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11. Unrealistic Realism

Author:
Vance Serchuk and Thomas Donnelly
Publication Date:
07-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
With his July 4, 2004, op-ed in the Washington Post, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Senator John Kerry has attempted to lay claim to the mantle of conservative "realism" in this fall's foreign policy debate. Certainly, there is a heavy dose of campaign strategy in this—the idea of "attacking Bush from the right" is just the sort of man-bites-dog angle that appeals equally to Beltway political professionals and the journalists who cover them. But the irony is that Kerry's "realist" policy prescriptions are themselves profoundly unrealistic, taking little account of the post-9/11 world and reflecting a dogmatic, inflexible, even reactionary ideology. They likewise stand opposed to the great liberal tradition of American strategic culture—a history that links the Founders to the presidencies of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.
Topic:
Security and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States and America

12. Mind the Gap

Author:
Thomas Donnelly
Publication Date:
06-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
The distance between the strategic objectives of America's national security policy and the institutional capabilities of its military is large—and growing. Around the world, the U.S. Armed Forces—and particularly, the U.S. Army—are increasingly tasked with low-level, long-term counterinsurgency operations against al Qaeda and its allies. But rather than transforming the force for the operational realities of the global war on terror, the new National Military Strategy seems to treat these missions as an afterthought or, in Pentagonese, "a lesser included case." If the United States is to prevail, it is vital that next year's Quadrennial Defense Review address the ends-means gap between an ambitious strategy and a force ill-designed to accomplish it.
Topic:
Security and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States and America

13. Learning to Live without Europe

Author:
Thomas Donnelly
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Despite the best efforts to resurrect the transatlantic bonhomie of the Cold War era, the limitations of any strategic partnership between the United States and Europe are growing increasingly clear. This is not merely a function of fallout over Operation Iraqi Freedom or animosity toward the Bush administration per se. Rather, the split between Europe and the United States reflects a more fundamental clash of strategic cultures. While Americans have historically emphasized preemption, unilateralism, and hegemony in formulating their national security policies, Europeans have preferred balance of power realism. It is time for Washington to recognize that any "partnership" with Europe is as likely to retard as advance U.S. interests in the democratization and liberalization of the Greater Middle East.
Topic:
Security and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States, America, Europe, and Middle East

14. Taiwan: Test Case of the Bush Doctrine

Author:
Thomas Donnelly
Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
While the Bush administration has articulated an ambitious agenda for the liberalization of the greater Middle East, fighting to establish beachheads of freedom in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as pressuring regimes in the region to adopt domestic reforms, it has thus far proven somewhat reluctant to embrace this commitment to liberty in other parts of the world. Nowhere has this retreat from its rhetoric been more pointed than in Taiwan, a flourishing free-market democracy menaced by an authoritarian colossus next door. Taiwan's March 20 election provides fresh evidence of the extent to which the "one China" policy and "strategic ambiguity"—those avatars of conventional wisdom—have passed into the realm of anachronism. Indeed, if the Bush Doctrine represents anything, it is the conviction that there must be nothing ambiguous about America's support for the forces of freedom.
Topic:
Security and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, China, Iraq, Middle East, and Taiwan

15. Beware the "Libyan Model"

Author:
Vance Serchuk and Thomas Donnelly
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Libya's decision last December to renounce its unconventional weapons programs has been hailed as a "model" for other rogue states willing to come in from the cold. Indeed, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi—once scorned by President Ronald Reagan as "the mad dog of the Middle East"—today appears on the brink of international rehabilitation. But to embrace Tripoli is to embrace tyranny: Gaddafi's regime is among the most despotic in the region, as well as a significant source of instability and violence across Africa. If the Bush administration is serious about a "forward strategy of freedom" for the Muslim world, it cannot afford to turn a blind eye to Gaddafi's internal repression and international adventurism.
Topic:
Security and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, and Libya

16. The Proof of Primacy

Author:
Thomas Donnelly
Publication Date:
02-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
What used to be called the "post–Cold War world" has gone through three distinct periods. First, the "Long 1990s"—beginning with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and ending with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001—marked a time of drift and, at least in international politics, American confusion and indecision. The second, from 9/11 until the March 19, 2003, invasion of Iraq, was a period of transition, during which the Bush administration struggled to fashion a response to events that destroyed its illusions that the world's problems could be "managed" by a small knot of confident and competent pragmatists, acting in the spirit of humble realpolitik. The invasion of Iraq marked the start of the third period—a new era of Pax Americana, distinguished by the energetic exercise of U.S. power not simply to protect the status quo of American global preeminence but to extend the current liberal international order, beginning in the Middle East.
Topic:
Security and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, America, and Middle East

17. Iraqi Freedom and American History

Author:
Thomas Donnelly
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
With the capture of Saddam Hussein and the diminishing number of attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, there is a new sense of confidence and optimism about the direction of the Bush administration's foreign policy. It is important, however, to place these recent developments within the broader context of the endeavor to which the president has committed our nation. The invasion of Afghanistan in the autumn of 2001 and that of Iraq in the spring of 2003 together mark a significant departure from longstanding American strategy in the greater Middle East. In place of "off-shore balancing," wherein the United States sought to preserve the status quo by supporting a revolving rogue's gallery of native regimes, American power is now actively engaged in reshaping the political order of the Islamic world. This is, by definition, a generational commitment.
Topic:
Security and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, and Middle East

18. Fighting a Global Counterinsurgency

Author:
Thomas Donnelly
Publication Date:
12-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
More than two years after the September 11 attacks, the American military finds itself entrenched in a host of open-ended, low-level counterinsurgency campaigns across the Muslim world. These guerrilla conflicts have become, to no small extent, the operational reality that defines the global war on terror. But our current experience in Iraq—the central front of that broader conflict—suggests that the Pentagon still has a long way to go before it can prosecute these "small wars" with the same primacy it displayed during the "big war" this spring. Thus, if the United States is to succeed in creating a different kind of Middle East, it must create a different kind of military, redefining defense transformation to meet the strategic challenge now before us.
Topic:
Security and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Middle East

19. U.S. Counterinsurgency in Iraq

Author:
Thomas Donnelly
Publication Date:
11-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Since sweeping Saddam Hussein's regime from power this spring, U.S. forces in Iraq have been confronted by an amorphous guerrilla resistance, concentrated around the so-called Sunni Triangle. While growing numbers of Iraqis are working with coalition soldiers, provisional authorities, and international aid workers to lay the foundations for a democratic society, insurgents are waging a determined campaign of terror against them. To prevail, the U.S. military must develop an effective counterinsurgency strategy. History offers several precedents on how to do so.
Topic:
Security and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and Middle East

20. Iraq Is the Central Front

Author:
Thomas Donnelly
Publication Date:
10-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
On the evening of September 7, President George W. Bush declared the struggle to establish a more decent political order in Iraq "the central front" in the global war on terror. This was not merely a rhetorical flourish in the president's speech. Rather, it represents a further clarification of the Bush Doctrine and of U.S. national security strategy for the twenty-first century. What is at stake in Iraq extends beyond the borders of Mesopotamia. It defines what sort of world the American superpower wants-and what sort of sacrifices it is willing to make to create it.
Topic:
Security and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and Middle East