone has an opinion about America. In Turkey, every cab driver has an opinion about the midterms, while most Americans have no opinion about Turkey, except at Thanksgiving. The jokes I get as a Turkey expert are particularly brutal around Thanksgiving. But that’s not too far off the mark.
One of the challenges is that American soft power—our ability to influence the world—is not just through our government agencies. Democracies don’t just have one apparatus. When we’re at war, we mobilize a whole-of-government, whole-of-society response. But in the current environment, I’m fascinated by the number of people in the Middle East who sit down and start criticizing America, yet are wearing Levi’s or at a McDonald’s. They want to get their kids into American schools, yet they’re anti-American. When I ask them about this dichotomy, they say, “Well, we don’t hate your country, we just hate your president and government.” To them, that’s normal. But in other parts of the world, that’s not normal. If you criticize Putin or Erdoğan, it’s seen as an attack on Russia or Turkey and their entire history.
We must understand their history. As Robert mentioned, if you’re having the conversation in English, think about the message that sends. Starting with empathy and understanding is key. Most people around the world know a lot about us, but usually it’s misguided. Their view of Christmas in America is based on Home Alone. The cultural power of Hollywood represents the American dream, but the dream is more alive outside the U.S. because we’re so depressed about our politics. Being born American is one of the greatest gifts God has given us, but if we don’t think about it in those terms and appreciate what responsibility comes with it. We easily fall into the trap of going down that path and saying woe is me.
Like, I didn’t get a scholarship to go to this school or that school. Well, you had the opportunity to apply to that school, right? When it comes to voting, many folks, particularly in the millennial age group, choose not to vote because it’s inconvenient, they don’t want to do it.
Yet people have literally died in Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Syria, for the right to vote in those places. The irony is voting is up in almost every country around the world. Whether or not that’s democracy is a different story. Just because you vote doesn’t mean you have a pluralistic democracy overnight.
One of the challenges around the world now, where populism is on the rise—in our country, in Europe, in Brazil—is that authoritarians have a much easier chance of infiltrating our systems because we have free and open systems. The answer is not to say, “We’re going to hide,” or, as Christians, to say, “We’re not going to share our faith anymore.” It’s like saying, “Let me just take that light and put something over it. I don’t want to share my light anymore. I don’t want to be the city on the hill because it’s too difficult.” It’s the opposite: it’s to engage more.
When I listen to people across this country, the number one question when I go to places around the world, particularly in red-state America and in middle America, is, “Why should we even engage in the world if they don’t like us?” So what? We’re just going to focus on ourselves? Globalism has become a bad word because globalization has failed so many in this country and around the world, especially when you look at the inequalities that exist. The top 1 percent in this country, and many other places, are getting richer, and hardworking folks aren’t getting a break.
I appreciate and understand that when I put myself in their shoes. My family lives in Richmond, Virginia, where they’re mostly conservative. They watch certain channels and think from a particular perspective. At family gatherings, I’ve got relatives wearing Confederate flags and other insignia. When I ask them about it, because in the circles I travel in, that would not be kosher, obviously, the irony is when I ask my cousins, “Why would you wear this? What does it mean to you? What does it signify?” They say, “It’s heritage.”
When I travel around the world, it’s a very Japanese thing, but the Japanese like to start by apologizing. I didn’t start by apologizing here because you’d think it was weird, though I should have. But I start by saying, “As a white Southern man, there’s a lot I could talk about, but let me start by saying I’m not, as most people think, the original American. My family left religious persecution from Britain a long time ago. They came over on the Mayflower at one point, then to Jamestown. From an American point of view, my membership in the George Washington Sons of the American Revolution would make the case that I am as American as you can get.”
But if I forget the experience of Native Americans, or of those who came to this country, especially those who fought on different sides of the Civil War and went through the Civil Rights Movement, it puts me in an awkward situation. It means I’ve been a beneficiary in many ways without acknowledging it. For me, it’s simply to acknowledge it. It’s not to apologize for it and say, “I’m sorry for being who I am,” but to understand the levels of identity that are there.
One of the challenges we have in foreign policymaking is we try to reduce it to something simplistic, and we make slogans out of it. Oftentimes Americans carry these slogans. Every president has a slogan. This happens when you have a bully pulpit. It’s not particularly a Democratic or Republican problem, not just a Donald Trump tweeting thing, though I think that format has made it more difficult. Foreign policy made with tweets is difficult to carry out. You can’t just tweet something and expect it to happen. Often the words coming out of our president’s mouth were scary. They were sculpted beforehand, not retroactive, because there are unintended consequences. Leaders around the world have realized they can antagonize and think about foreign policy in a personalized, not institutional, way.
