An Open, Civilized World
The National Security Initiative's lead project is motivated by the absence of an overarching conceptual framework to guide American foreign policy and command public support, five years after 9/11 and more than fifteen years after the end of the Cold War. Not since the policy of containment and deterrence, which was developed sixty years ago and lasted throughout the Cold War, has the U.S. Government devised a new foreign policy that garnered support from both sides of the aisle, the Executive and Congressional branches, and the American people.
The purpose of this project is to create an overarching strategic framework that defines and prioritizes U.S. interests, values and objectives, and also develop a strategy of how to achieve them. To help identify and shape consensus on such a foreign policy framework, the BPC has brought together a bipartisan steering committee composed of this country's most respected foreign policy practitioners and scholars.
The project: looks back at the early Cold War to understand how America's leadership developed a bipartisan consensus and strategic framework around the Soviet challenge; examines the principal military, diplomatic, ideological, environmental, economic, and social challenges facing the United States today; devises a foreign policy vision and coherent strategic framework to guide U.S. diplomacy, military activity, and economic relationships; and will produce a report outlining this framework and undertake a public education campaign that will help build a consensus around the report.
Paper: Bipartisanship
and Capital 'P' Foreign Policy
By: Ernest May
Steering Committee:
- Ernest May, Co-Chair, Professor at Harvard University, Department of History
- Philip Zelikow, Co-Chair, University of Virginia and former staff director of the 9/11 Commission
- Steve Friedman, former Chairman, Goldman Sachs and head of the National Economic Council under George W. Bush
- Larry Summers, Professor Harvard University
- General (ret.) Chuck Wald, former Deputy Commander, U.S. European Command
- Admiral (ret.) Gregory Grog Johnson, former Commander, United States Naval Forces, Europe
- James Steinberg, Dean, LBJ School, University of Texas
- Robert Kagan, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
