Editor’s Corner

 year after September 11th, the world got its first glimpse of the Bush administration’s grand strategy. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, released by the White House in September 2002, is sweeping in scope and breathtaking in its ambition. “We will defend the peace by fighting terrorists and tyrants,” the document announced. “We will preserve the peace by building good relations among the great powers. We will extend the peace by encouraging free and open societies on every continent.” This demanding agenda has led scholars such as Yale University’s John Lewis Gaddis to dub it “the most important reformulation of U.S. grand strategy in over half a century.”

Three-and-a-half years later, the Bush administration can claim progress on a number of these fronts. It has succeeded in uprooting the Taliban in Afghanistan, removing Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime in Iraq, and substantially impairing the activities of al-Qaeda. It has forged new links to the states of Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus. And it has catalyzed movement toward pluralism in a number of unexpected places, among them Lebanon, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.

But fresh challenges have emerged, and they necessitate new and creative thinking about how to promote U.S. interests and American security. With that in mind, this issue of The Journal offers a sextet of feature articles on future strategy. GWEST’s Fred Cedoz lays out a bold agenda for U.S. energy security. J. Michael Waller of the Institute of World Politics takes a fascinating look at the linguistic front in the War on Terror. Former administration officials Frank Cilluffo and J. Paul Nicholas lay out the new challenges confronting the U.S. in cyberspace. Robert Pfaltzgraff of the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis explains the centrality of space to future American security. Writing under the pseudonym Pavel Ivanov, a State Department strategist explains the need to focus on terror enablers in the criminal world. Last, but certainly not least, the National Institute for Public Policy’s Keith Payne explains the new rationales—and requirements—for nuclear deterrence.

This issue also boasts sections dealing with America’s two main strategic competitors. Stephen Blank of the U.S. Army War College takes a look at the thorny debate over U.S. policy toward Russia—and explains persuasively why democracy promotion must take precedence over “realism.” Russia scholar Gordon Hahn provides a fascinating, and deeply worrying, glimpse into the effects that Vladimir Putin’s anti-democratic policies are having upon Russia’s sizeable Muslim minority. The final article on Russia, written by yours truly, outlines the changing nature of the Kremlin’s strategic partnership with Iran, and explains why there should be reason for optimism that that relationship may soon become a thing of the past.

Then, on to China. The American Enterprise Institute’s Dan Blumenthal provides an overview of China’s growing power in Asia, and what regional countries are doing about it. For his part, Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy outlines China’s widening quest for energy, and how it fits into the PRC’s ambitious (and deeply anti-American) grand strategy.

In our “Dispatches” section, we offer perspectives on a trio of important topics: the state of the U.S.-Turkish relationship; the nature of the student democracy movement within Iran; and Italy’s convoluted internal political scene. Rounding out the issue are reviews of four notable foreign policy books: Husain Haqqani’s Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military; Twilight in the Desert by Matthew Simmons; Flynt Leverett’s Inheriting Syria; and Pedro Sanjuan’s The UN Gang.

In our last issue, we highlighted a number of geographic and ideological fronts where the future battles of the War on Terror are likely to be fought. In this one, we are proud to offer an array of perspectives on how the United States can do so successfully.