'Soft pre-emption'

In today's New York Times David Brooks looks at the ideological continuity between the doctrine of 'soft pre-emption' developed in the latter stages of the Bush presidency and its popularity within the new Obama foreign policy team.  Three key quotes:

Weak states not enemy powers pose the great threat: "On Jan. 18, 2006, Condoleezza Rice delivered a policy address at Georgetown University in which she argued that the fundamental threats now come from weak and failed states, not enemy powers. In this new world, she continued, it is impossible to draw neat lines between security, democratization and development efforts. She called for a transformational diplomacy, in which State Department employees would do less negotiating and communiqué-writing. Instead, they’d be out in towns and villages doing broad campaign planning with military colleagues, strengthening local governments and implementing development projects."

Robert Gates' 'soft-pre-emption': "Gates has told West Point cadets that more regime change is unlikely but that they may spend parts of their careers training soldiers in allied nations. He has called for more spending on the State Department, foreign aid and a revitalized U.S. Information Agency. He’s spawned a flow of think-tank reports on how to marry hard and soft pre-emption."

Obama's appointees share this view: "During the campaign, Barack Obama embraced Gates’s language. During his press conference on Monday, he used all the right code words, speaking of integrating and rebalancing the nation’s foreign policy capacities. He nominated Hillary Clinton and James Jones, who have been champions of this approach, and retained Gates. Their cooperation on an integrated strategy might prevent some of the perennial feuding between the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom and the National Security Council. As Stephen Flanagan of the Center for Strategic and International Studies notes, Obama’s challenge will be to actually implement the change. That would include increasing the size of the State Department, building a civilian corps that can do development in dangerous parts of the world, creating interagency nation-building institutions, helping local reformers build governing capacity in fragile places like Pakistan and the Palestinian territories and exporting American universities while importing more foreign students."

David Brooks' article I Condoleezza's January 2006 speech

Comments

[Nizhinsky]

Excellent. I think the silly panic over an Obama 'socialist' presidency can be swept under the rug now. Political reality is beginning to set in for the president-elect, and I think his admirable stance of non-partisanship is genuine.

[Tony Makara]

The news that NATO is to re-open dialogue with Russia is a very welcome development. Hopefully the old heads surrounding Obama will improve relations with the Russians. The Labour government should also try to repair the damage that its clumsy diplomacy has caused. We need to bring Russia into the Western folds that she feels accountable. There is also the matter of energy.