WWS goals for security gain notice

Six months after releasing a report intended to forge a new foreign policy vision for the 21st century, Wilson School Dean Anne-Marie Slaughter '80 and her colleagues in the Princeton Project on National Security continue to promote ambitious international reforms, drawing on current events to garner media attention for their ideas.

"We are using the final report as a springboard for serious bipartisan debate of national security issues — and based on the responses from audiences in Iowa, California and Atlanta, it is clear that Americans are eager to engage in just such a debate," Slaughter said in an email. She returned this week from a conference in Atlanta held to promote and publicize the report, which she coauthored along with Wilson School professor G. John Ikenberry.

"Our message has not changed over the past few months," Slaughter added. "However, we definitely saw additional interest in the wake of the midterm elections."

Titled "Forging a World of Liberty Under Law" and released in September 2006, the Princeton Project report combined over two years of research by more then 400 contributors from both political parties and several academic institutions. Its honorary co-chairs were bipartisan heavyweights George Shultz '42, secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan, and Anthony Lake GS '69, President Bill Clinton's national security adviser.

Enumerating 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 — the report proposed measures including U.N. reform, a new approach to negotiations with Iran and increases in the gasoline tax to combat rising demand for oil.

The report's contributors said the 96-page document aims to be "a collective X article" for the 21st century, referring to an anonymous article authored in 1947 by George Kennan '25, which laid out the Cold War doctrine of containment.

Recently, the Princeton Project has met with significant media coverage, with recent mentions appearing in The Washington Post and several Capitol Hill briefings. Slaughter and project researcher Thomas Wright also authored an oped for the Post on March 2, in which they argued that exchange of nuclear materials should be considered a crime against humanity. The argument fits with the Princeton Project report's warning that the world is "on the cusp of a new era of nuclear danger."

"From our perspective, one of our goals has been to get these ideas into the debate," Princeton Project Director Elizabeth Colagiuri said. "We've been helped along through the coverage in the newspapers, some TV coverage and blogs and it's very encouraging."

One of the ideas in the report that has generated the most debate, Slaughter said, is a proposal for a new international body that would encompass "the world's liberal democracies" and be known as the "Concert of Democracies." The report argued that such a body would spur U.N. reform and serve as a possible alternative to current forms of international governance.

Ikenberry said the idea has met with both positive and negative reactions. Supporters praise the prospect of "a vehicle for heightened cooperation amongst the democracies and a mechanism to bring new democracies into the governance of the global system," he said. But he added that the idea has "been criticized, for example in China, for its exclusive character."

Slaughter defended the report's recommendation that a Concert of Democracies be formed. "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," she said.

The proposition to radically alter the framework of the United Nations is another point that has sparked significant discussion. Ikenberry said that "interesting debate" has resulted from the report's recommendation that the U.N. Security Council be expanded, but he added that there has been "a fair dose of skepticism about what the policies will allow to happen."

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Those publicizing the project said they have attempted to spark debate in three different forums: on Capitol Hill, in the broader American public and internationally. "We've been quite pleased with the response on all three fronts," Colagiuri said. "We've seen considerable debate and interest in the ideas."

Looking ahead, Slaughter said the Princeton Project intends to release follow-up reports on many of the initial report's recommendations, with possible topics including the Concert of Democracies or the future of deterrence. "We would like to maintain the umbrella of the Princeton Project and to stay in touch with the many terrific participants in the project," she said. "We are also looking for ways to integrate these follow-up projects with research and student programming at the Wilson School."

Promotion of the project began with governmental policy meetings in Washington, then proceeded to a national and international tour. Since September, representatives from the project have visited Berlin, Shanghai, Beijing, Iowa City, San Diego, San Francisco, Tokyo, New York City and other major cities across the world.

"Our plan was to try and travel internationally and nationally to promote and discuss the ideas with people, to get their feedback and to advance the ideas of the program," Wright said.

The project has been discussed in forums ranging from special-interest conferences, conferences for foreign embassies, academic institutions and town hall formats. In each location, Princeton Project representatives attempted to engage in discussion with experts as well as providing a second forum for the general public.

Project collaborators said they are pleased by the generally positive response to the report's recommendations. "I think there is a real thirst for a serious discussion [of the] first principles of American foreign policy, and I'm really happy that the Princeton Project has helped provoke that kind of debate," Ikenberry said.

Slaughter echoed Ikenberry's sentiments. "The response to the Princeton Project has exceeded even my highest expectations," she said. "We simply could not be more thrilled with the reception."