Remarks and Q&A by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan at the 2024 World Economic Forum | Davos, Switzerland
JANUARY 16, 2024
MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you so much, Børge. And I’m grateful for the opportunity to say a few words today at this incredibly complex moment.
I think everyone who serves in positions of responsibility in foreign policy and national security likes to say that their time in the seat is the most complex and difficult of any time in recent history. But in our case, it’s actually true. So, we’ll just chalk that one up.
You know, the first two decades of this forum, after its founding in 1971, were shaped by the Cold War.
Then, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, for about a quarter century, the world’s major powers seemed to be converging around a single concept of international order. We integrated former competitors into our international economic institutions, and we bet that this would speed and cement that convergence.
Today, we’re in the early years of a new era. Major powers are vastly more interdependent than at any time during the Cold War. But we’re also in stiff competition about the type of world we want to build.
This age is one of disruptive change. Some of this has been positive, as countries find new ways of harnessing technology, promoting development, and deepening ties with one another. But some of this has been negative, as dangerous actors test the limits of our ever-evolving international system.
I’ve even heard the occasional comparison to the 1930s. But I proceed from the deep conviction that we are never doomed to repeat the past, and the passage from one era to another comes with the obligation and the opportunity to choose more wisely.
And so, in the face of naked aggression, we are not turning inward. Under President Biden’s leadership, we’re rallying a global response to push back.
We’re pursuing intensive and proactive diplomacy to manage our most consequential relationships.
We’re investing in the sources of our own national strength and those of our allies and partners.
We’re not turning away from the international economic system but adapting it to the challenges of today and tomorrow.
And we’re competing vigorously to shape the future of the international system.
That’s the broad backdrop. And I want to talk with you briefly about these efforts and why I remain optimistic about the future and our ability to meet the main challenge of our time: strategic competition in an age of interdependence.
Let me take you back two years ago, to this day, when Putin had amassed 180,000 soldiers on Ukraine’s border, surrounding the country on three sides.
He expected a quick victory, that he could send a column of tanks to Kyiv and topple the democratically elected government of Ukraine; that he could weaken NATO and restore Russia’s sphere of influence. But he underestimated the people of Ukraine.
For two years, with support from a coalition of more than 50 partners led by the United States, the people of Ukraine have remained unflinching against an adversary with an economy ten times larger, a population three times bigger, and a military once ranked as the second best in the world.
Two years later, Putin has not only failed in his imperialist quest to subjugate Ukraine; his invasion has strengthened Ukrainian sovereignty — the very sovereignty he sought to erase — and bolstered the very NATO resolve he sought to weaken. In fact, while he sought to diminish NATO, his action grew our ranks instead.
Brave Ukrainian soldiers have retaken more than half of the territory that Russia occupied from the start of this conflict.
They’ve repulsed Russia’s attempts at an offensive last winter, and they’re repulsing one this winter.
They’ve severely degraded Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, dramatically increasing Ukraine’s exports through the Black Sea.
They’ve imposed severe costs on the Russian military, destroying major capabilities built up over decades.
And amid all of this, Ukraine has made economic reforms, strengthened its own defense industrial base, and accelerated its integration with the West.
Of course, the fight is not over.
Russia has laid dense minefields across the frontlines, making it harder for Ukraine to make major territorial gains.
With China’s help, Putin is mobilizing Russia’s defense industrial base, putting the country’s economy on a wartime footing.
And Russia is seeking more weapons from both North Korea and Iran, which violates multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions that Moscow itself voted to put in place.
But as President Zelenskyy has discussed with President Biden, and as Secretary Blinken and I discussed with him earlier today, the people of Ukraine are steeled for the struggle ahead. And the United States and our partners will continue to stand with them.
We’re expanding training for Ukrainian troops.
We’re working to secure bipartisan support for the necessary resources to supply Ukraine with the weapons it needs.
We’re ramping up our own defense industrial base, while denying Russia access to critical inputs it needs to do the same.
And we’re also innovating — and this is a critical point — working with our partners, and especially with the private sector, to help Ukraine solve the key technological challenges of an evolving battlefield, like electronic warfare, drones, and de-mining.
