By Brigitte L. Nacos
According to New York Times columnist David
Brooks, “The war on terror has shredded the reputation of the Bush
administration. It’s destroyed the reputation of Tony Blair’s government in Britain, Ehud Olmert’s government in Israel and Nuri al-Maliki’s government in Iraq. And
here’s a prediction: It will destroy future American administrations, and
future Israeli, European and world governments as well.” While it is far more
difficult to fight and defeat terrorists or guerrillas rather than nation
states, there is no reason to believe that terrorist victories are inevitable—unless
the next president continues his predecessor’s failed
policies. Given the current cast of Republicans vying to succeed President
Bush, this is a possibility. In today’s New York Times, columnist Paul
Krugman writes that “Mr. Bush has degraded our government and undermined
the rule of law; he has led us into strategic disaster and moral squalor. But
the leading contenders for the Republican nomination have given us little
reason to believe they would behave differently.” Whether elected as
Republican, Democrat, or Independent, the next president of the United States
and his or her team must sack the Bush post-9/11 doctrine and formulate and
implement fundamentally new strategies to counter the very real terrorist
threat—especially from people like bin Laden, organizations like Al Qaeda, and
similar individuals, networks, groups, and cells. The Third Way National Security Project’s new
report, “Security First: A Strategy for Defending America,” is an excellent
contribution to pinpointing the failures in the post-9/11 struggle against
terrorism, and (2) and more importantly, identifying the pillars of a
comprehensive and realistic new strategic concept tailored to the needs of the
post-9/11 world-(dis)order.
The Report addresses the most urgent areas in need of new foreign policy approaches, first of all the terrorist threat from Al Qaeda and like-minded foes; second, nuclear proliferation; third, dependence on foreign energy; and fourth, “threats to the global commons” that entail a variety of problems, such as global warming and mass pandemics. The authors propose policy changes under the following headlines: Creating a 21st century military; reforming the intelligence community; overhauling homeland security; taking on state building; promoting democracy; and building new alliance structures.
As far as the terror related areas are concerned, I am not persuaded that the military needs 100,000 more ground forces, as the Report suggests, but I agree that more special forces are needed in the fight against terrorism. There is no doubt that nuclear proliferation and especially the existence of large weapons-grade nuclear material in dozens of countries calls for more attention and fresh approaches by the next president--and not of the military variety. Especially former members of the intelligent community have spoken out in favor of strengthening the capabilities of the CIA and other agencies; and even lay persons know since Hurricane Katrina about the problems plaguing the Department of Homeland Security and the need to reestablish FEMA as a freestanding agency. As Stephen Flynn points out in his alarming new book “The Edge of Disaster,” the real problem with homeland security has been that the Bush administration focused on fighting the “war on terrorism” abroad at the expense of securing vulnerable targets inside the country.
I agree whole-heartedly with the Report’s suggestion that the United Statesmust reestablish effective means to engage in public diplomacy to counter the propaganda of the bin Ladens and Al-Zawahiris of this world just as it was done during the Cold War to counter communist propaganda. This is a far more important area than generally recognized. The most important resources of today’s terrorists are the multifaceted global information and media networks of communications. It is logical that the same resources must be utilized to counter the words and images of the preachers of hate and violence.
To sum up, then, “Security First: A Strategy for Defending America” deserves attention and discussion.
Comments