Daniel Fitzgerald Runde is a senior executive and strategist in international development, international trade, investment, global business and organizational change. Runde is the author of the book, "The American Imperative: Reclaiming Global Leadership through Soft Power."
Daniel Fitzgerald Runde is a senior executive and strategist in international development, international trade, investment, global business and organizational change. Runde is the author of the book, "The American Imperative: Reclaiming Global Leadership through Soft Power."
Hello and welcome to World Outlooks podcast the Outlook. I'm Adam Salzman, a 24, and today we're excited and honored to be joined by Dan Rundie. Daniel Rundie is a Dartmouth 94 and the senior vice president and director of the Project on Prosperity and Development at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. His work is oriented around the US leadership in building a more democratic and prosperous world. He recently published a book, the American Imperative Reclaiming Global Leadership through Soft Power, in which he advocates building a new global consensus through vigorous internationalism. So, daniel, thanks for coming on with us today.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me on. It's great to be back at Dartmouth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. So first of all, congratulations about your book and before we dive into the specific topic matter of your book, my first question is how do you approach a topic as nuanced and interdisciplinary as development?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's interesting. So I kind of learned by doing. I was. I had left Dartmouth and I worked on Wall Street for a couple of years and then I went to the Kennedy School of Government. I'd lived in Spain for a little bit and I also then lived in Argentina for three years. I worked for Citibank it's commercial banking. So I worked on Wall Street doing corporate finance and I did emerging markets, commercial banking and I had an degree from the Kennedy School. I then worked. I went to work for USAID where I spent five years learning the international development business from a number of different perspectives, where I built multi-stakeholder partnerships for global development. So I learned about different pieces of the development puzzle and ultimately foreign aid, which USAID is a foreign aid provider.
Speaker 2:Development is a country led process and, like these are requires you need you need good governance and domestic rule of law, you need stability, and then you also need you know over time much of the money is going to come from within a society. It's going to come through the taxes collected or local savings or, yes, sometimes it's foreign direct investment or private investment, or foreign assistance plays a role. So foreign aid is a supporting actor in somebody else's movie. That's a way to think about it. So I would just say that development is a real, is a, you know, a multi-disciplinary process.
Speaker 2:The UN has something called the UN Human Development Report.
Speaker 2:It looks at things like education and health and those that role of women and things like levels of you know.
Speaker 2:Also, you know there's other dimensions like the levels of human freedom or the levels of whether the quality of governance in the society or how safe is the society, how whether a country is like in a lot of conflict or not. So there's lots of dimensions to this. So I would say A lot of people that come into places like an AID are people who are anthropologists, they're epidemiologists, they are agricultural experts, sometimes they're engineers or economists. And then I would say that some are political scientists and I'm having studied government at Dartmouth, I guess that counts as a political scientist and then I would say that you have some accountants, and so I'd just say it's a multidisciplinary world and I think it's a very interesting world and I think it's been, you know, for the most part not been boring, and I see it as a form of applied foreign policy. You know that there's theoretical mathematics and applied mathematics. This is sort of like applied mathematics of foreign policy is a way to think about development.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Yeah, so clearly you've had a lot of experiences across a number of different firms and industries. So just one more question about the topic of development. I'm wondering what's the most common misunderstanding or misperception that ordinary Americans hold about international development?
Speaker 2:So I think two things. One is this issue of like that our foreign aid is like the central funding that drives this stuff. We're a minority shareholder in someone else's movie. Foreign aid is catalytic that's kind of the think of it like yeast it's not totally like that, but it's you're also bringing expertise or change, or so I think that's the first thing.
Speaker 2:I think the second misconception is that, as a percentage of the American budget, they've done polling where they say, well, it's like 20, or you know, 10, 20, 30% of the American budget is foreign aid to developing countries.
Speaker 2:It's 1% or less than 1% of our budget.
Speaker 2:And so I think if you and there's always a little bit of a kind of a little trickery where people then say, well, what percentage of the foreign aid of the US budget would be willing to spend on foreign aid until like 5% or something, and then the advocates of foreign aid say, well, good, I want to have more money I'm not necessarily sure I would necessarily agree to that, but I would just say that there's this misperception that we spend far more than we do on foreign aid.
Speaker 2:We don't, and it's a much smaller percentage than we realize. And then I would say that if we look at how whether the spending on education or the spending on healthcare in a developing country most education and most healthcare in most countries is often funded out of the taxes of a developing country, out of their own resources, not ours. So even some of the world's poorest countries not all of them, but many of them are able to finance a lot of their own development. So that's something else. People don't understand that a lot of the financing of development comes from within. Not all of them, but, like say, most developing countries have an ability to finance a lot of their own development.
