Until he became the top diplomat, former National Security Adviser Susan Rice made her career as a top official in President Obama’s administration working to stabilize, rather than undermine, ties with Russia.
Now she is stepping outside her role as a member of the U.S. government to address, with others, the current turmoil in U.S.-Russian relations. She is one of the main initiators of a wide-ranging initiative aimed at making the United States as dominant as possible in a future world in which Russia is not, and China is not.
Earlier this month, Ms. Rice hosted a lunch at the New York home of a former aide to Secretary of State John Kerry, allowing a number of contributors to this article to describe their thoughts about the push. The initiative is not a direct rebuttal to the Russia initiatives promoted by President Trump. But their focus is on American leadership, and would have implications for how Mr. Trump might use Russian President Vladimir Putin to create a climate that would support U.S. policy toward Iran and North Korea.
It is part of a new book, “Men Against Trump,” that Ms. Rice co-authored with two Republican neoconservative advisers. The effort — so far running only over $1 million in financing from supporters in Washington and in New York — is being described by those involved as the biggest organization of its kind in American history. But it has not yet revealed how it will use its enormous cache of money. Ms. Rice, who is being paid for her work on the initiative, has continued to serve as a presidential adviser.
“In the wake of the 2016 presidential election,” Ms. Rice says in an interview in the book, “there is an increasing recognition that America must be a global leader.”
