'Threat of the first order'

With the world "on the cusp of a new era of nuclear danger," international governing bodies "in crisis" and the prospect of a worldwide disease epidemic posing "a national security threat of the first order," the United States must make dramatic policy changes to ensure Americans' safety, a report released Wednesday by the Wilson School's Princeton Project on National Security argues.

The report, which enumerates several "major threats and challenges" facing the United States — including the political situation in the Middle East, global terror, nuclear proliferation, the rise of China and East Asia and the risk of a global pandemic — focuses largely on broad strategies and approaches. Notably, however, it implicitly criticizes several aspects of the Bush administration's foreign policy as lacking sophistication and nuance.

"Recently," write Wilson School Dean Anne-Marie Slaughter '80 and Wilson School professor G. John Ikenberry, "we have promoted liberty under the banner of democracy, and too often at the point of a gun, making it possible for antidemocratic forces to equate 'democracy' with American imperialism."

The 96-page document, which was written jointly by Slaughter and Ikenberry, the two co-directors of the project, compiles the recommendations of seven working groups, which conducted research over a three-year period. With bipartisan heavyweights George Shultz '42, secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan, and Anthony Lake GS '74, President Bill Clinton's national security adviser, as honorary co-chairs, the project's more than 400 contributors hail from academia, the media and public policy organizations.

Slaughter and Ikenberry held a press conference yesterday on Capitol Hill to publicize their findings, speaking alongside Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and Joe Biden (D-Del.), two prominent members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"There was agreement across the political spectrum on a comprehensive approach," Slaughter was quoted as saying Wednesday in the Asia Times.

The report is perhaps the most visible of Slaughter's projects since taking the helm as Wilson School dean in 2002. An international law specialist herself, she has emphasized increasing the school's international relations faculty. Ikenberry, whom Slaughter recruited from Georgetown in 2004, has vocally criticized what he calls the Bush administration's "neoimperial grand strategy" in promoting worldwide democracy.

The report calls the United Nations "simultaneously in crisis and in demand" and advocates sweeping reform for the international body. But it also proposes creating a "new global institution dedicated to the principles underpinning liberal democracy, both as a vehicle to spur and support the reform of the United Nations and other global institutions and as a possible alternative to them." The new body, Slaughter and Ikenberry suggest, should encompass "the world's liberal democracies" and be known as the "Concert of Democracies."

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Addressing the controversial issue of military preemption, the report argues that "both liberty and law must be backed up by force," but draws a distinction between using preemptive military action against terrorists and using such action against rogue states like Iran and North Korea.

"The preventive use of force against states is far more problematic than that against terrorist organizations," Slaughter and Ikenberry write. "The rationale is weaker ... Moreover, the risks are generally higher, including the costs of dealing with the aftermath and the possibility that military action might lead to state collapse and the transfer of WMD to terrorists in the resulting chaos."

Regarding Iran's attempts to attain nuclear weapons, the report suggests the United States use "carrots," such as promising not to attack in return for a halt in nuclear proliferation. By "extending the hand of friendship" with such negotiations, the report argues, the United States could ingratiate itself with the Iranian people, "effectively counter[ing] Iranian President Ahmadinejad, who is ... portraying himself as standing for the Iranian people and the larger Muslim world against external aggressors." Failing that, however, the report does not rule out harsher measures. "The United States ought to clearly spell out the consequences of nuclear rivalry," Ikenberry and Slaughter write, "emphasizing that it is a high-cost, high-risk game of brinksmanship that would be a very expensive proposition for Iran."

Taking up the related issue of global terror, the report warns against playing into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists, who view United States clashes with al Qaeda and other militants as a holy struggle between believers and infidels.

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"What these global terrorists are not is warriors, except in their minds," the report reasons. "Countering them by waging a highly publicized war on terror plays into their preferred conception of an apocalyptic struggle between good and evil."

Identifying East Asia as another geopolitical hotspot, the report suggests dealing with the rise of China by encouraging the country to "embrace liberty under law." More practically, it suggests using other countries in the region to contain the rising red star: "Economic growth and development in the rest of emerging market Asia ... is the key to the management of China's rise."

The report advises the United States, to reduce international energy independence, implement "a gasoline tax that would start at 50 cents a gallon and increase by 20 cents per year for ten years," thus curbing demand for foreign oil.

Stanford law professor David Victor, who studies energy and sustainable development and co-chaired the project's working group on threat assessment, added that the multi-pronged approach suggested in the report is difficult but necessary.

"The world today is really different from the time of the Cold War," he said. "The Princeton Project struggled with the government being required to do many more things than before without the benefit of a unified principle. That is what this report exudes — that we have to integrate across all parts of our [national security] apparatus.

"It's like a Swiss army knife."