Together, we will build on our sanctions to ensure that even as unsustainable war spending masks underlying weakness, the economic costs for Russia continue to mount.
And we will keep supporting Ukraine’s diplomatic efforts to secure a just and lasting peace that protects Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in line with the principles of the U.N. Charter. Because we’ve seen time and time again what happens when aggressors are allowed to take a neighbor’s territory by force and don’t pay a price: They keep going.
We’ve also worked to rally an international response to new aggression in the Middle East.
In the Red Sea, reckless attacks by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, including the use of anti-ship ballistic missiles, have threatened freedom of navigation in one of the world’s most vital waterways. More than 50 nations have been affected in nearly 30 attacks.
Last week, the United States and the United Kingdom, with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands, struck a number of targets in Yemen used by the Houthis to stage and launch these attacks.
This defensive action followed extensive multinational coordination led by the United States among 44 nations to condemn Houthi attacks, and also led to a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning those attacks.
We are not looking for regional conflict. Far from it.
Through a combination of steady deterrence and steadfast diplomacy, we seek to stop the spread of conflict and to create the conditions for de-escalation.
Our approach is and remains focused on moving towards greater integration and stability in the region.
Long before October 7th, the United States was deeply engaged in an effort to secure a political horizon for the Palestinian people, with Israel’s security guaranteed as part of that.
We judged that direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, which had fallen short so many times before, was unlikely to succeed. We determined the best approach was to work towards a package deal that involved normalization between Israel and key Arab states, together with meaningful progress and a political horizon for the Palestinian people.
That was our goal before October 7th. And it was our progress toward that goal that Hamas sought to destroy on October 7th, when they came across the border into Israel, viciously massacred 1,200 people, took more than 200 hostages, and then turned and fled, hiding behind an innocent civilian population and vowing to commit October 7th again and again.
That is the reality Israel is contending with — a determined terrorist threat that chose as its battlefield the communities of innocent civilians and still to this day holds more than 100 hostages in circumstances that are dire and deteriorating.
Now, this does not lessen at all Israel’s responsibility to conduct its campaign in a way that upholds international humanitarian law and abides by the moral and strategic necessity to distinguish between terrorists and innocent civilians. Every innocent life — Palestinian, Israeli — every one is sacred and deserves to be protected.
And the United States will continue to work with the rest of the world to secure the release of the hostages and to ensure the Palestinian people have access to the food, water, medicine, and safety that they urgently need and deserve as human beings.
As we respond to this crisis, we are actively pursuing a pathway to normalization and integration with our regional partners.
There’s a lot to do, but we are working together day in and day out to think about what a future can and should look like after the conflict. A future where Gaza is never again used as a platform for terror. A future where Israelis and Arabs can live in peace, Palestinians have a state of their own, and Israel’s security is assured.
I know that in this moment, when there is so much anger and pain and so much uncertainty, it’s hard to imagine. But it really is the only path that provides peace and security for all. And what is more — it is not impractical. It can be done. The pieces are there to be put together to achieve this outcome — and not years down the road, but in the near term, if all of us pull together and make the wise and bold decisions to choose this course.
Now, as we’re dealing with unfolding crises in the Ukraine — in Ukraine and the Middle East, we’re also managing critical relationships around the world, none more critical than the relationship between the United States and China.
The United States is competing with China across multiple dimensions, and we make no bones about that. But we are not looking for confrontation or conflict. And we are seeking to manage that competition responsibly, intensifying diplomacy to reduce the risk of miscalculation.
We saw this just last November, when President Biden and President Xi met in Woodside, California.
They agreed to restart counternarcotics cooperation. And since then, Beijing has actually taken affirmative steps to halt the flow of precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl, progress that we hope and need to see continue.
We also agreed to resume military-to-military communications and have already taken steps to do so. The Chairman of our Joint Chiefs of Staff just spoke with his counterpart for the first time in his job and the first time in quite a long time. And this is to the good for our relationship but also for regional and global stability. It will help reduce the risk of unintended conflict.
And together, the U.S. and China will launch a new dialogue aimed at minimizing and managing the risks of artificial intelligence.
Now, we are doing all this while at the same time making the investments in ourselves and our partners so that we can continue to compete effectively.
We’ve revitalized our own industrial and innovation base with historic legislation, while seeking to address Beijing’s unfair economic practices.
We’ve energized our alliances and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific and Europe in ways that were, frankly, unimaginable a few years ago: the launch of AUKUS; elevating the Quad; new agreements with Vietnam, the Philippines, and India; a trilateral — a historic trilateral with Japan and South Korea; and two summits with Pacific Island states.
We’ve come together with our G7 partners and agreed on collective steps to de-risk our economies and diversify away from strategic dependencies rather than decoupling.
And together with allies and partners, we’ve stressed the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.
All the while, we’ve been transparent and straightforward about the targeted and narrowly tailored steps we’ve taken to protect critical technologies.
And I want to spend a minute on this — because technology competition is global. In an interdependent world, there’s a risk that it could contribute to a broader trend of disintegration.
That’s why we are working to bring together countries and companies to set high standards for emerging technologies and secure the trusted free flow of data.
We’ve also taken steps in partnership with others to protect foundational technologies with what we’ve called a “small yard and a high fence.”
Today, military advantage hinges on access to critical technologies, some of which are commercial and dual-use, like advanced semiconductors.
Simply put: Our strategic competitors should not be able to exploit American technologies to undermine our national security or that of our allies and partners.
To deal with this, we’ve taken steps to regulate specific outbound investments of concern in technology. And we’ve implemented carefully tailored restrictions on exports, focused on advanced semiconductor manufacturing tools, supercomputing capabilities, and the most advanced chips, which are critical to a range of military platforms including weapons of mass destruction, hypersonic missiles, and autonomous weapons systems.
Key allies and partners have followed suit, acting on their own concerns.
Now, I want to be clear: These tailored measures are not a technology blockade. They do not seek to, nor, in fact, do they restrict broader trade and investment.
And, in fact, in our semiconductor rule that we put out just a few months ago, last October, there is a broad carveout for commercial chips, the kind of chips that can help power economic progress and growth.
Our goal is to ensure that the next generation of technologies works for, not against, our security and our democracy.
Now, last spring, at the Brookings Institution, I talked about the work that President Biden was doing to respond to the economic challenges that he faced when he took office:
That in recent decades, America had enjoyed solid topline GDP growth, but the benefits of that growth were not being broadly shared broadly across America’s middle class.
That our economic policy was not taking sufficient account of a massive non-market economy like China.
That our approach was not delivering fast enough or ambitiously enough on a clean energy transition.
And that these problems were not unique to the United States.
President Biden entered office with a simple and powerful affirmative answer. It was not an answer to abandon what had built America into the strongest, most innovative economy in the world, but rather to rediscover it.
It starts with investing, with returning to an American tradition that runs through Lincoln’s [trans]continental railroad, Eisenhower’s highways, and Kennedy’s moonshot.
And because of that choice, today the United States has the strongest recovery and lowest inflation of any leading economy.
We’ve created nearly 14 million jobs, including 750,000 manufacturing jobs across all 50 states. Real wages are rising. We’ve had 23 straight months of unemployment under 4 percent for the first time in half a century.
And what’s even more compelling in a forum like this: Our partners have joined us in this journey.
This time last year, there were murmurs that the United States’ historic domestic investments would fracture the global economic order and weaken our alliances.
The reality is that countries around the world want to follow the formula that we’ve developed, and we want to help them do that: making bold investments, building high-quality infrastructure, empowering workers, tackling climate change.
And we’ve also been focused on ensuring our approach works for everyone, including emerging market and developing countries.
With our partners, we’re mobilizing greater private investment to address development needs, to get from the billions being invested today to the trillions that are needed.
That’s the main goal of the G7’s Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, or “PGI”, that we launched with our G7 partners last year — its signature approach of spurring growth along economic corridors.
We’re also leading the way on reforming multilateral development banks to provide a viable option for countries to invest in their futures, including middle-income countries who haven’t had access to the low-cost financing they need and deserve.
We’re building innovative new international economic partnerships, including the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework and the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity, because our fundamental view is that international economic policy needs to be about solving the problems of today, not the problems of 50 years ago.
