Panel Says Terrorism Will Be Top Priority

Combating terrorism and restoring international faith in American leadership headline the foreign policy objectives that will await the winner of November’s presidential election, according to a panel of speakers Tuesday afternoon at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum.

The discussion, moderated by Kennedy School of Government professor David Gergen, underscored the likelihood of another large-scale attack on the United States and the Bush administration’s failure to adequately redirect government resources to counter that threat.

Dillon Professor of Government Graham T. Allison Jr. predicted a nuclear strike against America or its allies “within the next decade.”

“I can’t even work my way through that scenario without saying I don’t want to go there,” Allison said.

According to Sultan of Oman Professor of International Relations Joseph S. Nye, Jr., technological innovation at the end of the 20th century, coinciding with the emergence of determined non-state actors, created a global landscape in which traditional deterrents and the “hard power” of military force are rendered ineffective.

“A Stalin or Hitler could kill millions of people,” Nye said. “But a pathological individual previously required a totalitarian framework.”

But with failed states providing a haven for terrorists and nuclear technology more readily available from rogue nations like North Korea, which “will sell to anybody” according to Allison, single individuals are capable of visiting on their target levels of damage hundreds of times greater than in the past.

According to Allison, the first step in confronting nuclear terrorism’s “finite challenge” is securing existent nuclear stockpiles in the former Soviet Union, which pose an imminent threat insufficiently addressed by the Bush administration.

“In the two years after 9/11, fewer potential nuclear weapons in Russia were secured than in the two years before,” Allison said.

In addition to the threat of nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union falling into the wrong hands, the United States must also contend with the distinct possibility of nuclear neophyte Pakistan falling to Islamic fundamentalists. In Pakistan, according to Allison, four in five prefer the foreign policy strategy employed by Osama bin Laden to that of President Bush.

“If you look at Pakistan, this is really a ticking time bomb,” Allison said. “It’s hanging by the thread of Gen. Pervez Musharraf. And he’s twice been within a second and a half of assassination the last six months.”

Moreover, Allison argued, the decision to commit troops to Iraq has provided the other two members of the “Axis of Evil” with more time to further their own nuclear ambitions, while curtailing potential U.S. responses. Though North Korea had consented to freeze its nuclear program, Pyongyang long circumvented treaty obligations by drawing necessary materials from an uninspected source prior to booting United Nations weapons inspectors.

“There’s two imminent threats and the third is a bad guy,” Allison said. “North Korea was in fact selling a bomb’s worth of uranium hexafluoride and Iran was sneaking [past inspectors],” Allison said. “If Bush had shot North Korea or Iran, I might have supported him.”

But despite threats elsewhere and the shift in popular support against the war in Iraq and its handling, withdrawal constitutes the worst alternative, according to Nye.

“If we pull out of Iraq quickly and leave behind a failed state like Lebanon in the ’80s and Afghanistan in the ’90s, it will become a new haven for transnational terrorists,” Nye said. “And they won’t wait for us to come get them. They’ll come get us over here.”

In addition to nation building, creating an environment hostile to terrorists also requires better deployment of “soft power,” according to Nye.

“You can’t do it without winning the hearts and minds,” Nye said. “You see this not as a clash of civilizations but a civil war within Islam.”

But as a reaction to the increased threat of terrorism, the United States is backing away from one of the most powerful weapons in its soft power arsenal—education.

The same bureaucracies that mistakenly allowed the Sept. 11 hijackers into the country are now overreacting in regard to student visas, Nye said, limiting America’s ability both to woo young scholars with its ideals and to transplant those values abroad.

Given prior commitments in Iraq, carving out a successful foreign policy also requires a major departure from preferred business as usual for the Bush administration according to the panelists—reforging bonds with traditional Western European allies and cultivating an arena in which multilateral action is the norm, not the product of convenience.

Though the administration cast aside several prominent allies in ousting Hussein, the strain placed on its armed forces has encouraged cooperation with Iran, China and North Korea, prompting speculation that the failures in Iraq had ushered in a new era of Bush foreign policy.

“Take people like Paul Wolfowitz, who said we’re going to need 50,000 troops to win the war or control Baghdad,” Nye said. “Now he’ll seem a little less credible.”

But in addition to merely working with its allies when such assistance is required, the next administration must convince its partners that it values their judgment and aid, according to Samantha J. Power, a lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School.

Pursuing that course requires “not pretending that history hasn’t happened and reckoning in a way very few politicians have done,” she said.

“Part of this has to be about ‘how can people hear us and take us seriously?’” she added.

Enhanced communication abroad must be mirrored by similar improvements within the U.S. military and among domestic agencies, said Elaine Kamarck, lecturer of public policy at the Kennedy School, or else the United States will not be able to defend itself against modern enemies.

“We had a government that was built for an entirely different time, that was built for the Cold War,” Kamarck said. “What do we do about the question of American intelligence? Do we try to create a sort of American MI-5 or do we work using the existing FBI framework?”

Kamarck did not elaborate on precisely what steps the government ought to take to adapt, but she said that interagency territoriality currently hampers the fight against terror.

Moreover, sharing of information must not be limited to the highest circles of the CIA and FBI, she said, or else its effects will be minimal.

“You want FBI chiefs who are on the ground in Bahrain talking to CIA station chiefs,” Kamarck said. “By the time they’re talking about it in the White House, it’s too late.”

Kamarck also cited the war in Iraq as a clear indication that the U.S. military needs to update its training and structure, preparing more special forces and quick-strike units, in addition to ensuring an adequate number of military police.

Although panelists generally agreed that Sen. John Kerry’s, D-Mass., foreign policy would likely mark a return to increased multilateral action, Gergen questioned the vagueness both candidates have employed in describing future international relations.

“I cannot remember a campaign where the candidates were so opaque about their agenda,” Gergen said. “It does seem to me that the voters ought to be able to go to the polls with more than a sniff.”

—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu.