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121. Beware the Soft-Line Ideologues

Author:
David Frum and Richard Perle
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
When discussing foreign policy and the war on terror, the press often divides officials into two groups: hard-liners and pragmatists. “Hard-liners” are actually far more pragmatic and realize that the war on terrorism requires vigorous, decisive action; in contrast, the policies promoted by “pragmatists” are grounded in ideological dependence upon failing international organizations and denial of the realities of the post–September 11 world.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Democratization, and Economics

122. Rebasing, Revisited

Author:
Thomas Donnelly
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
One of the key questions for the second term of the Bush administration is how to reposture U.S. military forces both at home and abroad. Fifteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, these forces resemble nothing so much as a smaller version of their Cold War selves, in many ways improved but hardly “transformed”— to use Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's mantra—let alone optimized for the missions they face today and are most likely to face in the near future. While the idea of “force posture” includes factors beyond basing, the tyrannies of time and distance still do much to shape the character of war. The value of bases is as the value of other real estate: it all comes down to location, location, location.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, and National Security
Political Geography:
United States and Berlin

123. Homeland Defense and the U.S. Military

Author:
Thomas Donnelly
Publication Date:
11-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
The defense of the American homeland has always been the core mission of the U.S. military, but the meaning of that responsibility is undergoing a transformation and demands careful rethinking. Specifically, the September 11 attacks and the global war on terror are forcing American strategists to reevaluate conventional assumptions about how missile defense and neighboring nations fit into U.S. national security.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, and National Security
Political Geography:
United States and America

124. A Strategy for Nuclear Iran

Author:
Thomas Donnelly
Publication Date:
10-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Regardless of who is elected to the presidency in November, the growing threat posed by a nuclear Iran is certain to be at the top of the next administration's national security agenda. Unfortunately, neither a "grand bargain" with Tehran nor a conventional military strike against its nuclear facilities offers much hope of preventing one of the world's most dangerous regimes from acquiring the world's most dangerous weapons. In the short term, at least, the United States must instead work to isolate Iran not only militarily but ideologically, by succeeding in the democratic transformation of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Topic:
Security and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, and Iran

125. The Top Ten Questions for the Post-9/11 World

Author:
Thomas Donnelly
Publication Date:
07-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
As the great bureaucratic gears that will stamp out the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review—without question, the most important appraisal of U.S. military requirements in a generation—begin to turn, the Pentagon's decisions in the months ahead will shape the post-9/11 world. As a barometer of things to come, here follow the ten most important questions today confronting U.S. military strategists and force planners.
Topic:
Security and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States

126. 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

127. 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

128. 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

129. 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

130. 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