Building resilience in our supply chains. Mobilizing investment — massive investment — for an effective clean-energy transition. Ensuring trust and transparency in digital innovation. Stopping a race to the bottom in corporate taxation. Tackling corruption. And advancing a trade policy that puts the rights and wellbeing of workers and working families at its core.
Now, as the National Security Advisor of the United States, my job is to worry. Worry about the things I’ve talked about today — and there’s plenty to say grace over there — but also worry about other threats too, like North Korea.
But let me close with a couple of thoughts on why I remain optimistic.
First, the more others seek to undermine the international system through violence and coercion, the more it brings our allies and partners closer together.
This is the paradox that leaders like Putin cannot seem to solve.
Second, when it comes to world politics, people around this planet are much more interested in whether or not their lives are improving than in anyone’s imperial ambition or imperial project.
So, as long as we continue to be focused on offering a global value proposition that delivers for people — that is serious about shared economic growth, tackling climate change, managing new technologies, and promoting good governance — our model will remain much more attractive globally than that of aggression or coercion or intimidation or confrontation.
So we’re going to stay the course and look to our partners, including all of you, to continue with us, to make clear that violent disruption of the international system will fail; to remain committed to diplomacy, which is even more vital as geopolitical tensions rise; and to take steps needed to lead in the sources of technological and economic growth that will be the foundation of success and strength in free societies.
Nothing in world politics is inevitable. We are in command of our own choices. So it’s up to us to summon the vision, commitment, and sense of shared purpose to make the right choices, to shape the future for the benefit of our fellow citizens and future generations to come.
So, thank you for giving me the opportunity today. And I’m happy to have a conversation with Børge. Appreciate it. (Applause.)
MR. BRENDE: Thank you so much to Jake Sullivan. That was an impressive tour d’horizon.
And you’re right that a year ago, many people, even here in Davos, was expecting the U.S. to be in the recession by now. And what we’re seeing is a soft landing. But the geopolitical backdrop is more complex than a year ago. And I think many participants — some people here are really worried that this will spill into the economic recovery also in a negative way.
And one of the things that people are very worried about now is, of course, the situation in the Red Sea. Maybe you could say a few words about that. Do you think this will get better in the coming weeks? Or do we have to fasten the seatbelt and this will be complex in the year to come in the Red Sea?
MR. SULLIVAN: Well, first, you know, as I said in my speech, this goes way beyond being a regional challenge. This is a global challenge. We’re talking about a vital armer- — artery of global commerce, a critical maritime chokepoint that’s being held hostage. And countries and companies that have nothing to do with the Middle East whatsoever are being affected. More than 50 nations in nearly 30 attacks.
And so, it’s a crisis that the whole world needs to respond to. And frankly, the U.N. Security Council did come through with a very strong resolution condemning these attacks and calling for the Houthis to stop.
Now, we mobilized a coalition of countries to take strikes to degrade the Houthis’ capabilities so their ability to mount sustained and complex attacks becomes more difficult over time. But we did not say, when we launched our attacks, they’re going to end once and for all, the Houthis will be fully deterred. We anticipated the Houthis would continue to try to hold this critical artery at risk. And we continue to reserve the right to take further action. But this needs to be an all-hands-on-deck effort.
And frankly, the answer to your question about how long this goes on and how bad it gets comes down not just to the decisions of the countries in the coalition that took strikes last week, but the broad set of countries, including those with influence in Tehran and influence in other capitals in the Middle East, making this a priority to indicate that the entire world rejects wholesale the idea that a group like the Houthis can basically hijack the world as they are doing.
And so we want to work with countries across the board — countries who are allies and partners, countries who are not — in the common interest to get this to stop.
MR. BRENDE: So, after 7th of October and the war in Gaza, there’s been increasing, then, worries about escalation of the war. But then it did not take place. Lebanon was not a part of the war; we did not see a major reaction from Hezbollah. Do you think it still will be contained? Of course, this Houthi situation is complicating it. But there’s not a full-scale escalation that will have major impact on the world economy.
MR. SULLIVAN: Look, the risk was real, from October 7th, then the risk remains real today. And that’s why in the immediate aftermath of October 7th, President Biden mobilized at lightning speed to move U.S. military assets, to increase deterrence in the region, to send a clear message to actors who might want to exploit the situation. And we continue to be focused on that.
