Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
U.S. counterterrorism policy and the foreign policy to which it is connected are still flawed. That may be the reason why the number of terrorist attacks worldwide has actually increased, instead of decreasing, after the Bush administration launched the global war against terrorism.
In the two months before September 11, five cabinet members, including National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, traveled to Moscow. They were not there to coordinate counter-terrorism operations or share threat assessments. They were fixated on one mission: convince the Russian leadership to scuttle the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
The proliferation of unconventional weapons is the most serious national security threat the United States faces today. While chemical weapons can kill hundreds of people and biological weapons can potentially kill thousands, nuclear weapons are incomparably dangerous in scale of destruction and strategic impact.
The historic events in Libya, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran and North Korea have raised several key questions that help frame the proliferation debate over the future direction of U.S. non-proliferation policy.
The Bush administration is preparing to launch a "Greater Middle East Initiative" at the G-8 summit meeting in June. The time is indeed opportune for engagement on regional reform, but as planned, the initiative fails to establish a basis for genuine partnership and does little to address the real challenges of Arab democratization.
The problem in U.S.-Russian relations today is that the personal friendship initiated by Bush has produced little in the way of the tangible outcomes that Bush himself has defined as his major foreign policy objectives.
U.S. and European leaders want to see greater freedom, and democracy in the Middle East. Americans see this as the crucial battleground in the war on terror; Europeans want their southern neighbors to be stable and well-governed, to stem the flows of illegal migration and organized crime. Working with local partners for peaceful democratic regime change is the best way to achieve these goals.