Anne Armstrong

Anne Amstrong
Commissioner

John Dancy

John Dancy
Commissioner

Jule Hi Sub

Leslie H. Gelb
Commissioner

Kittat

Lee H. Hamilton
Commissioner

Donald B. Rice

Donald B. Rice
Commissioner

Наш Дата

Harry D. Train

Waven Bleedman

Warren B. Rudman
Co-Chair

Hamon R. A gyantany

Norman R. Augustine

Commissioner

Jihak Galin

John R. Galvin
Commissioner

Neat Digit

Newt Gingrich
Commissioner

Lined Bean

Lionel H. Olmer
Commissioner

Jan Bellinger

James Schlesinger
Commissioner

Andrew Young

76-801 D-4

Introduction

66

We must disenthrall ourselves," said Abraham Lincoln, at a time of much greater peril to the Republic than we face today. As the times are new, said Lincoln, "so we must think anew." At the dawn of this new century, the nation faces a similar necessity. No concern of American society is more in need of creative thinking than the future security of this country, but in no domain is such thinking more resistant to change. The very term "security" suggests caution and guardedness, not innovation. We know that major countries rarely engage in serious rethinking and reform absent a major defeat, but this is a path the United States cannot take. Americans are less secure than they believe themselves to be. The time for reexamination is now, before the American people find themselves shocked by events they never anticipated.

During the last half century, the national security strategy of the United States was derived largely from, focused on, and committed to the containment of Soviet Communism. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the dramatic transformation of world politics resulting from the dissolution of the Soviet Union two years later, our leaders have been searching for a unifying theme to provide a strategic framework appropriate to current and future circumstances. That search has not been easy.

The U.S. Commission on National Security/ 21st Century has been tasked with thinking anew about America's national security for the next 25 years. In this report, we suggest the strategic precepts that should guide the formulation of U.S. strategy, and then take a fresh look at U.S. national interests and priority objectives. On that basis, we propose the framework of a new national security strategy.2 This report is intended to contribute to a new consensus on national security strategy to carry the United States forward into a challenging future.3

Thinking about Strategy

his Commission's Phase I report

pointed to two contradictory trends ahead: a tide of economic, technological, and intellectual forces that is integrating a global community, amid powerful forces of social and political fragmentation.4 While no one knows what the mix of these trends will produce, the new world coming will be dramatically different in significant respects. Governments are under pressure from below, by forces of ethnic separatism and violence, and from above, by economic, technological, and cultural forces beyond any government's full control. We are witnessing a transformation of human society on the magnitude of that between the agricultural and industrial epochs-and in a far more compressed period of time.

Such circumstances put a special premium on strategic wisdom, particularly for a country of the size and character of the United States. In this Commission's view, the essence of American strategy must compose a

This Commission, established to examine comprehensively how this nation will ensure its security in the next 25 years, has a threefold task. Phase I, completed on September 15, 1999, described the transformations emerging over the next quarter-century in the global and domestic U.S. security environment. Phase II, concerning U.S. interests, objectives, and strategy, is contained in this document. Phase III, which will examine the structures and processes of the U.S. national security apparatus for 21st century relevancy, will be delivered on or before February 15, 2001.

2 In the interest of brevity, this Commission has compressed con

siderable discussion and detail into this document. Further discussion of the implications of several main themes in this report will be presented in the Commission's Phase III findings.

3 This report is built upon a consensus involving all members of the Commission, but not every Commissioner subscribes with equal enthusiasm to every statement contained herein. 4 See New World Coming: American Security in the 21st Century (Washington, DC: U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, September 15, 1999).

balance between two key aims. The first is to reap the benefits of a more integrated world in order to expand freedom, security, and prosperity for Americans and for others. But, second, American strategy must also strive to dampen the forces of global instability so that those benefits can endure. Freedom is the quintessential American value, but without security, and the relative stability that results therefrom, it can be evanescent. American strategy should seek both security and freedom, and it must seek them increasingly in concert with others. Hence our title: A Concert for Preserving Security and Promoting Freedom.

American strength-social, military, economic, and technological-will not sustain themselves without conscious national commitment. Assuring American prosperity is particularly critical; without it, the United States will be hobbled in all its efforts to play a leading role internationally.

The United States faces unprecedented opportunities as well as dangers in the new era. American strategy must rise to positive challenges as well as to negative ones. Working toward constructive relations among the major powers, preserving the dynamism of the new global economy and spreading its benefits, sharing responsibility with others in grappling with new transnational problems-this is a diplomatic agenda that tests American statesmanship and creativity. As in the late 1940s, the United States should help build a new international system in which other nations, freely pursuing their own interests, find it advantageous to do so in ways that coincide with American interests.

Since it cannot bear every burden, the United States must find new ways to join with other capable and like-minded nations. Where America would not act itself, it retains a responsibility as the leading power to help build effective systems of international collaboration. America must therefore overcome its ambivalence about international institutions and about the strength of its partners, questioning them less and encouraging them more.

This nation must set priorities and apply them consistently. To sustain public support and to discipline policy, America must not exhaust itself by limitless commitments. Especially with respect to military intervention abroad, a finer calculus of

benefits and burdens must govern. Resisting the "CNN effect" may be one of the most important requirements of U.S. policymaking in the coming period.

Finally, America must never forget that it stands for certain principles, most importantly freedom under the rule of law, Freedom is today a powerful tide in the affairs of mankind, and, while the means chosen to serve it must be tempered by a realistic appreciation of limits, it is not "realism" to ignore its power. At the same time, if America is to retain its leadership role, it must live up to its principles consistently, in its own conduct and in its relations with other nations.

The National Interest in a New
Century

The first of these precepts is the most

crucial of all: American national security strategy must find its anchor in U.S. national interests, interests that must be both protected and advanced for the fundamental well bcing of American society. We define these interests at three levels; survival interests, without which America would cease to exist as we know it; critical interests, which are causally one step removed from survival interests; and significant interests, which importantly affect the global environment in which the United States must act. There are, of course, other national interests, though of lesser importance than those in the above three categories.

U.S. survival interests include America's safety from direct attack, especially involving weapons of mass destruction, by either states or terrorists. Of the same order of importance is the preservation of America's Constitutional order and of those core strengths-educational,

industrial, scientific-technological—that underlie America's political, economic, and military position in the world.

Critical U.S. national interests include the continuity and security of those key international systems-energy, economic, communications, transportation, and public health (including food and water supplies) on which the lives and well being of Americans have come to depend. It is a critical national interest of the United States that no hostile power establish itself on U.S. borders, or in control of critical land, air, and sea lines of communication, or— in today's new world-in control of access to outer space or cyberspace. It is a critical national interest of the United States that no hostile hegemon arise in any of the globe's major regions, nor a hostile global peer rival or a hostile coalition comparable to a peer rival. The security of allies and friends is a critical national interest of the United States, as is the ability to avert, or check, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction into the hands of actors hostile or potentially hostile to the United States.

Significant U.S. national interests include the deepening and institutionalization abroad of constitutional democracy under the rule of law, market-based economics, and universal recognition of basic human rights. The United States also has a significant interest in the responsible expansion of an international order based on agreed rules among major powers to manage common global problems, not least those involving the physical environment. It is a significant national interest of the United States that there be economic growth abroad, to raise the living standards of the poorest and to mitigate economic and political conflict. It is a significant national interest of the United States that international terrorism and criminality (including illicit drug trade) be minimized, but without jeopardizing the openness of international eco