But we do see a pathway to a shift in the military campaign in Gaza, a reduction in tensions and the exchange of fire along Israel’s northern border, a reduction in the risk of escalation in other parts of the region. And we’ll have to continue to deal with the Houthi threat.
We see a pathway. We are eagerly working with partners throughout the region to try to pursue that pathway. But in the meantime, we have to guard against and be vigilant against the possibility that, in fact, rather than heading towards de-escalation, we are on a path of escalation that we have to manage.
And we are doing this not just by ourselves, but with a large collection of countries both in the region and beyond. And it remains a central locus of our strategy: try to ensure that we manage escalation across the Middle East to the maximum extent possible, taking every possible measure that we can in that regard, and ultimately get on a path of diplomacy and de-escalation.
MR. BRENDE: Coming back to Gaza. The last years, there has not been that much focus on a two-state solution, definitely not from the Israeli government. But the pressure on the international community hasn’t been that much either. There are other topics that have been at the top of the agenda.
I think now there is more focus on finding a reliable future solution for a two-state, Israelis and Palestinians living peacefully next to each other.
But when you have been to Jerusalem and President Biden also has his discussions with Netanyahu, do you feel there is any genuine interest on the Israeli side to pursue also part process, the two-state solution? Or is it a very lonely thing to do — you feel that you have to push and there is no real response?
MR. SULLIVAN: Well, first, you know, at the start of your question, your premise was that nobody was really focused on a two-state solution or the Palestinian question before October 7th. And I — I do take some exception to that, particularly given the fact that a central diplomatic initiative of the Biden administration was to try to generate normalization and, as a critical element of a normalization package, generate both tangible benefits for the Palestinian people and a political horizon towards two states.
And it was our judgment that that was going to be the most viable pathway to make progress on what had been an intractable problem; that going for another round of direct negotiations wasn’t going to do it, so coming in this more indirect way was most likely to generate this result.
And in fact, earlier last year, in 2023, I actually went to Ramallah, sat with President Abbas, and talked through this play, long before October 7th took place.
Now, the strategy post-October 7th does not deviate very much from that. We still want to see normalization tied to a political horizon for the Palestinian people. The current Israeli government has expressed quite strong views publicly about the Palestinian question. And there are elements and voices in that government that, actually, the U.S. government has come out quite strongly and criticized for certain statements and stances that they’ve taken.
But ultimately, you know, the Israeli government will have to make its choice about how best to guarantee and ensure the security of the State of Israel, and it is President Biden’s firm conviction that the best way to do that is two states with Israel’s security guaranteed.
MR. BRENDE: So what you’re saying is that the follow-up of the Abraham Accords was to bring in — if we were to bring in Saudi Arabia in that, it would have been also — the basis for that would have to be a political solution also, where Israel would have to move on a two-state solution?
MR. SULLIVAN: Yes. In fact, when President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke in the weeks and months leading up to October 7th, this was a key topic of discussion: how –where did the Palestinians fit into a broader vision for Israel’s integration into the region and normalization with Arab states.
MR. BRENDE: That would also mean, as according to the Arab peace plan, that the Arabs would also then together guarantee peace and safety for Israel if there is a two-state solution.
And that was — were serious discussions around this you felt, but that has not continued after 7th of October?
MR. SULLIVAN: No. In fact, what I’m saying is that the basic recipe, which is peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors, a two-state solution with Israel’s security guaranteed, these pieces are not, you know, in a way, operating in completely separate spheres; they are linked and connected. They were before October 7. They remain linked today. And they are something that we’re going to have to continue to work on.
MR. BRENDE: We had President Zelenskyy sitting in that chair just a couple of hours ago. And he, of course, urges all to continue to support financially, but also militarily. EU is currently not in a situation where they can continue, but Ursula von der Leyen has underlined that she’s working on it, and it’s question of weeks; I think is the same in the U.S. currently. I think the White House announced in the weekend that the support had to stop for the moment, but I think you’re working on a political solution. So maybe comment on that.
