Project for the New American Century |
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The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) is an American right-wing think tank. It was established in the spring of 1997 as a non-profit, educational organization whose goal is to promote American global leadership. It is based
in the same building as the American
Enterprise Institute in Washington DC.
The PNAC is quite controversial, and has raised the concern of many because it can be viewed as proposing military and
economic domination of land, space, and cyberspace by the United States, so as
to establish American dominance in world affairs for the indefinite future—hence, "the New American Century".
The chairman of PNAC is William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard magazine. Present and former members include Donald Rumsfeld, Paul
Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, Richard Perle, Richard Armitage, Dick Cheney, Lewis Libby,
William J. Bennett, Gary Schmitt, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Ellen Bork, the wife of Judge Robert Bork. A large number of its ideas and its members are associated with the
hawkish neoconservative school of political theory, although the majority of its members are not
affiliated with any branch of service. PNAC has seven full-time staff members, in addition to its board of directors.
Content
The Project is an initiative of the New Citizenship Project, a non-profit 501c3 organization
that is funded by the Bradley Foundation [1] . The PNAC declares itself to be
dedicated to the fundamental propositions that
- American leadership is good both for America and for the world;
- Such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy, and commitment to moral principle;
- Too few political leaders today are making the case for global leadership;
The group states that when diplomacy has failed, military action is an acceptable and necessary resort. PNAC advocates the
installation of permanent military
bases around the world for the establishment of a United States
Global Constabulary. This global police force would have the power to keep law and order around the world in accordance
with rules that the United States would establish as being proper and just. It also advocates the United States government should
capitalize on its military and economic superiority to gain unchallengeable superiority through all means necessary, including
military force.
The PNAC and its members had long called for the United States to abandon the ABM Treaty. The PNAC also proposes to control the new "international commons" of space and "cyberspace" and pave
the way for the creation of a new military service - U.S. Space Forces - with the mission of space control. In 1998, Rumsfeld chaired a bipartisan commission on the US Ballistic
Missile Threat towards advancement of these goals.
In September 2000, the PNAC issued a 80-page report entitled Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces, And Resources
For A New Century . The report has been the subject
of much analysis and criticism.
Controversy
Critics of the PNAC argue that it represents a broad, borderline imperial agenda
of global US military expansionism and dominance that is currently being enacted by the Bush Administration. Supporters of the
PNAC argue that the project's advocated policies are not fundamentally different than what have been long been proposed by other
conservative foreign policy analyists, and that the PNAC is the target
of unfair conspiracy theories. Much of the basis for its
critics' arguments is derived from the text of Rebuilding America's Defenses. Critics often refer to a number of quotes
from this report to support their position. PNAC critics suggest that portions of the document call into question the true
motives behind the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Another issue pointed to in support of the critics' position stems back to March of 1992 when an internal Pentagon report
entitled Defense Policy Guidance (DPG) was leaked to The New York Times. This is significant because the
authors of that document -- Pentagon national security consultants at the time -- both went on to be members of the PNAC and, as
mentioned below, key figures in the present Bush Administration: Paul Wolfowitz and I. Lewis Libby. When the document was leaked,
there was a massive outcry, and it was soon denounced by Democratic Senator Joseph Biden as a blueprint for "literally a Pax Americana". (see Barton Gellman, “Keeping the
U.S. First; Pentagon Would Preclude a Rival Superpower,” The Washington Post, 11 March 1992, p. 1.)
Bush Administration
With the election of George W. Bush, many of PNAC's members were
appointed to key positions within the new President's administration:
- Elliott Abrams, NSC representative for Middle
Eastern Affairs, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center
- Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of
State
- John Bolton, Under Secretary
for Arms Control and International Security Affairs
- Dick Cheney, a PNAC founder, Vice President
- Seth Cropsey, Director of the
International Broadcasting Bureau (Voice of America)
- Paula Dobriansky, Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs
- Francis Fukuyama, Johns Hopkins University, appointed to the President's Council on Bioethics
- Bruce Jackson, president of
U.S. Committee on NATO
- Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan
- Lewis Libby aka Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff for
Cheney
- Peter W. Rodman,
Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security
- Donald Rumsfeld, a PNAC founder, Secretary of Defense
- Randy Scheunemann, Iraq advisor to
Rumsfeld
- Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of
Defense
- Dov S. Zakheim, Comptroller of the Defense Department
- Robert B. Zoellick,
U.S. Trade
Representative
Other Members
- Gary Bauer, former presidential
candidate, president of American Values
- William J. Bennett, former Secretary of Education and Drug Czar, co-founder of Empower America, author of the
Book of Virtues
- Ellen Bork, deputy director of
PNAC
- Rudy Boschwitz
- Jeb Bush, governor of Florida
- Eliot A. Cohen, professor
of strategic studies at
Johns Hopkins University
- Thomas Donnelly,
director of communications, Lockheed Martin
- Steve Forbes, multi-billionare publisher of Forbes Magazine, former presidential candidate
- Aaron Friedberg,
director of the Center of International Studies
- Frank Gaffney, columnist, founder of Center for
Security Policy
- Reuel Marc
Gerecht, director of the Middle East Initiative
- Fred Ikle, Center for
Strategic and International Studies
- Donald Kagan, Yale University professor, conservative columnist with various State Department ties
- Jeane Kirkpatrick, former U.S. ambassador
- Charles Krauthammer
- William Kristol, a PNAC founder and chairman, editor of the
Weekly Standard
- Christopher
Maletz
- Daniel
McKivergan
- Richard Perle, a PNAC founder, formerly of the Defense Policy Board
- Norman Podhoretz,
Hudson Institute
- Dan Quayle, former vice-president
- Stephen Rosen, Beton
Michael Kaneb Professor of National Security and Military Affairs, Harvard University
- Henry Rowen, former president
of Rand Corporation
- Gary Schmitt
- Vin Weber, former congressman,
lobbyist, vice-chairman of Empower America
- George Weigel, political
commentator
- R. James Woolsey, vice-president at Booz Allen &
Hamilton
See also
- Committee for the
Liberation of Iraq
External links
Analysis of PNAC
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