It means our job as diplomats, as American citizens, has become more difficult and more important. Until we are at war with China—which could happen with a trade war or another major contest—the challenge will be for Americans to figure out how to continue living in the world we’ve shaped. Robert talked about this in the post-World War II environment. When I think about what Americans can do to contribute to stability around the world, it’s less about military engagement and more about proactive engagement.
Robert laid out some of those things when he talked about the need for Americans in their cultural institutions, educational institutions, and public diplomacy to get out in front of it. What frustrates me is seeing amazing faith communities and churches in the U.S. who are well-meaning. I often was the guy in Turkey talking to missionaries. You can’t use that word in Turkey because it has a negative connotation, and it’s also illegal. You’re not allowed to proselytize in Turkey. Some of my friends from Texas, and I don’t mean to pick on Texas, but they were all Texans, would come to Turkey with a Bible and literally walk around street corners preaching. They didn’t understand that’s illegal in Turkey. It’s perfectly fair to share your faith if invited into someone’s home, but if you go out with a bullhorn and try to proselytize, that crosses a line. There’s a law in the land. At the embassy, you had to balance that.
Recently, with Andrew Brunson, who I’ve written about for Providence, the evangelical community has focused on him. When you listen to Pastor Brunson himself, he’s not advocating the things many of his champions have advocated. The political nature of his release and the way he’s been used as a political lightning rod has been difficult because it’s put a wedge in the U.S.-Turkey relationship, which is already complicated. It’s bad enough that U.S. foreign policymaking supports a terrorist group that’s an existential threat to Turkey, a NATO ally. It’s also bad enough that Turkey is doing things that make life difficult for American citizens and the U.S. government in the Middle East. We don’t need another level here.
When evangelicals get jazzed about one individual, they forget about all the other Christians in Turkey and the Middle East. Most messages I get from the Middle East and Turkey about the situation say, “Please don’t bring attention.” The more attention you bring, the more difficult life becomes. The challenge is: are we, as Christians, living out the “turn the other cheek” and loving our neighbor, or are we only focused on ourselves? If you get self-righteous and stand on a stage preaching, that’s fine within a community where you’ve made a covenant with each other to bring those attentions. But if I pick the speck out of my brother’s eye while I have a log in my own, it’s not my place to judge. That’s a personal statement about my understanding of my relationship with God, but I’ve been disappointed with the engagement. We only get engaged when something like that happens, rather than staying engaged and thinking about people around the world who need our support and attention.
So, whether it’s the Egyptian Copts that Robert talked about, or others, we should be focused on them. I didn’t even know about the attack this morning that Robert mentioned because there are so many other headlines. It’s easy when you’re sitting here, in a comfortable place like D.C., to only think about ourselves. That’s the nature of it.
Acknowledging that problem is a good way to start. The final thing I would say about the role I see for America around the world: clearly, this is not the same America as after World War II. After World War II, 50 percent of the world’s GDP came from this country because the rest of the world was devastated. That’s not the case now. I’m an optimist and a believer in America and its role in the world. I don’t believe, and I don’t think we should cede our place as a global leader. The jokes about the leader of the free world no longer residing here, and now that Angela Merkel is leaving, they’re gone. The only free leader might be in Japan with Shinzo Abe.
I get where that comes from, particularly with a president who doesn’t share the viewpoints of traditional American presidents, but that doesn’t take away from America’s global leadership. I don’t care what president comes in or what belief they have, America as a country has a responsibility because of the system we set up. Even if we say we don’t want that responsibility, it comes with responsibility because of our power, reach, and influence. As we think more about the home front, where we think about America first and what that means for our trade partnerships and alliances, we must proceed with caution.
These alliances, security arrangements, and trade deals were made after decades or years of war. If we’re going to take them apart, it’s not enough to just go to one summit and say, “I don’t want to sign up for this communique.” It’s the responsibility of the entire foreign policy establishment to figure out what helps the American population as well. We put too much burden on our elected leaders, diplomats, and government to do things that are unrealistic.
It’s not the U.S. government’s job to make sure America’s interest is looked after in every part of the world, except where it affects our interest. Here’s where the American private sector has a huge role to play. The power of the American private sector is often greater than the U.S. government’s influence. I’ve had conversations with U.S. ambassadors and ambassadors from other countries who say, “We’d like you to stay away as a government official, but we’d love to welcome Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs. We’d love to see American professors here.” It doesn’t have the same impact as when a U.S. government official arrives because of political realities. There needs to be more public-private partnerships.
