美国提出“民主国家协约”逼迫中国和平演变
万维读者网 2007-01-11 19:47:38
http://news.creaders.net/headline/newsViewer.php?id=700981&dcid=1
把世界自由民主国家集合一起，加强它们之间的安全合作，是否针对一党专政的中国？促使世界各国政府民主化，是否意味着逼迫中国和平演变？
联合早报报道，这些都是中美学者在一场学术报告会上交流时，中国学者提问背后所透露的疑虑。
由美国普林斯顿大学威尔逊公共与国际事务学院主导的普林斯顿国家安全项目，集合美国共和、民主两党，政商学界400多人，经过两年半研究，九场学术研讨，完成了《铸造法治之下的自由安全----21世纪美国国家安全战略》（英文报告节本可参考 www.wws.princeton.edu/ppns/report/FinalReport.pdf）。报告有可能影响美国未来的外交和安全政策。
负责撰写报告的学者----普林斯顿大学威尔逊公共与国际事务学院院长安玛丽・斯劳特和该院政治学教授约翰・艾肯伯里，昨天在中国社科院与中国同行进行汇报和交流。
中国学者特别关心报告提出要发展全球性“民主国家协约”，以及美国应促使世界各国政府达到PAR标准的建议。
“民主国家协约”将把世界上采纳自由民主政治制度的国家集合一起，加强它们之间的安全合作。PAR是英文Popular（有民意基础）、Accountable（对公民负责）和Rights-Regarding（尊重人权）的英文缩写。
北京大学国际关系学院院长王缉思欢迎报告提出的三个美国战略目标----国土安全、健康的全球经济和良好的国际环境----他认为这些目标为中美合作提供了基础。
但是他认为民意基础不一定非得经过选票呈现，而且民主化进程近来在国际上也面对挫折。
他说：“‘民主国家协约’在中国普遍上被视为是令人担忧的概念。但是我并不担心，因为我不认为近期内它有可能实现。就算你有‘民主国家协约 ’，你仍然要面对两难，就如布什政府在发动伊拉克战争前夕一样。中国对发动战争有所保留，但是反对最强烈的还是民主国家，如德国和法国。”
对于报告认为美国未来最大的威胁不是在中东而来自东亚，王缉思质问这是否指中国和朝鲜。
中国国际问题研究所副所长阮宗泽对于报告“预防性使用武力”的概念表示忧虑。报告提出预防性打击恐怖势力的必要性，如果联合国安理会不授权，美国也必须获取类似北约组织等区域机构的认可，阮宗泽担心这会降低单边动武的门槛。
阮宗泽质疑报告继续把美日军事同盟作为美国在东亚的安全梁柱的观点。他指出，日本在东亚有越来越孤立的趋势，仅依靠美日同盟不必然符合美国的长远利益。
中国人民大学国际关系学院副院长金灿荣认为，亚洲区域整合在美国缺席的情形下继续前进，不是因为中国有意排除美国，而是美国自己忽略亚洲。
他说：“中国诚心希望美国继续维持世界第一，至少多20年。中国诚心希望美国继续在本区域扮演角色。”
中国社科院美国研究所所长黄平说，民主标准的认定容易引起争议，一个国家可能觉得自己已经民主化，但是国际社会或有不同认知。
“民主”已经成为台海两岸角力的新战场，台湾总统陈水扁倡议成立“全球新兴民主论坛”，试图借用国际力量抗衡大陆。中国领导人近来在不同场合反复强调民主，“民主监督”也频繁在中共的文宣里出现。
================================================================================
Forging A World Of Liberty Under Law
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In the first decade of the 21st century the United States must assess the world not through the eyes of
World War II, or the Cold War, or even 9/11. Instead, Americans need to recognize that ours is a world
lacking a single organizing principle for foreign policy like anti-fascism or anti-communism. We face
many present dangers, several long-term challenges, and countless opportunities. This report outlines a
new national security strategy tailored both to the world we inhabit and the world we want to create.
