Return to Camelot

A call for new directions was at the crux of the Center for a New American Security’s (CNAS) second annual June conference. At a session entitled “A New U.S. Grand Strategy”, panelists gathered to discuss their views on possible grand strategies to help America move forward.

Panelist Michele Flournoy, CNAS president and co-founder, said that the in-coming president will face a daunting national security situation. Presently, more than 350 thousand military personnel have been deployed overseas. Compounded to that, there is an increased threat in nuclear terrorism, severe global climate change and a greater power shift to countries such as India and China. In Flournoy’s opinion, now is the time to pivot from the legacy of the Cold War and to start thinking of security challenges in new ways. Since the Cold War, America has not had a grand strategy and so it must widen its strategic aperture and get back to fundamentals.

Derek Chollet, CNAS Senior Fellow, pointed out that 9/11 did not change everything but its mirror date 11/9, the fall of the Berlin wall that ended the Cold War, marked a time when America was most unified. He conceded that 9/11 did unify America for a while but the divisions of the 1990s are re-emerging in American society.

Panelists agreed that leaders should have contextual intelligence and not simply reuse past methods for similar current situations. The session felt it was time for the in-coming president to reclaim moral high ground and ‘export hope and optimism, not anger’ to the rest of the world.