I’m worried about the divide created, not just in the tech community. In the 1950s, as we executed the Cold War containment strategy, the American military-industrial complex worked with the American government in a hand-in-glove approach. Now, Silicon Valley and tech leaders, maybe because of personal views different from the current White House incumbent, are moving further away. The biggest geopolitical competition areas in the next decade, or 100 years, will be in geotechnology—taking geopolitics and competing in technology.
With the freedom we all have and the ability to connect with our iPhones or Apple Watches, we have more ability to connect than ever, yet we feel lonelier. I have more Facebook friends than ever, but I can’t find anyone to go to the movies with me on Friday night. There’s a growing feeling, especially with millennials, of substituting clicks and technology, and it’s becoming an addiction. My two-year-old son knows more about my phone than I do, and when I pull out my phone, he says, “Put it away” because he knows I’m working. He knows I can’t disconnect from work in a way I never had to deal with my dad. He grew up in Japan, where if you wanted to reach him as a pastor, you called the house, and that was serious. Now, you send an email, and people expect an immediate response.
That’s making foreign policy more complicated. It means we have to be more responsive. The competition is not between China and the U.S., but between the Chinese state, using technology to strengthen civic nationalism, and American tech companies. If you search “Greek vacation,” everything in your email or Facebook becomes about Greek yogurt or vacations. It knows what you’re looking for and what you’re searching for. It’s an invasion of privacy, not done on behalf of the government, but on behalf of commercial realities.
I wanted to end on the geotechnology side to say that’s an area to focus on because our government doesn’t have a full response yet. It’s interesting to think about how technology is discussed. I don’t see many conferences or engagement within the Christian community on that question. You occasionally hear a pastor say, “You shouldn’t look at porn on the internet.” That’s a 1990s problem. We have a bigger problem now with how technology is becoming an idol in our lives. I don’t think the U.S. government has an adequate response either. When I watch Mark Zuckerberg testify before Congress, most senators don’t even know what Facebook is. The questions they ask are so basic that they don’t get to the next level. If we don’t have an adequate whole-of-government response, I don’t know how we’re going to move that conversation forward.
My time is up, so I’ll end here and thank you for your attention and the opportunity to be here. Thank you so much. So much.
Q&A
Question: I didn’t read the article about Andrew Brunson, but I was wondering if I could back it up a little bit and give the gist. I mean, if that wasn’t the right approach and how the evangelical community focused on him, what would have been the right approach?
Answer: Sure. Those familiar with Pastor Brunson know he’d been serving in Turkey for close to two decades as a Christian missionary in Izmir. He had a small congregation. He got caught up in the failed coup two years ago, accused by members of his congregation of being connected to FETO, the terrorist organization accused of perpetuating it. For two years, he languished in prison. I was part of early efforts to figure out the quid pro quo. It got elevated to the level of the president, with Donald Trump literally tweeting about him because Vice President Pence got involved due to church activism.
The problem in Turkey, particularly in the Middle East, is elevating issues beyond the working level increases the price of admission. The Turks demanded Pastor Brunson’s release in exchange for releasing Imam Gulen. Fethullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania, has not been accused by the U.S. government of any wrongdoing, even though Turkey accuses him of attempting to overthrow the government.
My criticism isn’t about trying to release him or applying pressure. The church, especially his wife and representatives from North Carolina, were doing all they could. But Trump came down with a hammer. It worked—Brunson is back in the U.S. But the damage to U.S.-Turkey relations could have been mitigated. I think the Turks would have dealt earlier. He wasn’t released until October 12, because they couldn’t be seen as backing down. Brunson wasn’t declared a free man; he was released on a technicality when three of his church members recanted their statements.
If you look at the Providence article, you’ll see the chronology. The fix was in place by August, but something blew up, and the President went after him directly. The question is whether the means justified the cause. My argument is we could have gotten him out more easily, and because of self-promotion, he became a political hot potato. The timing was unfortunate.
Question: Hi, so you push back on Mark Tooley. You’re a millennial, and the oldest millennials are pushing 40. People got the generation wrong. You talked about identity and how your perspective is informed by personal experiences. Many peers, some would be politically liberal, but many would be politically conservative, and devout Christians, still articulate a positive perspective. I wouldn’t call it identity politics, but an identity inflected or identity informed view of politics. The boomer generation often reacts to this, seeing it as identity politics. My question is, is it good for American politics that both right and left, Christians and non-Christians, are resorting more to identity language instead of focusing on common ground?
