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In the wake of World War II, the United States helped establish a world order designed to ensure long-term global stability.

Today, that order, and the long-view posture that built it, appear to be eroding. Not only are American-led global institutions withering, U.S. policy — both domestic and foreign — seems increasingly oriented toward achieving short-term goals affected by near-term demands: election cycles, market pressures, and geopolitical crises.

Are U.S. leaders “opting out” of long-term thinking? If so, how can we refocus present-day decision-making on the future?

To explore those questions, Big Think reached out to Richard Haass , President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, which he led from 2003–2023. A veteran American diplomat and national security official, Haass served in a number of senior positions at the White House and the Departments of State and Defense throughout four presidential administrations, most prominently as Special Assistant to President George H. W. Bush. He now writes the influential newsletter Home & Away , where he analyzes American democracy, international developments, and foreign policy.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Big Think: America’s founders may have been the most long-term thinking politicians in our nation’s history, literally planning a republic that — in theory — could endure forever. Has long-term thinking been on a steady decline since?

Richard Haass: Democracy is arguably the most demanding form of government, and the fact that this one hasn’t just survived but done remarkably well is pretty impressive.

One thing that the founders didn’t anticipate is that the frequency of elections forces short-term thinking. Social media makes a difficult situation that much worse. Over time, it’s become more difficult to think long term because there’s more ability to affect the political marketplace.

Big Think: Which American presidents do you think were most able to overcome short-term distractions and embrace long-term thinking?

Haass: Unsurprisingly, it’s some of the presidents that are most broadly thought of as being great: Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and FDR. Those are the obvious answers.

I’ve been lucky enough to work for four presidents: Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. All of them had a sense of the longer term. They did not necessarily do what was popular in the short term, and that didn’t always help them politically. Carter paid a price for trying to speak truth to the American people about energy. George H.W. Bush, who was the one I was closest to, did a deal on the budget that violated his “Read my lips: no new taxes” pledge. That was a good example of paying a price for doing what was in the country’s longer-term interest.

Of the modern presidents, the one who I think left the biggest legacy and doesn’t get the attention he deserves is Harry Truman. When you think about the last 80 years, the U.S. has occupied an outsized role in the world, and a lot of it was due to the institutions and policies that Truman put into place.

“Post-World War I was the most creative period of American foreign policy. We built both institutions and alliances. We came up with policies like containment.”

Richard Haass

Big Think: During Truman’s presidency — after global order fractured during World War II — policymakers seemed committed to planning for the future. In the war’s wake, a coalition of countries led by the U.S. formed organizations and projects designed to ensure global stability, including the United Nations, the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Do you think upheaval is necessary to reorient thinking toward long-term harmony and stability?

Haass: It was the most creative period of American foreign policy. We built both institutions and alliances. We came up with policies like containment, which was the compass to get us through the Cold War.

Do you need crises to do great things? Not necessarily. We don’t always do great things after crises, either. Look at some recent examples. After COVID, we haven’t had massive changes. This is, in part, because when the crisis fades, some of the urgency fades with it. In my experience, often after crises, there’s no consensus about what caused it or what the lessons ought to be, so the idea that they’re necessary for creative consensus turns out not to be true.

I would hate to think that we have to pay the price of a crisis in order to innovate or to build consensus.

Big Think: Why didn’t we see a revitalization of long-term thinking after the Cold War like we did after World War II?

Haass: I think after great periods of exertion, there’s sometimes a tendency to put your feet up. There was a sense that maybe we didn’t need to do so much in the world [after the Cold War]. We underestimated some of the remaining challenges and then compounded them by doing either too little or too much — the Iraq War in 2003, for example. Those troubles continue today. Partially, it’s a more complicated world. As difficult as it was, it was still less difficult to construct a foreign policy in a bipolar world. Now we’re a decentralized world, a world of much more distributed power. There’s a lot more gray.

“This is the first administration to reject the idea that the United States should play an outsized role in the world. They basically concluded that the costs of American leadership outweigh the benefits.”

Richard Haass

Big Think: Do you think the second Trump administration’s simplified “America First” foreign policy is, in effect, making the world even more complicated — alienating allies and driving countries into corners?

Haass: I don’t think their views are simplified. I would say that they have strong views. Trump 2.0 represents a significant departure from past foreign policy — the emphasis on the Western Hemisphere and commercial interests; the de-emphasis on promoting democracy and human rights; the extreme skepticism of international institutions; and the embrace of tariffs. This is a fairly radical foreign policy. Whether you love it, hate it, or something in between, I think one has to recognize that it represents something qualitatively different.