Speaker 1:Right, thank you for elaborating on that. So you mentioned that, although it acts as kind of like a catalyst and plays a little bit of a smaller role, usaid is still important. I think this is a good transition point to talking about your new book, which congratulations on its publication, by the way, thank you. I'm wondering what are the big themes you discuss in your new book and what do you hope that readers take away from it?
Speaker 2:So I wrote this book. I spent I've spent 20 years in Washington. I worked in the Bush administration at USAID for five years, I worked at the World Bank Group for four and I've been at CSIS for the last 12 and a half years, and so in my time I would say a couple things. One is that we're in a new age of great power competition with Chinese Communist Party, with the Chinese Communist Party and with Vladimir Putin's Russia. We're not in competition with the Chinese people and we're not in competition with the Russian people.
Speaker 2:We most of that competition is gonna play out in developing countries. It's gonna play out in Latin America, it's gonna play out in Africa, it's gonna play out in South Asia, southeast Asia, the Pacific Island states, central Asia and places like Ukraine and Moldova. So largely what you might characterize is developing countries. It's not gonna play out in China. It's not gonna play out in Russia. Most of that competition is not gonna be military. In fact, the vast majority of it's not gonna be military. So therefore, we need a non-military strategy for these other parts of the world, and so that's why I wrote the book. I basically am saying like we're gonna have to use, we have to rethink how we apply our soft power and where we apply it to respond to the challenge of the Chinese Communist Party in Vladimir Putin's Russia.
Speaker 1:Thank you. So, before we dig into the specific ways in which the US can reclaim its soft power, I'm wondering why should we care about in exerting more influence over developing countries, as opposed to letting Putin's Russia and the CCP's China exerting its influence? What's the case for us investing more taxpayer money in these countries?
Speaker 2:So the case is that are you. I believe that each of these components of our soft power are like Lego building blocks of a system that was set up after World War II, and so, to the extent that we're not investing in these things and we're letting China or Russia supplant us, they're in the process of building a separate Lego building block set that creates a separate system that, over time, will allow them to set the global rules of the road. And if you just did a thought exercise, if your listeners did a thought exercise and said okay, what are the things I most care about? Do I care a lot about environmental stewardship, things like climate change? Or am I concerned about freedom of expression or about the most important choices a person can make in their personal lives?
Speaker 2:Do you think that the Chinese Communist Party in Vladimir Putin's Russia are gonna be better stewards of the things that you hold most dear? I've yet to have anybody in the United States tell me yes, the Chinese Communist Party of Vladimir Putin will be a far better steward of the global system than the United States in the West. But what I would just say is that we're you know we're so each of these things are part of a competition to, and, if we let them, they will supplant us and they will run a system that I don't think you're gonna. You're not gonna like the outcome. Your listeners aren't gonna like the outcome.
Speaker 1:Right. Thank you for elaborating that. So you mentioned the Chinese Communist Party and the role of great power competition in terms of the US versus China. So and you alluded to the fact that China, or more specifically the Communist Party, is trying to act as a revisionist power and kind of change the rules of the game in their own way. So is the Belt and Road Initiative an example of them trying to gain influence over these countries? And heck.
Speaker 2:yeah, it absolutely is. It's a positive, hopeful, future oriented project that speaks to the hopes, the deepest hopes and aspirations of developing countries. Developing countries want infrastructure and they want energy, and if we're not offering them high quality infrastructure and energy, if I'm a tin pot dictator in some developing country, I'm gonna take. If I've got no other option than China, I'm going with China. They would like to have alternate options, but if I've got the option of no port or a port, I'm going with a port. And I'm going with a crappy built hydroelectric dam or no hydroelectric dam, I'm going with a hydroelectric dam. So I would just say that it's not your grandparents' developing world. It's a much richer, freer, more capable place with a lot more options and agency. So if we're not answering the mail on developing countries' hopes and aspirations, they'll take their business to China, and so the BRI is a vector for that and speaks to the hopes and aspirations of countries.
Speaker 2:Everybody in Congress has heard of it. They don't like it, but guess what A strategy is? Saying don't take the China money or their stuff is crap is not a strategy, and that's oftentimes what our answer is. That's like it's a non-acceptable answer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. So in that case should the US kind of create essentially an American BRI version.
