Project on Defense Alternatives
Planned Program Activities 2005 - 2006

			Mission
			Programs
			Advisory Board
			Staff
			Internships
			Affiliations
			Sustainers

Background

US security policy is governed presently by a paradox. The 11 September 2001 attacks propelled security issues and requirements to the forefront of US public consciousness, where they today remain. The attacks also prompted an energetic shift in US defense policy -- toward a posture combining both more attention to continental security and more intensive military engagement abroad. But the post-9/11 security initiatives have proven neither effective nor sustainable. Indeed, in many respects, the responses to the 9/11 attacks have been counter-productive, tending to exacerbate the problems they are supposed to redress, while undermining the nation's long-term security environment and capacities for defense. Nevertheless, the present posture seems politically resilient. The public's heightened concern about security issues has not translated into a closer scrutiny of policy. This is partly because there has been, parallel to the post-9/11 shift in defense posture, a significant constriction in the US policy discourse and debate.

With leaders of both political parties operating largely within the stultifying framework of a "nation at war," there has been little latitude for serious, critical assessments of current policy and its alternatives. Of course, the narrowing of debate cannot mask the shortfalls in current policy; it can only make it seem as though there are no good alternatives.

Among the evident shortfalls are:

• A desultory and boundless "global war on terrorism", with a vaguely defined enemy, no measurable benchmarks with which to measure progress, and, as yet, no discernable improvement in national security;
• Homeland security efforts that have spawned new budgets and bureaucracies, but that have failed to close even the most obvious gaps in continental security;
• A war in Afghanistan that has produced a "ten block" democracy, leaving most of the country in the hands of warlords. Moreover, opium production has revived, making Afghanistan once again the world's leading producer of opium poppy. And, while the war succeeded in toppling the Taliban and driving Al Qaeda from its bases, both groups remain active in the country and in neighboring Pakistan;
• A war in Iraq that succeeded in toppling the Hussein regime, but that has left the country with a dysfunctional state and economy beset by an intractable insurgency. What was to have been a fast, decisive operation has become an open-ended military occupation. The recent elections - deformed by insecurity, boycott, and favoritism - seem more likely to feed communal conflict than resolve it. While Iraq was supposed to serve as a springboard for democratic transition in the region, it has instead become a point of regional contention and a new breeding ground for anti-American militancy.

The direct and indirect costs of the post-9/11 initiatives have been monumental, including more than 60,000 lives lost, more than $300 billion in US expenditures, a degradation in US military capabilities, a precipitous decline in America's standing abroad, and the spread of extremism, not its reduction.

The evident failure of post-9/11 policy creates some momentum for reform - but this remains mostly latent. Although the costs and shortfalls of current policy have been widely recounted, this has not been sufficient to prompt a transfer of public allegiance to new ways of thinking and approaching today's problems. The task before policy critics and reformers is not merely to recount the failures of current policy but to:

• Redefine the problem,
• Reformulate the policy options, and
• Reframe the public debate.

These three imperatives define the goals of PDA's principal program for the 2005 - 2006 period.

Program Description

PDA's 2005-2006 program has four operational goals:

1. Through policy analysis and alternative policy development illustrate how paradigm change and institutional reform can help resolve persistent and salient problems in policy;
2. Look beyond the confines of the Washington DC "beltway" and seek to alter the intellectual environment or climate of opinion in which policy is made;
3. As a complement to developing new ideas and options, support a broadening of the policy debate, and
4. Support the formation of new "policy blocs" - new networks of thinkers, planners, deciders, communicators, and educators - that cut across pre-existing divides: Democrat versus Republican, civilian versus military, etc.

The program will address several issues in current policy and practice:

• The role of force in US policy and the prospects of the so-called "new warfare";
• The challenge of regional stability, fragile states, and nation-building (with Afghanistan and Iraq as leading examples);
• Counter-terrorism and counter-proliferation policy; and
• US post-9/11 military requirements, transformation, and budgeting.

Beginning with a critical assessment of current policy, the program will redefine the security problems currently facing the United States and then generate a range of alternative policy options. The principal conceptual move will be to view today's most salient concerns - such as terrorism and weapon proliferation - as part of an inter-related cluster of regional stability problems. In response, security policy must center on the stability problem, raising the profile of cooperative and non-military instruments. Only in this broader policy framework can counter-terrorism and counter-proliferation efforts hope to succeed. As policy initiatives reorient toward the stability problem, so must the US military - and it must do so in a way that is financially sustainable.

Based on this analytical and policy development work, the program will then seek to reframe the public debate. This will require the development and promotion of accessible "policy themes" that can broadly convey new ways to understand and address today's security challenges.

Organizationally the program will be divided into four modules, which together encompass the policy issues and the project goals outlined above:

Module 1. Reassessing the War on Terrorism
Module 2. Lessons of the Afghan and Iraq Wars
Module 3. A Defense Reform Agenda for the post-9/11 Era
Module 4. Engaging the Media and Winning the "Contest of Ideas"

1. Reassessing the War on Terrorism. This module will provide a net assessment of counter-terrorism policy since 9/11, clarify the costs and inadequacy of the current approach, and reframe the problem in terms of redressing instability in several of the world's troubled regions.

2. Lessons of the Afghan and Iraq Wars. Drawing on the experience of the Afghan and Iraq campaigns, this module will critically assess recent US policy regarding the "use of force", "coercive counter-proliferation," "preventive war and regime change", and the "new warfare". In this context, it will clarify an alternative approach to the tasks of regional stabilization.

3. A Defense Reform Agenda for the post-9/11 Era. This module will relate the goals of regional stabilization, counter-proliferation, and counter-terrorism to the process of US military modernization, thus redefining the ongoing interest in "military transformation." In this context, the negative effects of recent US military operations on the armed forces will also be analyzed and remedial action will be proposed. Finally, a defense reform agenda will be advanced in the interest of making America's military posture financially sustainable.

4. Engaging the Media and Winning the "Contest of Ideas." This module is the communications component of the program. Beyond routine efforts to disseminate the PDA's products, this module will test ways to reorient media coverage of security issues. It will develop a critical assessment of current media coverage that identifies and challenges prevalent media frames in the area of national security. And it will distill and disseminate alternative frames based on the substantive policy work of the program.

Special Topic Websites

PDA develops, edits, and maintains a number of special topic Websites. These can be described as link libraries composed of linked citations of thousands of documents organized by topic and subtopic -- in other words, online libraries. Overall about 15% of the documents listed are hosted on PDA's Internet server. Unlike some hosts of similarly structured collections, PDA staff frequently checks the links to other servers and redirects those that are broken.

Beginning with the Defense Strategy Review page in 1997 and the Chinese Military Power page in 1999, PDA has created five sites (including the Revolution in Military Affairs Debate page, the War Report page, and the Occupation Distress page) and is about to launch a sixth on Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism. All together, these pages have more than 7500 documents and attract more than 25,000 users a month. Several PDA sites are the leading Internet document source for their topic. These sites represent a highly successful aspect of PDA's effort to disseminate knowledge and broaden the security policy debate.

Updated -- February 2005

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