Democracy in U.S. Security Strategy

The Democracy in U.S. Security Strategy Project helps understand the strategic community’s perceived shortfalls in democracy promotion today and shapes alternatives for how it might be recast.


Strategic thinker Raymond Aron counseled, “the strength of a great power is diminished if it ceases to serve an idea.” Without such an idea today, the United States risks eroding its great power status by making other states more likely to resist and balance against it. From the Founding Fathers through Wilson’s Fourteen Points to the Reagan, Clinton, and Bush administrations, the United States has pursued some form of democracy promotion as that idea.

Yet recent experiences have damaged democracy promotion’s reputation among strategic experts and the public. Given these experiences, is such a policy sustainable? Should it guide U.S. grand strategy, be adjusted, or even be replaced? Given its historical role, future administrations are more likely to revisit, and possibly reframe, the place of democracy promotion in U.S. strategy based on recent experience, rather than dismiss it entirely. How, if at all, should it shape the U.S. national security strategy and public diplomacy?

Under project director Alexander T. J. Lennon, CSIS is identifying the perceived shortfalls of democracy promotion in U.S. grand strategy today, exploring alternatives for how it might be recast, and will recommend the role for democracy promotion in the next administration’s national security strategy and public diplomacy.

Advisory Committee

Thomas Carothers
CEIP
Larry Diamond
Stanford
Elizabeth Dugan
IRI
Peter D. Feaver
Duke
Stephen J. Flanagan
CSIS
Francis Fukuyama
SAIS
Michael Fullilove
Brookings
Michael J. Green
CSIS
Robert E. Hunter
RAND
Gerald Hyman
CSIS
G. John Ikenberry
Princeton
Michael A. McFaul
Stanford
Mark Palmer Rend Al-Rahim
USIP
Mitchell B. Reiss
William & Mary
Anne-Marie Slaughter
Princeton
Ashley J. Tellis
CEIP
Almut Wieland-Karimi
Friedrich Ebert Foundation
Jennifer Windsor
Freedom House
 

Persons Interviewed

In addition to conversations with and among the advisory committee, the following people were generous enough to share their time and ideas in interviews for this project, for which we are grateful:
 
Richard Armitage, Armitage International and former Deputy Secretary of State

Rick Barton, CSIS and former Director of the Office of Transition Initiatives at USAID

Peter Beinart, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)

Dennis Blair, National Bureau of Asian Research and former CINCPAC

Nick Burns, Harvard and former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs

Derek Chollet, Center for a New American Security

Lorne Craner, IRI and former Asst Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL)

Chet Crocker, Georgetown and former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs

Patrick Cronin, National Defense University and former assistant administrator at USAID

Jim Dobbins, RAND and former Assistant Secretary of State for Europe

Paula Dobriansky, former Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs

Georges Fauriol, International Republican Institute (IRI)

Michele Flournoy, Center for a New American Security and former Deputy Asst Secretary of Defense

Carl Gershman, NED and former Senior Counselor to the U.S. Representative to the UN

Marc Grossman, Cohen Group and former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs

Richard Haass, CFR and former Director of Policy Planning at the Department of State

Barbara Haig, National Endowment for Democracy (NED)

Morton Halperin, Open Society Policy Center and former Director of Policy Planning at State

Lee Hamilton, Woodrow Wilson Center and former Chairman, House Committee on Foreign Affairs

Francois Heisbourg, Director, Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique and Chairman, IISS

Jim Hoagland, The Washington Post

Masafumi Ishii, Embassy of Japan

Stephen Krasner, Stanford and former Director of Policy Planning at the Department of State

Jim Lindsay, University of Texas at Austin

Barry Lowenkron, MacArthur Foundation and former Assistant Secretary of State for DRL

Jim Mann, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)

Jessica Mathews, Carnegie Endowment and former deputy to the Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs

Marwan Muasher, World Bank and former Deputy Prime Minister of Jordan

Walter Russell Mead, Council on Foreign Relations

Joseph Nye, Harvard and former Assistant Secretary of Defense

Marc Plattner, Journal of Democracy at NED

Thomas Pickering, Hills & Company and former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs

Bruce Russett, Yale University

David Sanger, The New York Times

Brent Scowcroft, Scowcroft Group and former National Security Advisor

Jim Steinberg, U of Texas at Austin and former Deputy National Security Advisor

Strobe Talbott, Brookings and former Deputy Secretary of State

Karsten Voigt, Coordinator for German-American Cooperation in the German Foreign Office

Karin Von Hippel, CSIS

Ken Wollack, National Democratic Institute

Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek

Phil Zelikow, University of Virginia and former Senior Policy Advisor to the Secretary of State