This is the first administration to reject the idea that the United States should play an outsized role in the world. They basically concluded that the costs of American leadership outweigh the benefits.

Big Think: Is the Trump administration thinking long term?

Haass: This is not a traditional administration. It’s top-down, very much centralized around the president. Normally in administrations, things boil up. In this one, they come down through a very small group of people dominated by Donald Trump. If you asked him, he would say that what he’s doing is good for the short, medium, and long term.

My sense is that he’s reinforcing trends toward a decentralized world where decision-making is more dispersed. Some think he’s leading toward a world of spheres of influence, a world of greater unilateralism and of greater conflict. Those are my concerns. What I don’t see is him building long-term arrangements, because this administration tends to reject institutions and alliances — they see them as tying American hands. This is a president who loves to improvise, who likes to retain for himself a full menu of choice. By definition, that doesn’t allow you to build for the long term.

Big Think: Political scientist Stephen Walt recently described the Trump administration as a “predatory hegemon,” which he defined as a “dominant great power that tries to structure its transactions with others in a purely zero-sum fashion, so that the benefits are always distributed in its favor.” Does a zero-sum, transactional America inevitably produce a less stable world over the long term, or is there a version of this approach that leaves room for a durable international order?

Haass: You could end up with a sort of “costly stability” if we end up in a world of spheres of influence. China would have a large role in the Indo-Pacific. Russia would in Europe. The U.S. would in the Western Hemisphere. It wouldn’t be quite as orderly as people think, because there’d be questions of where one sphere ends and another begins. Not everyone in each sphere would take to it kindly or peacefully.

“We needed some of the old rules — that you can’t change borders by force, for example — but we also needed new rules that take into account lessons we’ve learned.”

Richard Haass

Big Think: In your 2017 book, A World in Disarray , you argued that the fundamental elements of order that have served the world well since World War II have largely run their course, resulting in a chaotic Middle East, an Asia increasingly dominated by China, and a stagnating Europe increasingly turning to reactionary populism. What were those fundamental elements and why did they degrade?

Haass: A lot of institutions just haven’t adapted sufficiently. Nobody on the planet today would design the U.N. in its current form with this current Security Council.

In some cases, we simply don’t have institutions. We have new technologies coming along, in cyber and other areas, where the institutions are truly ineffectual [at preparing for them]. The World Health Organization was exposed during COVID, for example. Policies didn’t adapt either. Containment worked for the four decades of the Cold War world, but it doesn’t work post-Cold War.

A combination of the passage of time, changes in capabilities, and, in some ways, the success of the Cold War rendered us unprepared for what came next. We are struggling to contend with the world that’s emerging.

Big Think: In the book, you made the case that the world needs a new operating system: “World Order 2.0.” Can you describe that system? Have we made any progress toward installing it?

Haass: No. If anything we’ve lost ground. The whole idea was to come up with a set of principles that would promote stability and contend with challenges ranging from technology to issues of sovereignty.

We needed some of the old rules — that you can’t change borders by force, for example — but we also needed new rules that take into account lessons we’ve learned, including rules about cooperating on world health challenges. It sounds almost naïve now.

Unfortunately, there isn’t the consensus to come up with [a new operating system]. What we’re seeing recently is a very different idea of what world order ought to be — and whether there even should be any principles at all. I think you’d even have trouble getting the Genocide Convention through now.

We keep using the phrase “international community,” but there isn’t one. I think we’re now more likely to enter a world in which there is no consensus operating system. The United States is less willing — and, to some extent, less able — to promote its preferences, much less impose them. I think we’re looking at a world one step above disarray.

Big Think: What institutions and policies could world leaders put in place to reinstate stability into the 22nd century?

Haass: History is not a cookbook. It’s not like you’ve got a recipe. But there are some things we can do right now. We can make sure that Russia does not prevail in Ukraine. We can make sure that China does not prevail in any use of force against Taiwan. Instead of blowing up international arrangements, we can try to improve them. We can try to reinvigorate our alliances. The greatest tool over the last eight decades against nuclear proliferation has not been a treaty. The real reason we don’t have proliferation is American security assurances. We can revitalize them.

A big part [of the answer] comes down to domestic American politics. It’s going to be very hard for us to play a role in the world if we don’t sort out some stuff at home. We’ve got some real challenges to make our government work.

Big Think: What can we do domestically to reorient the U.S. toward long-term thinking?

