Today, the Senate votes on the future of our country’s failed foreign policy. So it seems fitting that today sees the launch of a new effort, a high-profile attempt at building a new foundation for our foreign policy. And, unlike many efforts of the past, this is not a closed think-tank of elites ruminating in back rooms to later present its vision to the world. This is a gathering of elites, no doubt, but they are here to open a conversation, to build a wide consensus among activists, academics, and others about our shared future. It’s up to all of us to build the foundation for a foreign policy for the 21st century.
Details below the flip ...
The organization is the American Security Project; the board of directors is a powerful group of veteran foreign policy thinkers and policy-makers. Folks like Gary Hart, John Kerry, George Mitchell, Anthony Zinni, Warren Rudman, and others. And BriVT ...
OK, not really. I’m not on the board of directors, but I put myself in there because a board director approached me with what I consider an important and exciting goal. These foreign policy heavy-hitters are not out to dictate from on high. Sure, there will be hard thinking going on, and position papers generated, and polling commissioned and shared. But it will be open, accessible, and available to anyone who wants to be a part of the conversation. This is democracy, and our online world makes possible a new communication paradigm, or, more accurately, a modern throwback to the discussions and town meetings that created so much of our country’s polity.
Grounded firmly in the same principles as the country, the organization combines the spirit of democratic discussion with a high profile membership to create a unique and powerful force. This is a group that aims to involve activists in a true vision of shared governance in an attempt to build a more sane future for American relations and security. Isn’t that what Democracy is all about?
Problem solving, reaching out to the American public, these are the goals of the American Security Project. As its web site states, ASP is "organized around the belief that the public discussion of national security issues requires an informed citizenry that that understands the security threats of the twenty-first century and the spectrum of possible American policy responses."
It’s ASP’s belief—it’s my belief—that the American people are much further along in this discussion than our public debate. A poll that ASP commissioned and released today shows that Americans are just as concerned with alternative energy as a security issue than they are with hunting down Al Qaeda. Our public debate, "guided" by the administration, has focused on the "war on terror" and on Iraq. But as the ASP website says:
While our nation has been fixated on Iraq, several other developments in recent years have received much less attention than they deserve: the unchecked spread of nuclear weapons programs in Iran and North Korea; the near-complete collapse of public support for the United States around the world; and the rise of worrisome trends beyond the normal realm of security—proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, nation-state failures, mass migrations, pandemic threats, climate change—that have very real implications for both American and global security.
A respect for the limits of American power—and respect for the "just opinions of mankind"—guides the thinking of the organization. The entire enterprise has a humility that, for an outsider like me, is refreshing and hopeful. ASP gets the fact that, just as America can’t dictate policies to the world, a few elites can’t dictate a vision to America. The entire structure of the thought process of the organization is collaborative, transparent, and flexible.
Security is gained through sane action, through open discussion, through knowledge and shared governance. The American Security Project launched today, but it’s only the beginning of the conversation.