A Plan for Action, a report prepared by the Managing Global Insecurity (MGI) Project, is a comprehensive set of foreign policy recommendations to address the most critical challenges facing the world today. For more on the project and for a copy of the report, go to: http://www.cic.nyu.edu
Global security in the 21st century must be built on the principle of responsible sovereignty, or the notion that sovereignty entails obligations and duties toward other states as well as to ones own citizens, write the authors of new report of foreign policy recommendations to President-elect Barack Obama and other world leaders.
A Plan for Action, a report prepared by the Managing Global Insecurity (MGI) Project, is a comprehensive set of foreign policy recommendations to address the most critical challenges facing the world today. The work is based on 20 months of research and consultations with U.S. and international experts. MGI is a joint initiative among the Brookings Institution, the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, and the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.
From his first day in office, President-elect Barack Obama will face a daunting inbox: from the global financial crisis to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and transnational threats such as nuclear proliferation, terrorism and global climate change, the reports authors write. No nation, including the United States, can insulate itself from these borderless threats, nor can one nation solve these problems alone. To succeed, the new administration will need to forge global partnerships and usher in a new era of international cooperation.
Just as the founders of the United Nations and Bretton Woods institutions after World War II began with a vision for international cooperation based on a shared assessment of threat and a shared notion of sovereignty, the report adds, todays global powers must chart a new course for todays greatest challenges and opportunities. International cooperation today must be built on the principle of responsible sovereignty.
The reports authors make a series of recommendations, including the following:
- To President-elect Obama: demonstrate U.S. commitment to a rule-based international system and upgrade the U.S. civilian foreign policy corps
- To global leaders: create a new Group of 16 (G16) to foster cooperation between the G8 and Brazil, China, India, South Africa, Mexico (the Outreach 5) and the nations of Indonesia, Turkey, Egypt or Nigeria; negotiate a climate change agreement under United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) auspices that include emission targets for 2020 and 2050 and investments in technology, rainforests, and mitigation; and revitalize the core bargain of the non-proliferation regime by nuclear weapons states, particularly the U.S. and Russia, reducing their arsenals.
The MGI Project seeks to build international support for global institutions and partnerships that can foster international peace and securityand the prosperity they enablefor the next 50 years. The projects co-directors are: Carlos Pascual of the Brookings Institution; Stephen Stedman of Stanford Universitys Center for International Security and Cooperation; and Bruce Jones of New York Universitys Center on International Cooperation. Its advisory group includes: former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Lawrence Eagleburger; former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage; former Secretary of Defense William Perry; former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Thomas Pickering; former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft; and EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana.
For more on the project and for a copy of the report, go to: http://www.cic.nyu.edu/