Speaker 2:So I think we don't have to compete with them dollar for dollar, but I do think we need to have a vision, for I think there'd been a. I think we need to have a positive, forward-looking agenda in the realm of energy and infrastructure. That speaks to a better quality one. We don't necessarily have to kind of, you know, ape them or kind of copy them, but I do think we need to kind of wake up and smell the coffee a little bit. We can't fight something with nothing.
Speaker 1:Right, is there a risk of the US dollar being replaced as a global reserve currency?
Speaker 2:So I think that's a super great question. There are a number of macroeconomists that could tell you, but I think it's like compared to what?
Speaker 2:So like I, think the question is yeah, I think a lot of people are going to say well, some cryptocurrencies or whatever, though I think crypto has taken a big whack, as you know, in the last couple of months. I'm actually happy about that, because I thought it was kind of goofy and I didn't understand it. The thing about the yuan or the renminbi or whatever you want to call it, like I know they're doing this funny stuff or I'll barter with you and whatever. But how many central banks do you really see saying, oh, I'm going to put money, I'm going to use the renminbi as a store of value. Like, almost nobody does that. And watch Chinese wealthy people, so they put their money and savings to. They say, oh, I'm going to keep my hard earned money and renminbi no one does that. They say I'm going to put it in dollars or Euro or Swiss francs or yen or gold.
Speaker 2:So I think I don't think so. So I actually think this is like not a thing. I know people use this to say this, and maybe there's some. You can say, okay, we're going to default, but like, where's that money going to go? They're going to go to gold, it's not going to go to crypto and it's not going to go to renminbi. I don't believe that. I ultimately don't believe like they're until they have such a goofy economy, like you can't easily trans. You know there's something having to do with, like, getting money in and out of China is not easy, and if and until they were prepared to do that and they're not prepared to do that, I don't think it's going to be a competitor of ours.
Speaker 2:Don't I think the answer is no.
Speaker 1:Right, china does have capital controls in place.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. And so what I'm saying is like tell me when that changes and then I'll say, okay, that's interesting. I'm talking about, you know, all these central banks like where do you see the Saudis parking their money in renminbi? I don't see that. I mean they'll say all trade oil and whatever. I guess there's a little bit, but it's like if they're these like goofy, like barter things that don't make any sense to me. So I know people say like, oh, this is the beginning of the end. They've been saying that for a long time. I don't believe it.
Speaker 1:I'm not losing sleep about it. So I mean, in lieu of increasing great power competition, what should the US do? Like what? What's your, what's your agenda? What's my agenda is.
Speaker 2:We need a top-to-bottom review of what kind like what we want to do in the world and then apply our non military forms of our power to those, to those goals. What I think ultimately is I want the United States of America To continue to lead the international system for the next hundred years and I believe we don't get to a shooting war with China. They're gonna run out of demographic gas in about 25 years.
Speaker 2:We just don't rather BS than them. Like how many people do you know that want to migrate to Beijing that aren't Han Chinese? Like nobody. Do you see people like you don't even see people like China illegally enter China? Like, oh my gosh, I've got a desperately other than the North Koreans who's like I got a migrate, I'm gonna have a better job opportunity in mainland China? Nobody does that. Do you see a lot of people Dying to move to Moscow? No one wants to move there. Like, do you know anybody at Dartmouth? It's like, oh my gosh, when I graduate, I'm moving to Beijing and when I graduate, I'm moving to Moscow. No one's saying that. You maybe a couple kids who are like but, from me?
Speaker 2:no, nobody. And then I'd say, okay, how many poor people in neighboring countries like I gotta move to China and Russia to like go work? No, but very few people want to do that. So my point is we are winning the global migration race, like some of its list it, some of its illicit and uncontrolled. I think we need to get a handle on that. But I would just say like we've got a lot going for us if we just don't, you know, okay, we need a, we need a bipartisan consensus on where we're going. I think the fear of China will help us get there. I think we're still kind of working it out. I think it'll take another five years, but I think well, I'm optimistic we're gonna get to a place where we have a bipartisan consensus on China and we have a bipartisan consensus.
Speaker 1:We have a bipartisan consensus.
Speaker 2:We have a problem with Russia and we have a bipartisan consensus. We have a problem with China. We don't yet have a bipartisan consensus about what to do about it, and so I wrote this book to Begin, to initiate or further a conversation. And what should we do about this problem that we have with the Chinese Communist Party? In this problem, we have a Vladimir Putin's Russia.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you for elaborating. So I think one example of a Country in which the, in this new era of great power competition, a conflict is this is Ukraine, and you've written many op-eds in terms of Ukraine and what the US role should be on Ukraine. So just five days ago, for example, you've written a piece in the wash in the Washington Times Titled Ukraine's future is a good bet for global investors. So I'm just wondering, in terms of a great power competition, how do you see Ukraine? And then how do you see what the US role should be in Ukraine in terms of rebuilding the country?