Haass: I’ve been pounding the drum on two things. One is civics education. We wouldn’t graduate someone who can’t do basic math, read, or write. Why should we graduate someone who doesn’t have a basic understanding of democracy and citizenship? Not just what their rights are, but what their obligations are? I’ve produced a curriculum to do that in our schools. That’s something I feel strongly about.

The second is public service. Rather than disparaging public service, why don’t we hold up public service as something that the best and brightest ought to do? It’s important work — you can make things better for yourself, your family, and your neighbors. I don’t mind that some of the best and brightest go to Silicon Valley or Wall Street, but I’d like some of them to go to Washington, D.C., state capitals, and city governments.

This article The pressures pushing America toward short-term thinking is featured on Big Think .

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Open AI formally welcomes the GTP-5.6 models to its lineup: Sol, Terra, and Luna.

In addition to the new modesls themselves, there’s also a new “ultra” option for running multiple models in parallel.

Access to all three GPT-5.6 models opens today in ChatGPT and Codex, but may take 24 hours to hit everyone.

Last month, OpenAI gave us a little preview of what to expect from its next big AI model launch, detailing plans for the three faces of GPT-5.6: Sol, Terra, and Luna . Rather than going one-size-fits-all, the three models are each tuned for specific usage demands, prioritizing maximum performance, or trying to get the most bang out of your AI buck. And today, all three are finally making their formal debu t, ready for you to begin using them across ChatGPT and Codex.

GPT‑5.6 Sol is the heavy hitter, and this is the one that you’re going to want to turn to for tasks like coding, or researching cybersecurity vulnerabilities. When you need more power still, OpenAI is introducing a new “ultra” setting that allows you to deploy multiple agents in parallel for even higher performance.

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Two of the Milky Way's gigantic spiral arms appear to be much farther away than we realized, scientists have discovered after listening to the echoes of distant cosmic explosions. The findings could potentially force us to reconsider our galaxy's mass and maybe even its shape, researchers say.

The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy made up of a dense central region containing a supermassive black hole (dubbed Sagittarius A*), orbited by four major arms — the Sagitarrius arm , the Scutum-Centaurus arm, the Perseus arm and the Outer arm — that curve and stretch outward like a giant pinwheel. Most of our galaxy's stars and gas are tightly packed together in these cosmic limbs, although some stars, including the sun , exist in the gaps between them or within other smaller structures .

Until now, researchers have estimated the size of these arms based on the Milky Way's rotation rate , because it is impossible to see our galaxy's entirety from Earth's position inside the galaxy. This, in turn, has helped us estimate the galaxy's total size (around 100,000 light-years across) and its mass, which is equivalent to around 1.5 trillion suns, according to NASA .

However, this way of measuring the massive structures is not foolproof and has led to several uncertainties about our galaxy since we first discovered its spiral shape around 175 years ago, Live Science's sister site Space.com reported .

"We usually model the Milky Way's outer arms indirectly based on what we know of how our galaxy rotates, but doing it this way leaves room for error," study first author Beatrice Vaia , a researcher at the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics who led the new study as part of her doctorate, said in a statement . The farther away from the galactic center, the more uncertain the measurements become, she added.

In the new study, published June 19 in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics , researchers came up with a new method of measuring the arms using the most powerful and luminous explosions in the universe, known as gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). As X-ray light from these cosmic outbursts passes through dense clouds of gas, like those within our galaxy's arms, it creates luminous rings, or echoes, whose size corresponds to their distance from Earth.

Researchers studied echoes of X-ray light leftover from GRBs as the radiation from these powerful cosmic explosions passed through gas clouds in our galaxy's arms. (Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/INAF/B. Vaia et al.; Optical: Pan-STARRS; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N.Wolk & P.Edmonds) The team used data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton observatory (both of which orbit Earth) to analyze echoes from three different GRBs that shone through gas clouds in the Perseus, Outer and Scutum-Centaurus arms, respectively. This revealed that both the Outer and Scutum-Centaurus arms are likely around 10% farther from Earth than we thought. This may not sound like much, but it equates to several thousand light-years.

The biggest potential implication of this discovery is that our galaxy is wider and, therefore, probably more massive than we realized, which could have major knock-on effects for our understanding of our cosmic neighborhood.

"The differences are small, but any revision of these distances is important because they are so fundamental for understanding our galaxy," study co-author Ilaria Fornasiero , an astronomer at the University of Bologna in Italy, said in a separate statement . "For example, this could mean that astronomers have to revise estimates of the mass of the galaxy, because that affects how wide the arms stretch."