Objectives: The basic objective of U.S. strategy must be to protect the American people and the
American way of life. This overarching goal should comprise three more specific aims: 1) a secure
homeland, including protection against attacks on our people and infrastructure and against fatal
epidemics; 2) a healthy global economy, which is essential for our own prosperity and security; and 3) a
benign international environment, grounded in security cooperation among nations and the spread of
liberal democracy.
Criteria: To achieve these goals in the 21st century, American strategy must meet six basic criteria. It
needs to be: 1) multidimensional, operating like a Swiss army knife, able to deploy different tools for
different situations on a moment’s notice; 2) integrated, fusing hard power ? the power to coerce ? and
soft power ? the power to attract; 3) interest-based rather than threat-based, building frameworks of
cooperation centered on common interests with other nations rather than insisting that they accept
our prioritization of common threats; 4) grounded in hope rather than fear, offering a positive vision of
the world and using our power to advance that vision in cooperation with other nations; 5) pursued
inside-out, strengthening the domestic capacity, integrity, and accountability of other governments as
a foundation of international order and capacity; and 6) adapted to the information age, enabling us to
be fast and flexible in a world where information moves instantly, actors respond to it instantly, and
specialized small units come together for only a limited time for a defined purpose ? whether to make
a deal, restructure a company, or plan and execute a terrorist attack.
Forging A World Of Liberty Under Law
America must stand for, seek, and secure a world of liberty under law. Our founders knew that the
success of the American experiment rested on the combined blessings of order and liberty, and by order
they meant law. Internationally, Americans would be safer, richer, and healthier in a world of countries
that have achieved this balance ? mature liberal democracies. Getting there requires:
Bringing Governments up to PAR : Democracy is the best instrument that humans have devised
for ensuring individual liberty over the long term, but only when it exists within a framework of
order established by law. We must develop a much more sophisticated strategy of creating the deeper
preconditions for successful liberal democracy ? preconditions that extend far beyond the simple
holding of elections. The United States should assist and encourage Popular, Accountable, and Rightsregarding
(PAR) governments worldwide.
To help bring governments up to PAR, we must connect them and their citizens in as many ways as
possible to governments and societies that are already at PAR and provide them with incentives and
support to follow suit. We should establish and institutionalize networks of national, regional, and
local government officials and nongovernmental representatives to create numerous channels for PAR
nations and others to work on common problems and to communicate and inculcate the values and
practices that safeguard liberty under law.
Building a Liberal Order: The system of international institutions that the United States and its
allies built after World War II and steadily expanded over the course of the Cold War is broken. Every
major institution ? the United Nations (U.N.), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World
Bank, the World Trade Organization (WTO), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ? and
countless smaller ones face calls for major reform. The United States has the largest stake of any nation
in fixing this system, precisely because we are the most powerful nation in the world. Power cannot be
wielded unilaterally, and in the pursuit of a narrowly drawn definition of the national interest, because
such actions breed growing resentment, fear, and resistance. We need to reassure other nations about
our global role and win their support to tackle common problems.
However, it is clear that America can no longer rely on the legacy institutions of the Cold War; radical
surgery is required. The United Nations is simultaneously in crisis and in demand. Its structures are
outdated and its performance is inadequate, yet it remains the world’s principal forum for addressing
the most difficult international security issues. America must make sweeping U.N. reform a political
priority. Necessary reforms include: expanding the Security Council to include India, Japan, Brazil,
Germany, and two African states as permanent members without a veto; ending the veto for all Security
Council resolutions authorizing direct action in response to a crisis; and requiring all U.N. members to
accept “the responsibility to protect,” which acknowledges that sovereign states have a responsibility to
protect their own citizens from “avoidable catastrophe,” but that when they are unwilling or unable to
do so, that responsibility must be borne by the international community.
