Another Main Chance for American Leadership: 9/11 a Year On: October/December 2002 Issue: Peace Watch: U.S. Institute of Peace

The terrorist attack of a year ago had much the same effect on our country as the attack on Pearl Harbor of December 7, 1941. Overnight it exposed our national security vulnerabilities, galvanized the American people to embrace a new defense agenda, and laid the basis for global U.S. leadership. What is not clear today is whether the administration, Congress, and the American people can come together around a comprehensive, long-term strategy for international leadership designed to create the conditions for global security as well as economic and political progress in the 21st century.

One year into the war on terrorism, we are demonstrating again the capacity to deal, alone if need be, coercively with immediate enemy targets. But, as professional soldiers are the first to recognize, successful military actions create brief windows of opportunity, not lasting political results.

To have enduring strategic impact, a successful military campaign should be viewed as buying time for constructing political solutions and institutional frameworks to cope with challenges and threats.

No nation has more at stake than the United States in making a success of the war on terrorism, and no nation has more to lose if we waste today's unique opportunity to galvanize international cooperation. A comprehensive national security strategy must knit together responses to the terrorist threat with anti-proliferation measures, the global war on the drug trade and other criminal business networks (which finance much terrorist activity), a program of post-conflict reconstruction and economic reform for failed and failing states, and promotion of democracy, rule of law, and human rights.

The war on terrorism, thus far, has achieved some remarkable successes. But these victories could be short-lived unless we prosecute this war in a robust political context, and implement a broad-based strategy to shape surrounding regions. That means using the panoply of our security-related tools: alliances and military assistance programs to bolster friends and train local forces; our lead role in international and regional security organizations, such as the United Nations and NATO, to build workable restraints on weapons proliferation and to share the costs and burdens of peace operations and conflict management; negotiation and mediation resources; and public diplomacy tools and media and educational resources.

Institute President, Richard Solomon

President Bush has successfully galvanized a major national effort focusing on the immediate perpetrators of September 11. As he and the American people weigh the next set of momentous decisions, we will do well to focus, first, on how to make the post-conflict phase succeed in Afghanistan. Allies in Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia want to know if we have the will to see this enterprise through to some acceptable conclusion.

The more fundamental challenge—working with those in the Islamic world who share our values and goals as we confront the extremists—is likely to be a generation-long struggle. We have a profound, long-term commitment to achieving a satisfactory Middle East settlement. We must continue to do so, basing our approach on the merits of the situation, not on the timing and tactics of possible U.S.-led efforts at regime change in Iraq. By the same token, a possible U.S. decision to overturn the regime of Saddam Hussein cannot be based on an Arab-Israeli calculus. It should flow from a strategic assessment of how best to bring about a positive realignment of political forces in the Persian Gulf/Arabian Peninsula. Removing Saddam Hussein is only one potential stroke on a wider canvas—are we going to occupy and run this region directly, for how long, with what instruments, and with what companions?

Similar choices confront Americans and our allies on a range of related issues. Can we develop the ideas and instruments for a serious, long-term conversation about change, modernization, and democracy with the varied societies of the Islamic world? How can we best engage the Pakistans, Indonesias, Irans, and Nigerias? In how many situations—apart from the Middle East—should the U.S. play a lead role as peacemaker? In Sudan? In Kashmir?

Underlying these questions are strategic choices for preventing the emergence of evil regimes and dealing with those which are already with us. We have only begun the post-September 11 debate on issues of engagement versus containment and isolation, deterrence versus preemption and regime change. This debate needs to be grounded in a sense of what is politically and strategically sustainable in the context of each case and of the broader network of global relations at the center of which we stand as a superpower.

In sum, there is no quick and dirty military solution to the terrorism and turmoil brought home to us on September 11. Fifty years ago this country responded to a direct attack on American territory by mobilizing for a long-term struggle. Today, in a very different world, we have another unique opportunity to build upon our recent military success by developing a comprehensive strategy for mobilizing domestic resources and a global coalition in support of a more stable and secure international system.