When people think of what a perfect national security adviser would look like, they tend to picture Brent Scowcroft. It’s not an exaggeration to refer to the retired Air Force general, presidential counselor, and foreign policy workhorse as the most effective and knowledgeable national security adviser the United States has ever had. His decadeslong career, encompassing significant events in history such as President Richard Nixon’s trip to China, the fall of the Berlin War, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, is rivaled by few (if any) of his peers.
Scowcroft’s passing at the age of 95 is a sad event for those who looked up to him as a foreign policy wise man. But it should also serve as a reminder of how desperate Washington, D.C., is in need of men and women with the kind of prudence, character, and wisdom Scowcroft exhibited throughout his long and storied career.
By now, most know about Scowcroft’s many achievements as a public servant — he played a significant role in the lightning-speed rout of the Iraqi military from Kuwait as well as the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union a year later. Just as impressive, however, is how he ran the White House National Security Council.
Scowcroft is the only person in U.S. history who has held that tiresome and thankless job twice, a testament not only to his dogged work ethic but also to his sense of fairness. Indeed, Scowcroft was the exact opposite of the ideologue or shameless self-promoter pushing his preconceived notion of the world onto his boss. Unlike John Bolton, he actually engaged with Cabinet officials across the interagency, held National Security Council meetings with the principals, and ensured the president received a litany of policy recommendations before making a final decision. Scowcroft was in many ways the referee on the pitch who flashed the red card when this or that department was getting too aggressive, and he played the role to perfection.
Scowcroft didn’t lose any of his luster as the years passed. He remained incredibly focused on the big picture and constantly asked the types of probing questions one needs to ask before the U.S. searched for monsters to destroy. He did this despite the fact that the powers-that-be, particularly in the George W. Bush administration, would have preferred it if the ex-national security adviser took a vow of silence in retirement.
When the war drums against Saddam Hussein were echoing throughout Washington and pundits in the country’s largest newspapers were assuring people that U.S. soldiers would be welcomed in Baghdad with flowers and candy, Scowcroft counseled patience. Storming the Iraqi capital and overthrowing Saddam’s regime “would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counterterrorist campaign,” he wrote in an August 2002 column. There would be no more effective way to split the coalition against al Qaeda than to launch preventative military action in Iraq. According to author Robert Draper’s new account, To Start A War, Scowcroft spent his time at the Aspen Security Forum that year telling participants that regime change in Iraq would be neither cheap or easy. President George W. Bush would later phone his father, George H.W. Bush, complaining about the remarks. But as history has shown since, Scowcroft proved to be right on Iraq as he so often was on everything else.
With Scowcroft now gone, foreign policy realists have lost their beloved dean. It’s this realist school of thought, constantly on guard against hubris showing its ugly face and cognizant of America’s strengths as well as its limitations, that is finally making a comeback after two decades of colossally expensive, fruitless, counterproductive endeavors.
It’s now the responsibility of Scowcroft’s contemporaries to fill his enormous shoes.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.