While pushing for reform of the United Nations and other major global institutions, the United States
should work with its friends and allies to develop a global “Concert of Democracies” ? a new institution
designed to strengthen security cooperation among the world’s liberal democracies. This Concert
would institutionalize and ratify the “democratic peace.” If the United Nations cannot be reformed,
the Concert would provide an alternative forum for liberal democracies to authorize collective action,
including the use of force, by a supermajority vote. Its membership would be selective, but self-selected.
Members would have to pledge not to use or plan to use force against one another; commit to holding
multiparty, free-and-fair elections at regular intervals; guarantee civil and political rights for their citizens
enforceable by an independent judiciary; and accept the responsibility to protect.
The United States must also: revive the NATO alliance by updating its grand bargains and expanding its
international partnerships; build a “networked order” of informal institutions, such as private networks
and bilateral ties; and reduce the sharply escalating and politically destabilizing inequalities among and
within states that result from the generally beneficial process of globalization.
Rethinking the Role of Force: At their core, both liberty and law must be backed up by force. Instead of
insisting on a doctrine of primacy, the United States should aim to sustain the military predominance of
liberal democracies and encourage the development of military capabilities by like-minded democracies
in a way that is consistent with their security interests. The predominance of liberal democracies is
necessary to prevent a return to destabilizing and dangerous great power security competition; it would
also augment our capacity to meet the various threats and challenges that confront us.
America must dust off and update doctrines of deterrence. The United States should announce ?
preferably with our allies ? that in the case of an act of nuclear terrorism, we will hold the source of the
nuclear materials or weapon responsible. We must also ensure that our deterrent remains credible against
countries with different strategic cultures and varied military national security doctrines. And we must
find ways of deterring suppliers of nuclear weapons materials from transferring them ? deliberately or
inadvertently ? to terrorists.
America should develop new guidelines on the preventive use of force against terrorists and extreme
states. Preventive strikes represent a necessary tool in fighting terror networks, but they should be
proportionate and based on intelligence that adheres to strict standards. The preventive use of force
against states should be very rare, employed only as a last resort and authorized by a multilateral
institution ? preferably a reformed Security Council, but alternatively by the existing Security Council
or another broadly representative multilateral body like NATO.
Major Threats And Challenges
The Middle East: Preventing the cradle of civilizations from becoming the cradle of global conflict
must be a top priority. Any long-term solution in the Middle East must include a comprehensive twostate
solution in Israel and Palestine; the United States should take the lead in doing everything possible
to advance this goal or get caught trying. This push for peace should be accompanied by a steady process
of institution building to establish a framework of liberty under law among Middle Eastern nations. In
an effort to combat radicalization in Middle Eastern states, the United States should make every effort
to work with Islamic governments and Islamic/Islamist movements, including fundamentalists, as long
as they disavow terrorism and other forms of civic violence.
America must take considerable risks to ensure that Iran does not develop a nuclear weapons capacity.
However, we must also be prepared to offer Iran assurances that assuage its legitimate fears, such as
a negative security assurance, the reliable provision to it of peaceful fissile materials, and international
influence commensurate with its position. On the other hand, the United States should make it clear that
life as a nuclear weapons power, if it came to pass, would be a thoroughly miserable experience for Iran.
The United States should make it clear to Iraqis that we remain willing and ready to do everything we
can to rebuild Iraq and to train and support a government that is up to PAR, but that this will not be
sustainable in the context of a full-scale civil war. In cooperation with the Iraqi government, America
should establish a series of benchmarks that would allow U.S. forces to redeploy inside Iraq ? to places
where they can be useful in building order and avoid becoming entangled in internecine civil conflict
? and outside Iraq. The United States must also work with the European Union and Russia to prevent
a spillover of the Iraqi conflict into the rest of the region; this effort should include the provision of
incentives to regional powers to behave responsibly and the imposition of costs on those countries that
exacerbate the crisis.
