How to Make America Safe: New Policies for National Security

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Edited by Stephen Van Evera (MIT, Political Science)

96 pages. Available in June 2006. Download the full text or sections, at right.

Summary

How can we make America safe? The Tobin Project posed this question to eleven leading scholars of foreign policy and national security. The responses, collected in this short volume, were presented at a Tobin Project national security research meeting in June 2006. Together, the scholars advocate a broad strategy that combats terrorism on all fronts—not only on the battlefield—and that directs our resources toward the unique threats of the post-9/11 era. Such a strategy would, at a minimum, accomplish five key objectives:

• Prevent terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons
• Arrive at an endgame in Iraq
• Spread democracy and win the war of ideas
• Fight terrorism with a broader set of tools
• Manage the rise of great powers

Although the eleven scholars do not agree on every issue, they do agree that the nation’s current national security strategy is deeply flawed and that a new approach is urgently needed. Their chapters contain the seeds of this new approach, which the scholars are committed to developing and refining.

Contents

» Introduction PDF

PART I. Prevent Terrorists from Acquiring Nuclear Weapons

Making America Safer from Nuclear Terrorism
Graham Allison, Douglas Dillon Professor of Government and Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Preventing a Nuclear 9/11
Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

North Korea, Iran, and the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons: The Threat, U.S. Policy and the Prescription…and the India Deal
Robert L. Gallucci, President, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

PART II. Arrive at an Endgame in Iraq

Iraq Disengagement 
Barry Posen, Ford International Professor of Political Science, MIT

PART III. Spread Democracy and Win the War of Ideas

A Balanced Foreign Policy
Daryl Press, Associate Professor of Government, Dartmouth College
Benjamin Valentino, Associate Professor of Government, Dartmouth College

On Every Front: A Strategy for the War on Terror*
Stephen Van Evera, Ford International Professor of Political Science, MIT

PART IV. Finance and fight a Broader War on Terror

Budgets to Make America Safer
Cindy Williams, Principal Research Scientist, Security Studies Program, MIT

Fighting the War on Terrorism: A Better Approach
Daniel Byman, Professor, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University

PART V. Manage the Rise of Great Powers

The Challenge of China
Joseph S. Nye, Jr., University Distinguished Service Professor, Harvard Kennedy School 

Getting China Right: Cutting through the Myths of Economic Growth
Edward S. Steinfeld, Associate Professor of Political Science, MIT

American Foreign Policy for the New Era 
Stephen Van Evera, Ford International Professor of Political Science, MIT

*Note: This paper appears on the website of the MIT Center for International Studies.