And the second thing is that he’s also asking for more advanced weapons and missiles. And following the recent attacks from Russia, hitting more and more civilians, we’re seeing really, really all this suffering. Is that something that you’re contemplating, even bringing more advanced weapons in there with allies?
MR. SULLIVAN: Secretary Blinken and I had the opportunity to meet with President Zelenskyy this morning and talk about the battlefield and talk about various capabilities. We had a very good discussion. I will leave it at that. It’s best left behind closed doors at the moment. But it was a robust and detailed discussion.
MR. BRENDE: If it was a good discussion, I guess you were discussing this thing through though. Huh?
MR. SULLIVAN: (Laughs.) Again, as I said, I will leave that behind closed doors.
What I will say is that we’ve got to be able to deliver the necessary resources to Ukraine for the weapons that it needs to be able to achieve the results that it needs. And that requires mobilizing the bipartisan support we have in both the House and Senate, converting that into actual votes for the money. President Biden is absolutely laser-focused on that. We are seeking to get that done in the coming weeks.
And, in fact, I continue to believe and express confidence that we will, you know, after a lot of twists and turns, ultimately get there. I have held that confidence from the beginning. I continue to hold that confidence today.
MR. BRENDE: Last question. We had an order after the Cold War, the Cold War — post-Cold War order that was based on rule of law, acceptance of the U.N. Charter. And that order seems to no — not be the order anymore. We are on the way to a new order. So we are between orders. Do you agree with that? Or are there ways of — what are we able to keep on the positive side from the old order to bring into a new world order? And how can we avoid that that new world order becomes like a jungle growing back and we rather have order based on international law and principles that have brought us prosperity and freedom for decades?
MR. SULLIVAN: I guess — and maybe this is the old, kind of, teacher in me coming out — I think of this a little bit more about a transition of eras rather than a transition to orders, but the two are kind of cousins of one another. The reason I draw the distinction is because I don’t think the international order built after 1945 is getting replaced wholesale with some new order; it will obviously evolve as it has evolved multiple times over the decades since 1945.
But I do think, in a more sharp and distinctive way, we are moving into a new era, and that’s what I talked about in my remarks, that we are — you know, the post-Cold War era has come to a close; we’re at the start of something new. We have the capacity to shape what that looks like.
And at the heart of it will be many of the core principles and core institutions of the existing order adapted for the challenges that we face today. And that’s a lot of what I tried to lay out in my remarks. Some of that goes to geopolitics and showing that crime doesn’t pay — that is, you will pay a serious price for the kind of aggression we’ve seen from the likes of Russia. And part of it’s about geoeconomics and how we build or update the international economic order in ways that address the needs of working people, address the climate crisis, address the reality of this major non-market economy, the PRC.
And then part of that also is about giving greater voice to countries that did not have that voice back after 1945 but deserve it today. Adding the African Union just this year to the G20 is a good example of that, but there are many others as well.
But, yes, I believe we’ve entered a new era. I think that era is marked by a simple thing to say but a very complex reality, which is strategic competition in an age of interdependence. The major powers are deeply interdependent; they are also competitive. And that creates the world we’re operating in.
For the United States, what does that mean? At essence, it means invest in ourselves and invest in our allies so we can compete effectively, but also so we can rally solutions to the world’s problems that affect all of us, friends as well as competitors.
MR. BRENDE: Thank you. A more multipolar world, but a multipolar world without multilateralism and law — international law — is a very dangerous situation. We tried that in Europe, you know, before the First World War.
MR. SULLIVAN: Well, I think there’s no reason why we cannot generate global problem-solving at scale on the big challenges that we face today. We didn’t do so with the COVID pandemic, but that could teach us a lot of lessons for how we do so going forward on both longer-term crises that have become increasingly urgent with every passing year, like climate change, and urgent crises like what is happening in the Middle East right now.
And I started and finished my speech with optimism because I think we, ourselves, have the capacity to decide whether we step up to do this. We have the tools to do it. The question is, are we prepared to put those to work? That is a question of political will within our countries and then across our countries. And those who are working to summon that political will need to band together to try to produce a common, coherent response to the great challenges that we face in 2024.
MR. BRENDE: Thank you very much to Jake Sullivan. Excellent. Thank you. (Applause.)
