Toward a New National Security Strategy!

Co-Director: G. John Ikenberry and Anne-Marie Slaughter, The Princeton Project on National Security, Final Report, September 2006

The Princeton Project on National Security is a three-year, bipartisan initiative to develop a sustainable and effective national security strategy for the United States of America.

Under the stewardship of honorary co-chairs George Shultz and Anthony Lake, the Princeton Project brought together leading thinkers on National security from government, academe, business, and the non-profit sector to analyze key issues and develop innovative responses to a range of national security threats.

Asiaing Links:

Download the Final Report, Pdf

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.

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