The new positions of the Outer and Scutum-Centaurus arms (shown in red) suggest that the Milky Way is not as perfectly symmetrical as we thought. (Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/M.Weiss) Animations released alongside the new paper show how the Milky Way might look based on the new data, revealing the Outer and Scutum-Centaurus arms extending farther into intergalactic space, making our galaxy look more like a lopsided snail's shell than a perfect spiral.

These visualizations do not necessarily show the true shape of the galaxy, as the Sagitarrius arm and other minor galactic limbs have not been measured using the same methodology. However, the fact that the Perseus arm was not as distant as the other two GRB-illuminated limbs hints at a surprising asymmetry throughout our galaxy that cannot be easily explained.

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The researchers are now on the hunt for more GRBs that can be used to map out the rest of our galaxy's shape and help us better understand what our cosmic neighborhood actually looks like. However, finding these cosmic explosions is easier said than done.

"We're relying on the universe to provide us with these events, and so far, over 25 years, we've only found a handful that we can use," study co-author Andrea Tiengo , an astronomer at Scuola Universitaria Superiore Pavia in Italy, said in the statement. "That said, we will continue to be on the lookout for more."

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Could Microsoft sell off Xbox amid the company's biggest restructuring strategy yet?

Analysts say Xbox, as it stands, would be too expensive for even some of the biggest buyers

It's suggested that big players would be more interested in purchasing "specific pieces" of the business

As Xbox goes through its biggest restructuring yet, and the seemingly never-ending stream of bad news for those involved continues, the future of the gaming company is uncertain.

While some question whether it would be in Microsoft's best interest to sell off the gaming company, industry analysts have suggested that the move would be a hugely expensive endeavour for interested parties, but it's possible that the Xbox we know could be dismantled piece by piece.

Microsoft's major Xbox restructuring announcement, which Xbox CEO Asha Sharma called a "reset," confirmed that thousands of employees were affected by layoffs, including 1,600 immediate job cuts with another 1,600 to come before the end of the current financial year.

The company has also let go of four studios, including Compulsion Games and Double Fine Productions, which are returning to independence, and Senua and State of Decay 3 creators, Ninja Theory and Undead Labs, which are currently looking for new ownership.

This new strategy follows a year of struggles for Xbox, which has increased the prices of its consoles once again, cancelled and shuttered several games and studios , with Sharma now admitting that the company is "not healthy" in its current state, with Game Pass being a key fault.

"Our business today is not healthy," Sharma said in an email sent to Xbox employees. "We are operating at margins that are 3-10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses. We entered Gen 9 with a smaller install base and a higher cost structure. To grow, we bet on Game Pass, multi-platform, and a broader portfolio of content. While those businesses have created meaningful value, they did not grow at the pace we expected."

Before the recent upheaval, The Information (via Reuters ) reported that Sharma was looking to speed up development on games in The Elder Scrolls , Fallout , and Halo franchises and that Microsoft is considering options for its Xbox gaming unit, including a potential spinoff or restructuring ​as a wholly owned subsidiary.

While some believe that the recent restructuring is a plan to make Xbox easier to sell, analysts have suggested to The Verge that there wouldn't be many interested stakeholders who would purchase the entire business, mainly because it would be too expensive considering Xbox's current portfolio.

"I think all options are on the table, considering the drastic measures already put in place to try and restructure the business at both a cyclical and structural level," said Yoshio Osaki, president and CEO of market research firm IDG Intelligence.

Similarly, New York University professor Joost van Dreunen told The Verge, "A wholesale divestiture of Xbox remains on the table, and it looks likelier given Xbox's struggles with rising hardware costs and Microsoft's focus on AI and infrastructure."

He added, "It's never been clear what role Xbox plays in Microsoft's flywheel," but a full sale is the "less likely path" since there are few buyers, including giants like Netflix, Amazon, and Tencent, who would want or afford "an entire interactive-entertainment conglomerate running north of $23 billion in annual revenue."

Instead, Van Dreunen said the likelier scenario is that big players might go after "specific pieces" of the business, with Osaki noting "it's possible that "individual studios, IPs, and teams are sold or spun off piecemeal.”

Sharma revealed her vision for Xbox after taking up the position of CEO in January and said she plans to return to the spirit of what the company was founded on, as well as reduce "the artificial divide between different types of devices."

With the latest part of her plan underway, which has notably delivered another crushing blow to the studios under Xbox's ownership, it's unclear right now where the gaming giant is headed.

According to Osaki, the full vision will be clear by "year-end," while van Dreunen thinks it will be "within 24 months."