Gordon Adams,
Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center, will join us for a discussion on
rebalancing the national security tool box. The Defense Department has
emerged as the dominant tool of US statecraft over the last 40 years.
The 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review noted that the lack of deployable
specialists has left the DOD as the default responder for post conflict
situations. Adams argues that across the US Government there has been
little effort to define a broad strategic mission integrating all the
tools of statecraft. In particular, the splintering of foreign
assistance has resulted in a patchwork quilt of incoherent efforts. Why
is our national security apparatus so badly out of kilter with our
current threats and challenges? What can we do to integrate and
synergize our efforts? What reforms are necessary inside agencies and
across the wider government to enhance national security?
