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 |
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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