Global Terror Networks: Framing the struggle against terrorism as a war similar to World War
II or the Cold War lends legitimacy and respect to an enemy that deserves neither; the result is to
strengthen, not degrade, our adversary. Labeling terrorists as Islamic warriors has a similar effect. Terror
networks represent a global insurgency with a criminal core; our response must take the form of a
global counterinsurgency that utilizes a range of tools, particularly law enforcement, intelligence, and
surgical military tools, such as special forces. Our priorities must be to prevent the formation of a nexus
between terror networks and nuclear weapons, to destroy the hard core of terrorists, and to peel away
terrorist supporters and sympathizers. The ability of terror networks to dictate the agenda of the world’s
leading powers is a crucial source of their strength; the United States must not dance to this tune. In the
longer run, building a world of liberty under law will make it harder for specific grievances and fanatical
ideologies to take root and grow into global violence.
The Proliferation and Transfer of Nuclear Weapons: The world is on the cusp of a new era of
nuclear danger. Life in a nuclear crowd promises to be unstable and fraught with peril, from the risk
of the collapse of a nuclear state to the potential failure of deterrence in a sea of uncertainty. These
problems are not separate but part of a general breakdown of the global non-proliferation regime. Thus,
we must reform and revive the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by revising Article IV to allow
non-nuclear weapons states nuclear energy but not nuclear capacity and by taking concrete steps to live
up to our commitment under Article VI to reduce our dependence on nuclear weapons. We should
also use aggressive counter-proliferation measures, including locking down all insecure nuclear weapons
and materials, building on the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) to interdict the trade in nuclear
materials, and developing plans to intervene effectively if a nuclear-weapons state like Pakistan or North
Korea collapses.
The Rise of China and Order in East Asia: The rise of China is one of the seminal events of the
early 21st century. America’s goal should not be to block or contain China, but rather to help it achieve
its legitimate ambitions within the current international order and to become a responsible stakeholder
in Asian and international politics. In Asia more broadly, America should aim to build a trans-Pacific,
rather than pan-Asian, regional order ? that is, one in which the United States plays a full part. The
U.S.-Japan alliance should remain the bedrock of American strategy in East Asia, but the United States
should also seek the creation of an East Asian security institution that brings together the major powers
? China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and America ? for ongoing discussions about regional issues.
At the same time, we should continue to strengthen ties with Asia’s other emerging power, India, and
should formulate policies throughout the region based on the principle that sustained economic growth
in Asian countries other than China is the key to managing China’s rise.
A Global Pandemic: Highly infectious diseases represent a national security threat of the first order
? even though they are not guided by a human hand. Health experts currently warn of the apocalyptic
danger of an avian influenza pandemic, which has the potential to kill hundreds of millions of people.
Indeed, AIDS already poses a grave security threat. To combat the threat of a another global pandemic,
we must invest more in our public health system, provide adequate resources and training to our first
responders, build the capacity of foreign governments that are least equipped to deal with disease
outbreaks, and create an incentive structure in at-risk countries to ensure that they take necessary public
health measures in a timely fashion.
Energy: Massive U.S. consumption of oil threatens American security by transferring an enormous
amount of wealth from Americans to autocratic regimes and by contributing to climate change and
degradation of the environment. The only solution to these problems is to decrease our dependence
on oil and provide incentives for investments in energy alternatives. Toward this end the United States
should adopt a national gasoline tax that would start at fifty cents per gallon and increase by twenty
cents per year for each of the next ten years. This measure should be accompanied by stricter automobile
fuel efficiency standards. The United States should also lead international efforts to deal with climate
change, seeking a third way between the Kyoto Protocol’s requirements for emission reductions and
opposition to any binding constraints.
Building a Protective Infrastructure: The United States must build a stronger protective
infrastructure ? throughout our society, our government, and the wider world ? that helps prevent
threats and limits the damage once they materialize. In our society, we must strengthen our public
health system, repair a broken communications system, and reform public education so that students
attain the skill sets required to achieve our national security objectives. In our government, we need
to create “joined-up government;” de-politicize threat assessment; integrate relevant but neglected
portfolios, such as economics and health, into the national security policy-making process; and reach
out to the private sector. In the wider world, we must work through networks of security officials
to contain immediate threats before they reach our shores and should consider defining our border
protections beyond our actual physical borders.
