Over at The Atlantic, Marc Ambinder has his take on Obama’s new National Security Strategy. Worth reading.
Tags: Atlantic, NSS
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Interesting. Some of the article: “A few weeks after Obama took office, he began to read through a bunch of memorandums prepared by the CIA about the political dynamics in Muslim countries. All of the memos had details about what complaints various demographic groups had with America. Obama’s team sent the memos back to the CIA. Okay, they said, we know what it is that people do not like about America. But surely there must be something that they do like.
So the CIA tasked its operatives and analysts with trying to figure out what, say, an average Egyptian admired about America. Taking Egypt as our example, the analysts found that Egyptian young men with a bent towards science were quite envious of their friends who were able to obtain academic visas to the U.S. In Turkey and Indonesia, admiration was expressed for America’s entpreneural spirit. Those conclusions led directly to administration initiatives, including the appointment of science envoys to several countries and a massive Muslim entrepreneurship summit that includes both concrete deliverables from the United States and promises of future summits.
These are tiny steps. But there are many, many of them.”
National security through legitimacy, adherence to international law, etc. Seems like it could be difficult to verify its success, even if it works. It sounds like a good strategy. It also reminds me slightly of the speech that Harold Koh gave at ASIL in March…
[...] a stop to the military tactic. However, it could certainly deal a blow to President Obama’s national security strategy, which relies heavily on efforts to adhere to international [...]