Governance

"In our view, the field has moved away from a careful reliance on theory, and is just mindlessly going out and testing hypotheses without thinking very hard about what's really causing what."

"Since the mid-1960s, American conservatism has waged a relentless and successful campaign to convince U.S. voters that it is wasteful, foolish, and stupid to pay taxes to support domestic programs here at home, but it is our patriotic duty to pay taxes to support a military establishment that costs more than all other militaries put together and that is used not to defend American soil but to fight wars mostly on behalf of other people. In other words, Americans became convinced that it was wrong to spend tax revenues on things that would help their fellow citizens (like good schools, health care, roads, and bridges, high-speed rail, etc.), but it was perfectly OK to tax Americans (though of course not the richest Americans) and spend the money on foreign wars."

Dr. Elizabeth D. Sherwood-Randall's article in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas.

Dr. William J. Perry's testimony before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on the situation in Iraq and the administration's strategy.

It was President Bush himself who insisted on calling it a global war on terror. He wanted to indicate that this was not just another piddling law enforcement action, but an all-out, full-scale military response to Sept. 11 that would involve U.S. troops around the globe. But now, apparently, a decision has been made that the language of war isn't working for him anymore. So in recent days, the "global war on terror" has been shelved in favor of the "global struggle against violent extremism."

Research and development activities, known as the "technology base" program, are a vital part of the United States defense program and must be adequately funded.

The fallacy in the Bush administration's appointment of a commission to study intelligence failures is that there is almost never such a thing as a pure intelligence failure. Intelligence failure is usually linked to policy failure.

"...how can the United States maximize the benefits that primacy brings and minimize the resistance that its power sometimes provokes?"

>Consider the evidence on five related fronts: bin Laden, Iraq, North Korea, Iran and Russia.

Some in the intelligence community now refer to the leader of the al-Qaida movement as "Osama bin Missing." While he lost his sanctuary and terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, bin Laden, his No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and 86 percent of the individuals identified by the U.S. government as al-Qaida leaders remain at large.

Until our intelligence agencies place important focus on "who" is in fact doing the gathering and communicating, we will continue to be at a critical disadvantage against our enemies