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Full Introduction to Strategic Cooperation: Global Challenges, 21st Century Tools Stopping terrorism. Preventing nuclear attack. Protecting and conserving finite sources of energy. These are the perennial security concerns that have shaped and will continue to shape American foreign policy for the foreseeable future. However, in the last thirty years the landscape in which we address these concerns has changed dramatically, and the election of a new president and Congress brings an opportunity to accordingly redefine American engagement with the world. The heavy US reliance on the blunt instrument of military force has generated new instability and conflict, and today Americans face a more dangerous world than a decade ago. US security is tightly woven with that of our allies as well as some of our antagonists, and in this interconnected world, we need to use the right tools. America's new political leadership carries a mandate for a new approach to foreign policy. President Obama achieved an astounding victory with an anti-war and pro-diplomacy platform. In addition, the global response to the US elections revealed public attitudes of hope and readiness to work together to address our shared problems. This historic moment requires quick action to chart a new course. To that end, we present this comprehensive policy agenda, Strategic Cooperation: Global Challenges, 21st Century Tools. Enemies of the past, such as the USSR, either no longer exist or don't pose an imminent threat. Our main security threats don't come from nations with clear borders. Current US security strategy has not kept pace with this shifting landscape. Our security interests lie in promoting global stability and cooperation, something that can't be done with military force. In order to make the US and the world more secure, we must work to both resolve conflict peacefully and to ameliorate the political and economic conditions that feed conflict. This approach requires a comprehensive view of security strategy rather than relying solely on military dominance. We need to be investing more in the civilian aspects of national security, such as diplomacy, making international institutions and agreements work better, foreign assistance, and economic reconstruction and development. The global challenges we face call for no small shifts, but fundamental changes from a foreign policy defined by military aggression. The last eight years have taken the approach to its furthest extreme, and we've seen the disastrous consequences. Despite going deeply into debt to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, "America's margin of safety is shrinking," according to the Report of the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism, released in December 2008. Further, below are key points from within this policy agenda:
The American public consistently supports a more cooperative approach to national security. The Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) released a study in August of 2007 that showed that Americans strongly favor greater emphasis on international cooperation, "wherein the US is quite attentive to the views of other countries, not just US interests."1 That report showed strong majorities favoring the US working with the UN and supporting international law. In November of 2007, PIPA released another study showing that "large majorities of Americans and Russians favor taking nuclear weapons off high alert, sharply cutting the numbers of nuclear weapons, banning the production of weapons-grade nuclear material, and once advanced methods of international verification are established undertaking the complete elimination of nuclear weapons."2 What we need today is a return to the brand of creative and pragmatic American leadership that has succeeded before. Noteworthy examples include America's role in founding the United Nations as well as its advocacy for international agreements that analysts believe have prevented a boom in nuclear proliferation. In Strategic Cooperation: Global Challenges, 21st Century Tools, we present nine foreign policy priorities for Congress and the president. Our aim is to outline a better set of tools — practical steps the US can take to work in concert with the world towards greater collective security.
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