That’s a huge question, deserving a dissertation. The short answer is no. It’s really, really difficult. And I don’t believe that in the same way that I don’t believe that we should have a Christian foreign policy or a white southern evangelical foreign policy or a Democratic or a Republican foreign policy. The biggest issue I see in this election cycle is that there should be basic principles we can all agree on. The U.S. is part of a free and open system. We can have differing opinions on how to engage with Russia, China, or others. It’s become less about Republican and Democrat and more about establishment vs. anti-establishment. The anti-establishment sentiment is “burn everything down,” regardless of its value or history. My argument is you can’t just burn things down, because without a foundation, we can’t grow. There won’t be another Marshall Plan, because the Marshall Plan was built on a philosophy of rebuilding through invitation, not occupation.
If U.S. foreign policy becomes hostage to identity politics, it’s a problem. We need to elevate the conversation. Millennials being sensitive to foreign policy making is good, but it has to be nuanced. International relations theory isn’t irrelevant in the Middle East, but no single theory explains everything. Humans are more complicated than economic regression models. Political science increasingly relies on these models. One challenge is identifying the enemy. It was easier during World War II or the Cold War, but now, there’s an impulse to identify China as the new enemy. Mike Pence gave a speech at Hudson labeling China as such. It’s easier to define what we’re for when we know what we’re against. I would argue we need to know what we stand for first. I don’t see that level of sophistication in the conversation.
When evangelicals, or any religious group, tell you how to vote from the pulpit, I’m concerned. I believe in a direct connection to God, and while the Bible is God’s word, I also have a brain to interpret it. Being a pastor doesn’t give you the right to dictate my views. Unfortunately, this isn’t the norm. Theologies and religion are often used as excuses. Technology amplifies the most extreme voices in politics and religion. These are the voices people flock to. The more nuanced, middle-ground approach I advocate is less appealing because it requires independent thought. No single “ism” explains everything, and you have to think for yourself.
Back to you, Mark. Oh, I see a question over here.
Question: Thank you again for your lecture. Touching on the point you were highlighting in response to that question, as we’ve grown up as millennials in the internet and information age, we have access to most of the annals of human knowledge and information, but we also see a decline in prudence, judgment, and reflection on those issues. We see that in technology, in how social media is designed, and in apps that don’t encourage that type of thinking. The flip side is we expect instant responses and engagement on very complex issues from elected officials, sometimes within the hour or the next day. So my question is, from both a personal and public official perspective, how do we create space for the reflection required for these complex issues?
Answer: We have many great examples within our own Christian tradition that we’re not using. I love liturgies and reflection, but in this day and age, even meditating seems like a lost art. Many studies show that if you start your morning with prayer and reflection, it puts you in a different mindset.
Some people use yoga to fill that space. But if the first thing you do in the morning is pick up your cell phone, which most of us do, and read emails, and since I manage a team in Japan, I’ve got every crisis in the world hitting me first thing in the morning, what mood does that put me in? Instead of seeing my daughter, my six-month-old daughter, and two-year-old son’s smiling faces—or crying—and reflecting on the beauty of life and what God has given me, I immediately go to that place of “I’ve got to deal with this crisis or that crisis.”
For me, it’s about first stepping back and figuring out how to appreciate these tools. Don’t let the tools guide us. Just because you have 280 or 140 characters doesn’t mean that’s the only way to respond to something. Not everything requires a tweet.
Some of us live our lives as open books on social media, but even the life I’m curating for you is presented in a particular way. I want you to see certain pictures. I want you to think I’m a great dad. I want you to think I’m a great diplomat and a global citizen because I put those pictures there. You don’t see the hardship or struggle that travel around the world causes. I want to protect myself, and that’s what worries me.
In the old tradition of having a community of faith, we lived our lives together and struggled together. We had those pieces. In Washington, it used to be that Congress members and Senators, even if they hated the other side, had to live with each other and spend time together. I go out of Reagan all the time. Guess what? On Monday nights, they’re all coming in, and on Thursday afternoons, they’re all leaving. They don’t live anywhere near each other. The bipartisan consensus has broken down, and they’re more willing to demonize each other.
Right now, there’s no incentive to do things that are complicated. It’s easier to think about clickbait and the short term. I’m not saying politicians are doing the wrong thing because they don’t have incentives. There are structural incentives. But if we as American citizens and as the Christian church do not call out the fact that this is not the type of American leader we want, we get exactly what we deserve.
We want someone who can step above that. We want leaders who think about America and American values rather than narrow self-interest. I’m worried because I believe this country, this city, and all of us are better than that. We deserve better than that.