Speaker 2:so I was in Ukraine three little over three weeks ago and it was very inspiring.
Speaker 2:I met President Zelensky and I'm on the board of an investment fund that has been investing in Ukraine, moldova for 30 years, and we spun out a private equity fund about 15 years ago, and so the parent company was has become a limited partner and I was an advocate for this of Investing $10 million into a fourth investment fund for the daughter organization called Horizon capital, and Horizon capital has has pulled together 20 250 million dollars and it's starting to deploy capital this month, investing in projects in Ukraine right now.
Speaker 2:And so I'm optimistic because I believe that Ukraine is ultimately going to join the European Union, and so that means they're gonna. They're they're getting a violent, angry divorce after a shotgun wedding 400 years ago from Russia, and they're in the process of Linking with the West. They're gonna become a formal part of Europe as a member of the European Union, and they're either going to join NATO or they're going to have some kind of special defense relationship like we have with Israel, and so, as a result of that, if their security situation is kind of spoken for and kind of their future is what the West is spoken for I'm optimistic that they're going to kind of get over the next 20 years. They're going to get it right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you for elaborating on that. So, just taking a step back, what inspired you to go into this field?
Speaker 2:So I out of Dartmouth, I spent a couple years on Wall Street at what's called now Deutsche Bank, but at the time was Alex Brown and Sons, and Baltimore. They had a big tech presence. They had a financial institutions group and an environmental group and a media group, so I joined their financial institutions practice. I did that for a couple years. I then went to the Kennedy School of Government.
Speaker 2:I lived in Argentina working in commercial banking, at Citibank, and I joined the Bush Administration at USAID and I sort of stumbled into it because my professional mentor at Harvard became the head of USAID, the foreign aid arm of the US government, in the Bush Administration, and that was just tremendous, it was just fantastic and I had a wonderful, wonderful experience at USAID.
Speaker 2:I loved working for my boss, andrew Natsios. I loved working for George W Bush and I liked it very, very much and so I missed and so I liked it. I saw it as a form of applied foreign policy and I thought this was really interesting and so I stuck with it. And then I went to the World Bank Group for four years and was able to kind of combine all these other experiences I had. And then I've been at CSIS where I've been interested in various forms of non-military forms of our power, and so I've been able to kind of create a niche for myself and a unique role for myself, and it's been an interesting run at CSIS. I've been there for 12 and a half years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, just a couple more questions, sure. First, I'm going to circle back to something you said a little bit earlier about demographics, which you're completely correct about. If you look at Russia's demographics and China's demographics, they're terrible. In 20, 30 years, it's going to be very interesting to see how the governments are going to deal with the declining population, and especially in China, with the increasing proportion of older individuals. So I'm wondering a critic, so someone who would disagree with you would say, would make the following argument they would say hey, well, if China's demographic is going to, population means it's going to run out of gas in 20 years. And Russia, which already looks like it's on the forefront of decline, why should the US still be investing in the developing world when it's clear that there's no other large developing power to threaten the US's grasp on the world order?
Speaker 2:So that's a very good question. I would say that Russia and China are seeking to kind of lock in gains right now before they kind of run out of gas. And so if they lock in certain kinds of relationships and certain kinds of sort of status quo, they're going to do so in a way that's not. It's antithetical to our interests, is against our American interest, and so it'll be much harder to kind of unwind that later. So we want to try and block them now from doing so while they've got the ability to do so.
Speaker 1:Right, thank you. And then last question is that, what is the most important thing, or the most two important things you would like a reader to take away from your book or from this podcast?
Speaker 2:Well, I want them to read my book, the American Imperative, by Daniel Rundy. I'm really. It published in February and I really like writing the book and I would just say that we can't fight something with nothing, so we need to have a something. And then I would say we need to have a bipartisan consensus on the fact that we have a bipartisan consensus on that. We have a problem with the Chinese Communist Party. We have bipartisan consensus that we have a problem with Vladimir Putin's Russia. We don't yet have a bipartisan consensus on what to do about it and I wrote this book, the American Imperative, to try and begin to shape and create that bipartisan consensus about what are we going to do about it.
Speaker 1:Right. Well, thank you for coming on.
Speaker 2:Thank you.