Rudy Giuliani (right) with Lev Parnas (far left) in London, the United Kingdom, July 2019

Graft is nothing new; it may be the second-oldest profession. Powerful people and those with access to them have always used kickbacks, pay-to-play schemes, and other corrupt practices to feather their nests and gain unfair advantages. And such corruption has always posed a threat to the rule of law and stood in the way of protecting basic civil and economic rights.

What is new, however, is the transformation of corruption into an instrument of national strategy. In recent years, a number of countries—China and Russia, in particular—have found ways to take the kind of corruption that was previously

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  • PHILIP ZELIKOW is Professor of History and Professor of Governance at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia. A former U.S. diplomat and Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, he has worked for five presidential administrations.

    ERIC EDELMAN is Counselor at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and Senior Adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He served as U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy from 2005 to 2009.

    KRISTOFER HARRISON is a financial and political risk consultant. He was an adviser to the U.S. Departments of Defense and State during the George W. Bush administration.

    CELESTE WARD GVENTER served as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense during the George W. Bush administration. Beginning this fall, she will be a Fellow at the Albritton Center for Grand Strategy at Texas A&M University.
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