Small Wars Journal

“A Bipartisan National Security Agenda for an Election Year”

Thu, 02/25/2016 - 12:08pm

A Bipartisan National Security Agenda for an Election Year

As the United States turns its full attention to the upcoming election, Center for a New American Security (CNAS) CEO Michèle Flournoy and CNAS President Richard Fontaine have written a new commentary laying out issues the Obama administration and Congress can address before the next president is sworn in…

Approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal and make progress on a transatlantic trade agreement. The TPP would provide a needed boost to the American economy and greatly strengthen the United States’ strategic position in Asia…

Strengthen key allies and partners. Provocations from the likes of Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea have threatened the rules-based order in several regions and prompted countries under threat to seek greater assistance…

Recommit to Afghanistan. President Obama was right to push off the planned withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, and the administration should take the next step and rescind its calendar-based withdrawal plan entirely…

Intensify the fight against the Islamic State. The coalition has made some progress against the Islamic State, but the combination of terrorist threats and humanitarian outrages demands a significant intensification of U.S. efforts…

Pursue a bottom-up approach to Syria. The current effort to resolve the Syrian civil war aims to implement the recently-brokered ceasefire agreement and then pursue a political transition. Yet the pursuit of a brokered, national-level unity government made up of groups that will stop fighting each other, and instead turn their guns on the Islamic State and al Nusra, is highly unlikely to bear fruit…

Build on recent developments in energy. Congress last year lifted the longtime ban on exports of crude oil and the United States is in the position to become a significant exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Despite the fall in energy prices, these export developments represent real opportunities…

Strike a bipartisan budget deal that permanently rescinds sequestration. Despite a recent respite from the mayhem of the Budget Control Act, several years of living under the uncertainty of government shutdowns, sequestration, and short-term continuing resolutions have disrupted the ability to plan, prepare, and budget…

Read the full commentary here.