‘Great powers don’t mind their own business’: Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warns of perils of US isolationism at Notre Dame Forum event

As part of the 2024-25 Notre Dame Forum, Condoleezza Rice, the 66th U.S. Secretary of State, the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and a University of Notre Dame alumna, returned to campus Friday (Oct. 11) to speak to an overflow crowd of more than 1,000 people in the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center and hundreds more online.

In a conversation with University President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., Rice stressed the importance of the United States continuing to engage globally amid current challenges.

John McGreevy, the Charles and Jill Fischer Provost, opened the event by welcoming Rice and Father Dowd to the stage and introducing this year’s Forum theme, “What Do We Owe Each Other?”

Father Dowd then introduced Rice, “a fellow political scientist,” and asked her to elaborate on her recent Foreign Affairs article in which she wrote, “The world still needs the United States and the United States still needs the world.” Rice warned of emerging trends she terms “the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” — populism, nativism, isolationism and protectionism — noting that they tend to ride together.

“I understand that Americans may feel tired after almost 80 years of international leadership,” she said, “and what I really want to say to Americans is that great powers don’t mind their own business. They try to shape the world. And if we don’t shape it, the great powers that will shape it are authoritarians like China and Russia. And we won’t like that world.”

Father Dowd and Rice went on to discuss the complex relationship between the United States and China, one in which the two countries are deeply interconnected but also economic and security rivals, and the need for a more nuanced U.S. policy to maintain a workable relationship with China.

Rice encouraged U.S. universities, in particular, to stay open to Chinese students.

“With universities, let’s stay open. Let’s stay true to ourselves,” she said. “If we do what we do best, which is educate, and do it as much as we can without regard to national boundaries, we’ll win the innovation war.”

Father Dowd turned the conversation to Russia, asking Rice what she foresees happening in the war in Ukraine and where the U.S. stands. She outlined three key miscalculations she believes Russian President Vladimir Putin made: failing to recognize Ukraine’s strong national identity, overestimating the prowess of his own army and mistakenly believing that other countries would not come to Ukraine’s aid.

“We need to make him pay for those miscalculations,” she said. “We need to keep supporting [Ukrainians], because if Vladimir Putin wins this war, he won’t stop.”

Rice and Father Dowd also discussed China’s growing influence on other parts of the world — especially on the Global South through its infrastructure development strategy dubbed the Belt and Road Initiative — and what the United States’ role should be in offering alternatives.

“We can’t say, whether it’s to Africa or Latin America, ‘don’t do those deals with China,’ and then do nothing ourselves,” she said. “Our way of doing this has to be to help with the nonprofits that we fund to build the capacity of these countries, to help them fight corruption and to help them improve women’s rights. I’ve often said if I could wave a magic wand and do one thing that would make development easier, I would improve the lot of women in the Global South.”

Rice, who earned a master’s degree in government and international studies from Notre Dame in 1975, also took questions from two Notre Dame undergraduate students. She concluded her remarks by saying how special the University is to her and offering advice to the Notre Dame students in the audience.

“I want to say something, particularly, to the students here: One of the most important values that you can develop is the willingness to listen to those with whom you don’t agree,” Rice said. “It is very easy in the days of the internet to go to your tribe, to your aggregators, your influencers, your websites, and only talk to people who think like you do.

“Particularly in a university, our search for truth means that we all have to be open to the possibility that we are wrong. And I’m delighted that Notre Dame is providing so many opportunities and so many fora for you to do that.”

Rice served on the University’s Board of Trustees from 1994 until 2001 when she was appointed national security adviser by President George W. Bush. In 2005, she became the second woman and first Black woman to serve as secretary of state and remained in that role throughout Bush’s second term in office.

A recording of the conversation is available at forum.nd.edu.