万维读者网 2007-01-11 19:47:38
http://news.creaders.net/headline/newsViewer.php?id=700981&dcid=1
把世界自由民主国家集合一起，加强它们之间的安全合作，是否针对一党专政的中国？促使世界各国政府民主化，是否意味着逼迫中国和平演变？
联合早报报道，这些都是中美学者在一场学术报告会上交流时，中国学者提问背后所透露的疑虑。
由美国普林斯顿大学威尔逊公共与国际事务学院主导的普林斯顿国家安全项目，集合美国共和、民主两党，政商学界400多人，经过两年半研究，九场学术研讨，完成了《铸造法治之下的自由安全----21世纪美国国家安全战略》（英文报告节本可参考 www.wws.princeton.edu/ppns/report/FinalReport.pdf）。报告有可能影响美国未来的外交和安全政策。
负责撰写报告的学者----普林斯顿大学威尔逊公共与国际事务学院院长安玛丽・斯劳特和该院政治学教授约翰・艾肯伯里，昨天在中国社科院与中国同行进行汇报和交流。
中国学者特别关心报告提出要发展全球性“民主国家协约”，以及美国应促使世界各国政府达到PAR标准的建议。
“民主国家协约”将把世界上采纳自由民主政治制度的国家集合一起，加强它们之间的安全合作。PAR是英文Popular（有民意基础）、Accountable（对公民负责）和Rights-Regarding（尊重人权）的英文缩写。
北京大学国际关系学院院长王缉思欢迎报告提出的三个美国战略目标----国土安全、健康的全球经济和良好的国际环境----他认为这些目标为中美合作提供了基础。
但是他认为民意基础不一定非得经过选票呈现，而且民主化进程近来在国际上也面对挫折。
他说：“‘民主国家协约’在中国普遍上被视为是令人担忧的概念。但是我并不担心，因为我不认为近期内它有可能实现。就算你有‘民主国家协约 ’，你仍然要面对两难，就如布什政府在发动伊拉克战争前夕一样。中国对发动战争有所保留，但是反对最强烈的还是民主国家，如德国和法国。”
对于报告认为美国未来最大的威胁不是在中东而来自东亚，王缉思质问这是否指中国和朝鲜。
中国国际问题研究所副所长阮宗泽对于报告“预防性使用武力”的概念表示忧虑。报告提出预防性打击恐怖势力的必要性，如果联合国安理会不授权，美国也必须获取类似北约组织等区域机构的认可，阮宗泽担心这会降低单边动武的门槛。
阮宗泽质疑报告继续把美日军事同盟作为美国在东亚的安全梁柱的观点。他指出，日本在东亚有越来越孤立的趋势，仅依靠美日同盟不必然符合美国的长远利益。
中国人民大学国际关系学院副院长金灿荣认为，亚洲区域整合在美国缺席的情形下继续前进，不是因为中国有意排除美国，而是美国自己忽略亚洲。
他说：“中国诚心希望美国继续维持世界第一，至少多20年。中国诚心希望美国继续在本区域扮演角色。”
中国社科院美国研究所所长黄平说，民主标准的认定容易引起争议，一个国家可能觉得自己已经民主化，但是国际社会或有不同认知。
“民主”已经成为台海两岸角力的新战场，台湾总统陈水扁倡议成立“全球新兴民主论坛”，试图借用国际力量抗衡大陆。中国领导人近来在不同场合反复强调民主，“民主监督”也频繁在中共的文宣里出现。
================================================================================
Forging A World Of Liberty Under Law
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In the first decade of the 21st century the United States must assess the world not through the eyes of
World War II, or the Cold War, or even 9/11. Instead, Americans need to recognize that ours is a world
lacking a single organizing principle for foreign policy like anti-fascism or anti-communism. We face
many present dangers, several long-term challenges, and countless opportunities. This report outlines a
new national security strategy tailored both to the world we inhabit and the world we want to create.
