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This exclusive Washington Quarterly e-briefing book offers insights and policy recommendations from leading bipartisan strategic thinkers to help navigate some of the most critical and complex security issues facing the Obama administration and its newly-announced national security leadership.
Leaders Do Soft Power: Learning the Lessons of Iraq
James B. Steinberg
There is an urgent need to return to the bipartisan tradition of enlightened global leadership - the fundamental strategy pursued by the United States since World War II - which remains the most reliable path to U.S. security and prosperity.
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The Security Implications of Climate Change
John Podesta and Peter Ogden
Within the next 30 years, climate change is expected to cause destabilizing migration, massive food and water shortages, devastating natural disasters, and deadly disease outbreaks that will present serious security challenges not only to directly affected countries, but to the United States and the entire international community.
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A Changing Climate: The Road Ahead for the United States
Todd Stern and William Antholis
The next U.S. president has a pivotal opportunity to take bold, broad action on climate change. While implementing a serious program at home, the president should pursue a layered diplomacy centered on a core group of major emitters, especially China, and in the UN.
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Should Democracy Be Promoted or Demoted?
Francis Fukuyama and Michael McFaul
The tragic result of the gap between declared objectives and strategies on democracy promotion is that many Americans are starting to view this goal as no longer desirable or attainable. A more effective strategy for promoting democracy, proposed here, is both needed and available.
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The Reality: A World without Nuclear Weapons is Essential
Sidney Drell and James Goodby
Deterrence is becoming less effective and increasingly hazardous. A series of practical steps can be initiated leading to a world without nuclear weapons. As the world proceeds down that path, political conditions will be created that will improve its prospects.
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The Day After: Action Following a Nuclear Blast in a U.S. City
Ashton B. Carter, Michael M. May, and William J. Perry
Failure to develop a comprehensive contingency plan, such as the one proposed here, and inform the American public, where appropriate, about its particulars will only serve to amplify the devastating impact of any nuclear attack on a U.S. city.
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The Defense Inheritance: Challenges and Choices for the Next Pentagon Team
Michele A. Flournoy and Shawn Brimley
The next Pentagon team will be faced with the dual challenge of advising on key current wartime decisions while also preparing the U.S. armed forces for a far different future. They must be stewards of the military, not just users of the instrument.
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The Folly of 'Asymmetric War'
Michael J. Mazarr
Shifting U.S. defense policy to focus on asymmetric threats would distort defense priorities for years to come and trap U.S. armed forces in endless conflicts that military power cannot win.
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Weak States and Global Threats: Fact or Fiction?
Stewart Patrick
Little evidence underpins existing sweeping assertions about the connection between weak or failing states and transnational threats such as terrorism, proliferation, or disease, even though policy is being implemented accordingly. What characteristics of state weakness are really associated with which dangers?
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Strengthening U.S. Strategic Planning
Aaron L. Friedberg
The former director of policy planning in the Office of the Vice President argues that the U.S. government has lost the capacity to conduct serious, sustained national strategic planning and proposes three ways by which the next president could improve it.
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Major Powers and U.S. Relations
Europe's Call for a Leader by Example
Robin Niblett
A dominant facet of European hopes for the new administration is that it will play a leadership role in addressing some of the world's most intractable problems and conflicts rather than protecting its interests within a narrow definition of national security.
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India's Quest for Continuity in the Face of Change
C. Raja Mohan
Unlike the dominant global sentiment for change in Washington, New Delhi seeks continuity in its engagement with the next U.S. administration. The greater Washington's continuing empathy for India's emergence as a great power, the better India's rise will be.
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The Merits of Dehyphenation: Explaining U.S. Success in Engaging India and Pakistan
Ashley J. Tellis
Decoupling India and Pakistan in U.S. policy has been a dramatically successful example of the capacity to think strategically over the long term and implement complex policies that require diplomatic adroitness and political agility. It should be retained, although refined, by the next administration.
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U.S.-Japanese Relations: Convergence or Cooling?
Michael J. Green
Are the United States and Japan diverging? A look at Japan's external environment, common values, and economic relations gives some insight into the way ahead.
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Putin's Plan
Clifford G. Gaddy and Andrew C. Kuchins
The roots of Putin's Plan lie not in Marxism-Leninism, but in Western business theory. True to these roots, Putin orchestrated the election of someone to succeed him as strategic planner, the CEO of "Russia Inc.," who is continuing to seek domestic and international stability.
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Seizing the Opportunity for Change in the Taiwan Strait
Yun-han Chu and Andrew J. Nathan
Taiwan's 2008 presidential election ushered in a moderate on cross-strait issues, offering a potential shift in cross-strait relations if Washington and Beijing understand the deceptive change toward moderation in Taiwan and what to do to reinforce it.
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North Korea: The Beginning of a China-U.S. Partnership?
Bonnie S. Glaser and Wang Liang
China's role in the six-party talks has evolved from passive onlooker to reticent host and, finally, honest broker. The process provides a test case of U.S.-Chinese cooperation on a critical security issue and of Beijing's willingness to become a "responsible stakeholder."
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Security Challenges
Statecraft in the Middle East
Dennis Ross
To improve the situations in Iraq, Iran, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the new administration must clarify U.S. objectives, make them more realistic, and use different forms of leverage to change behaviors.
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When $10 Billion Is Not Enough: Rethinking U.S. Strategy toward Pakistan
Craig Cohen and Derek Chollet
U.S. engagement with Pakistan is highly militarized and centralized, with very little reaching the vast majority of Pakistanis. U.S. assistance does not reflect a coherent strategy, but a legacy of the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks and a familiar menu of what Washington was already organized to provide.
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A Win-Win U.S. Strategy for Dealing with Iran
Michael McFaul, Abbas Milani, and Larry Diamond
The United States needs a bold and fundamentally different strategy, proposed here, which would engage the Iranian regime and people on two tracks, allowing U.S. diplomats to pursue arms control and democratization at the same time.
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Responding to North Korea: Capitulation or Collective Action?
Scott Snyder
North Korea's nuclear test unexpectedly catalyzed a paradigm shift, enhancing the potential effectiveness of the six-party process. The question now is whether such cohesion can continue as the impact of the nuclear test fades.
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