U.S. Global Engagement Program
The way America does business with the world, or U.S. global engagement, is arguably the most critical foreign policy issue of the day.
What might constructive engagement entail?
The lessons of the unruly post-Cold war environment have surely been that, on a raft of new or exacerbated security challenges—terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), humanitarian intervention in civil conflicts, energy security et al—the engagement of a coalition of the willing and able is not just morally appealing, but strategically smart. To quote one veteran observer, it is both possible and desirable "to define multilateral engagement in terms of American national interests."
Finally, if one accepts the logic and value of multilateralism, this must be a multilateralism that is institutionalized, embedded in policy. The floated notion of "a la carte" multilateralism is notionally appealing, but specious. There is an inherent contradiction between commitment to multilateral behavior on the one hand, and on the other selective application based on narrow parochial interests.
Approach
The Council's global engagement initiative will consist of a series of critical case studies. This will entail a three-tiered focus:
1.. U.S. relations with partners among the established democracies. Here, an obvious candidate is the NATO alliance; NATO has expanded, and will continue to do so, well beyond the alliance's original theater. What are the implications of this, and of the related question of EU enlargement, for the United States?
2. U.S. relations with what might be termed "problematical allies." Here, Russia and Pakistan come immediately to mind as states where obvious crucial U.S. interests are manifest, but where cooperation/partnership is undermined by internal political developments.
3. U.S. relations with states of deep concern. Iran is the obvious candidate, in that, despite President Bush's infamous "axis of evil" nomenclature, Iran both actually and potentially has a role to play in a number of key policy challenges, including Iraq and Afghanistan.
- The Rockefeller Brothers Fund
- The Alfred and Jane Ross Foundation
- Rockefeller Family & Associates
- Donald M. Kendall
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