Objectives: The basic objective of U.S. strategy must be to protect the American people and the
American way of life. This overarching goal should comprise three more specific aims: 1) a secure
homeland, including protection against attacks on our people and infrastructure and against fatal
epidemics; 2) a healthy global economy, which is essential for our own prosperity and security; and 3) a
benign international environment, grounded in security cooperation among nations and the spread of
liberal democracy.
Criteria: To achieve these goals in the 21st century, American strategy must meet six basic criteria. It
needs to be: 1) multidimensional, operating like a Swiss army knife, able to deploy different tools for
different situations on a moment’s notice; 2) integrated, fusing hard power ? the power to coerce ? and
soft power ? the power to attract; 3) interest-based rather than threat-based, building frameworks of
cooperation centered on common interests with other nations rather than insisting that they accept
our prioritization of common threats; 4) grounded in hope rather than fear, offering a positive vision of
the world and using our power to advance that vision in cooperation with other nations; 5) pursued
inside-out, strengthening the domestic capacity, integrity, and accountability of other governments as
a foundation of international order and capacity; and 6) adapted to the information age, enabling us to
be fast and flexible in a world where information moves instantly, actors respond to it instantly, and
specialized small units come together for only a limited time for a defined purpose ? whether to make
a deal, restructure a company, or plan and execute a terrorist attack.
Forging A World Of Liberty Under Law
America must stand for, seek, and secure a world of liberty under law. Our founders knew that the
success of the American experiment rested on the combined blessings of order and liberty, and by order
they meant law. Internationally, Americans would be safer, richer, and healthier in a world of countries
that have achieved this balance ? mature liberal democracies. Getting there requires:
Bringing Governments up to PAR : Democracy is the best instrument that humans have devised
for ensuring individual liberty over the long term, but only when it exists within a framework of
order established by law. We must develop a much more sophisticated strategy of creating the deeper
preconditions for successful liberal democracy ? preconditions that extend far beyond the simple
holding of elections. The United States should assist and encourage Popular, Accountable, and Rightsregarding
(PAR) governments worldwide.
To help bring governments up to PAR, we must connect them and their citizens in as many ways as
possible to governments and societies that are already at PAR and provide them with incentives and
support to follow suit. We should establish and institutionalize networks of national, regional, and
local government officials and nongovernmental representatives to create numerous channels for PAR
nations and others to work on common problems and to communicate and inculcate the values and
practices that safeguard liberty under law.
Building a Liberal Order: The system of international institutions that the United States and its
allies built after World War II and steadily expanded over the course of the Cold War is broken. Every
major institution ? the United Nations (U.N.), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World
Bank, the World Trade Organization (WTO), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ? and
countless smaller ones face calls for major reform. The United States has the largest stake of any nation
in fixing this system, precisely because we are the most powerful nation in the world. Power cannot be
wielded unilaterally, and in the pursuit of a narrowly drawn definition of the national interest, because
such actions breed growing resentment, fear, and resistance. We need to reassure other nations about
our global role and win their support to tackle common problems.
However, it is clear that America can no longer rely on the legacy institutions of the Cold War; radical
surgery is required. The United Nations is simultaneously in crisis and in demand. Its structures are
outdated and its performance is inadequate, yet it remains the world’s principal forum for addressing
the most difficult international security issues. America must make sweeping U.N. reform a political
priority. Necessary reforms include: expanding the Security Council to include India, Japan, Brazil,
Germany, and two African states as permanent members without a veto; ending the veto for all Security
Council resolutions authorizing direct action in response to a crisis; and requiring all U.N. members to
accept “the responsibility to protect,” which acknowledges that sovereign states have a responsibility to
protect their own citizens from “avoidable catastrophe,” but that when they are unwilling or unable to
do so, that responsibility must be borne by the international community.
While pushing for reform of the United Nations and other major global institutions, the United States
should work with its friends and allies to develop a global “Concert of Democracies” ? a new institution
designed to strengthen security cooperation among the world’s liberal democracies. This Concert
would institutionalize and ratify the “democratic peace.” If the United Nations cannot be reformed,
the Concert would provide an alternative forum for liberal democracies to authorize collective action,
including the use of force, by a supermajority vote. Its membership would be selective, but self-selected.
Members would have to pledge not to use or plan to use force against one another; commit to holding
multiparty, free-and-fair elections at regular intervals; guarantee civil and political rights for their citizens
enforceable by an independent judiciary; and accept the responsibility to protect.
The United States must also: revive the NATO alliance by updating its grand bargains and expanding its
international partnerships; build a “networked order” of informal institutions, such as private networks
and bilateral ties; and reduce the sharply escalating and politically destabilizing inequalities among and
within states that result from the generally beneficial process of globalization.
Rethinking the Role of Force: At their core, both liberty and law must be backed up by force. Instead of
insisting on a doctrine of primacy, the United States should aim to sustain the military predominance of
liberal democracies and encourage the development of military capabilities by like-minded democracies
in a way that is consistent with their security interests. The predominance of liberal democracies is
necessary to prevent a return to destabilizing and dangerous great power security competition; it would
also augment our capacity to meet the various threats and challenges that confront us.
America must dust off and update doctrines of deterrence. The United States should announce ?
preferably with our allies ? that in the case of an act of nuclear terrorism, we will hold the source of the
nuclear materials or weapon responsible. We must also ensure that our deterrent remains credible against
countries with different strategic cultures and varied military national security doctrines. And we must
find ways of deterring suppliers of nuclear weapons materials from transferring them ? deliberately or
inadvertently ? to terrorists.
America should develop new guidelines on the preventive use of force against terrorists and extreme
states. Preventive strikes represent a necessary tool in fighting terror networks, but they should be
proportionate and based on intelligence that adheres to strict standards. The preventive use of force
against states should be very rare, employed only as a last resort and authorized by a multilateral
institution ? preferably a reformed Security Council, but alternatively by the existing Security Council
or another broadly representative multilateral body like NATO.
Major Threats And Challenges
The Middle East: Preventing the cradle of civilizations from becoming the cradle of global conflict
must be a top priority. Any long-term solution in the Middle East must include a comprehensive twostate
solution in Israel and Palestine; the United States should take the lead in doing everything possible
to advance this goal or get caught trying. This push for peace should be accompanied by a steady process
of institution building to establish a framework of liberty under law among Middle Eastern nations. In
an effort to combat radicalization in Middle Eastern states, the United States should make every effort
to work with Islamic governments and Islamic/Islamist movements, including fundamentalists, as long
as they disavow terrorism and other forms of civic violence.
America must take considerable risks to ensure that Iran does not develop a nuclear weapons capacity.
However, we must also be prepared to offer Iran assurances that assuage its legitimate fears, such as
a negative security assurance, the reliable provision to it of peaceful fissile materials, and international
influence commensurate with its position. On the other hand, the United States should make it clear that
life as a nuclear weapons power, if it came to pass, would be a thoroughly miserable experience for Iran.
The United States should make it clear to Iraqis that we remain willing and ready to do everything we
can to rebuild Iraq and to train and support a government that is up to PAR, but that this will not be
sustainable in the context of a full-scale civil war. In cooperation with the Iraqi government, America
should establish a series of benchmarks that would allow U.S. forces to redeploy inside Iraq ? to places
where they can be useful in building order and avoid becoming entangled in internecine civil conflict
? and outside Iraq. The United States must also work with the European Union and Russia to prevent
a spillover of the Iraqi conflict into the rest of the region; this effort should include the provision of
incentives to regional powers to behave responsibly and the imposition of costs on those countries that
exacerbate the crisis.
Global Terror Networks: Framing the struggle against terrorism as a war similar to World War
II or the Cold War lends legitimacy and respect to an enemy that deserves neither; the result is to
strengthen, not degrade, our adversary. Labeling terrorists as Islamic warriors has a similar effect. Terror
networks represent a global insurgency with a criminal core; our response must take the form of a
global counterinsurgency that utilizes a range of tools, particularly law enforcement, intelligence, and
surgical military tools, such as special forces. Our priorities must be to prevent the formation of a nexus
between terror networks and nuclear weapons, to destroy the hard core of terrorists, and to peel away
terrorist supporters and sympathizers. The ability of terror networks to dictate the agenda of the world’s
leading powers is a crucial source of their strength; the United States must not dance to this tune. In the
longer run, building a world of liberty under law will make it harder for specific grievances and fanatical
ideologies to take root and grow into global violence.
The Proliferation and Transfer of Nuclear Weapons: The world is on the cusp of a new era of
nuclear danger. Life in a nuclear crowd promises to be unstable and fraught with peril, from the risk
of the collapse of a nuclear state to the potential failure of deterrence in a sea of uncertainty. These
problems are not separate but part of a general breakdown of the global non-proliferation regime. Thus,
we must reform and revive the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by revising Article IV to allow
non-nuclear weapons states nuclear energy but not nuclear capacity and by taking concrete steps to live
up to our commitment under Article VI to reduce our dependence on nuclear weapons. We should
also use aggressive counter-proliferation measures, including locking down all insecure nuclear weapons
and materials, building on the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) to interdict the trade in nuclear
materials, and developing plans to intervene effectively if a nuclear-weapons state like Pakistan or North
Korea collapses.
The Rise of China and Order in East Asia: The rise of China is one of the seminal events of the
early 21st century. America’s goal should not be to block or contain China, but rather to help it achieve
its legitimate ambitions within the current international order and to become a responsible stakeholder
in Asian and international politics. In Asia more broadly, America should aim to build a trans-Pacific,
rather than pan-Asian, regional order ? that is, one in which the United States plays a full part. The
U.S.-Japan alliance should remain the bedrock of American strategy in East Asia, but the United States
should also seek the creation of an East Asian security institution that brings together the major powers
? China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and America ? for ongoing discussions about regional issues.
At the same time, we should continue to strengthen ties with Asia’s other emerging power, India, and
should formulate policies throughout the region based on the principle that sustained economic growth
in Asian countries other than China is the key to managing China’s rise.
A Global Pandemic: Highly infectious diseases represent a national security threat of the first order
? even though they are not guided by a human hand. Health experts currently warn of the apocalyptic
danger of an avian influenza pandemic, which has the potential to kill hundreds of millions of people.
Indeed, AIDS already poses a grave security threat. To combat the threat of a another global pandemic,
we must invest more in our public health system, provide adequate resources and training to our first
responders, build the capacity of foreign governments that are least equipped to deal with disease
outbreaks, and create an incentive structure in at-risk countries to ensure that they take necessary public
health measures in a timely fashion.
Energy: Massive U.S. consumption of oil threatens American security by transferring an enormous
amount of wealth from Americans to autocratic regimes and by contributing to climate change and
degradation of the environment. The only solution to these problems is to decrease our dependence
on oil and provide incentives for investments in energy alternatives. Toward this end the United States
should adopt a national gasoline tax that would start at fifty cents per gallon and increase by twenty
cents per year for each of the next ten years. This measure should be accompanied by stricter automobile
fuel efficiency standards. The United States should also lead international efforts to deal with climate
change, seeking a third way between the Kyoto Protocol’s requirements for emission reductions and
opposition to any binding constraints.
Building a Protective Infrastructure: The United States must build a stronger protective
infrastructure ? throughout our society, our government, and the wider world ? that helps prevent
threats and limits the damage once they materialize. In our society, we must strengthen our public
health system, repair a broken communications system, and reform public education so that students
attain the skill sets required to achieve our national security objectives. In our government, we need
to create “joined-up government;” de-politicize threat assessment; integrate relevant but neglected
portfolios, such as economics and health, into the national security policy-making process; and reach
out to the private sector. In the wider world, we must work through networks of security officials
to contain immediate threats before they reach our shores and should consider defining our border
protections beyond our actual physical borders.
