Trump’s America-First national security strategy embraces 30 years of the Center’s Ideas
Thirty years of hard work paid off in January when President Donald Trump issued his America First National Security Strategy.
In cooperation with others and often alone, Center for Security Policy had promoted most of the elements that President Trump has embraced as his strategy to secure our country’s national interests.
This is a huge payoff for those who invested their contributions and their time in the Center, even during the dark years when it seemed like our ideas didn’t stand a chance. It’s time to celebrate.
Thirty years of work pays off
For most of its life, the Center was the only active national security policy group in Washington that unceasingly promoted Peace Through Strength. The Center’s founders – led by senior Reagan Pentagon policy official Frank Gaffney, and key members of President Reagan’s National Security Council staff – made Peace Through Strength a cornerstone of our mission when we formed in 1988.
While the Center did not play a direct role in formulating President Trump’s strategy, it can claim credit for keeping many key themes alive during the lean years. It cultivated and mentored a generation of new leaders, including Members of Congress. It kept the flame against the Swamp and showcased political and military leaders who kept that flame. And it remained a source of arguments and facts to be ready for the right president to embrace as off-the-shelf principles and plans.
Some of the Center’s enduring strategies include War Footing: 10 Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World(2006),[1]our Team B II strategy (2010),[2]and our Secure Freedom Strategy(2015).[3]Our hundreds of Decision Briefs, white papers, monographs, formal briefings, and audiovisual programming provide an unbroken track record of policy recommendations that stand up to the closest scrutiny for consistency with much of Trump’s new National Security Strategy.
President Trump embraced nearly all the Center’s key positions as the cornerstone of the first genuine post-Cold War national security strategy of the United States.
Trump’s four pillars
Trump’s strategy is based on four “pillars”:
protect the homeland and the American way of life,
- promote American prosperity,
- preserve Peace Through Strength, and
- advance American influence worldwide.
Let’s look at each of those pillars in the America First national security strategy, and see how they correlate with the Center for Security Policy’s consistent themes developed over the past three decades.
Pillar I: Protect the American People, the Homeland, and the American Way of Life
Trump’s America First theme reflects the Center’s consistent view that the United States is an exceptional nation that should answer to its own citizens, through whose consent the government functions, and not to foreign entities or ideologies.
“Sovereignty.”In his National Security Strategy, the president repeatedly calls for strengthening the nation’s “sovereignty,” both at home and worldwide. “Strengthening our sovereignty – the first duty of government is to serve the interests of its own people – is a necessary condition” for protecting the four pillars, the Trump strategy says.[4]Sovereignty has been a Center theme since 1988.[5]
The first presidential priority is to “Secure US borders and territory.” Even more important than securing the borders is something the Center has stressed from the start: Defend the homeland against enemy weapons of mass destruction and missiles.
“Defend against WMD.”Trump lays it out: “Defend against WMD” with a priority action to “enhance missile defense.” As we have said since 1988, Trump called for a “layered missile defense system” to strike enemy missiles in every stage of their trajectories, and constantly enhance our capabilities.[6]The Trump strategy stresses defenses against Iran and North Korea, while the Center has identified Russia’s formidable ICBM fleet,[7]and China’s growing missile arsenal, as clear and present dangers. Trump’s stress is important. Political opposition from Democrats and Republicans has prevented the US from defending the homeland against incoming enemy missiles.
The follow-on priority actions to defend the homeland against WMDs are to “detect and disrupt weapons of mass destruction,” “enhance counterproliferation measures,” and “target WMD terrorists.” This is all pretty standard fare and uncontroversial.
The same is true with Trump’s next homeland defense priority, to “combat biothreats and pandemics.” Today’s bipartisan consensus on the need for this wasn’t always the case. The Center flagged biothreats as a national security challenge in the 1990s, when many in Washington dismissed the danger.[8]The same is true with Trump’s strategy to “detect and contain biothreats at their source.” Standard stuff today, but the Center was calling for action as early as 1990.[9]Ditto for Trump’s call to “improve emergency response” – something everyone agreed on after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but an issue that the Center foresaw early. For example, we started calling for help for state and local health professionals to deal with biological threats and pandemics in 1998.[10]
“Strengthen border control and immigration policy.”The President’s trademark call to build a wall on the Mexican border and tighten immigration policy is the first real policy progress we have seen since we proposed similar measures in 2006.[11]Our strategy included a mandate that “the borders of the United States must be physically secured at the earliest possible time” – a precursor to Trump’s more blunt policy to build a physical border wall.[12]
Trump’s border and immigration strategy gives four priority actions: “enhance border security,” “enhance vetting” of foreigners entering the country, “enforce immigration laws,” and “bolster transportation security.”
The Center’s 2006 strategy called for the US to “swiftly . . . secure the entire southern boundary with a ‘fence,’ or more accurately, a fifty-yard-wide, multilayered composite obstacle” augmented by a stronger border patrol, unmanned aerial vehicle patrols, and electronic sensors as a “state-of-the-art barrier, along the two thousand miles of the US-Mexico border.”[13]We offered a robust immigration strategy in to include background checks, denial of entry to foreigners with “hateful, violent ideologies,” and stopping the visa lottery (“diversity visa”) program,[14]which President Trump called for doing in last 2017.[15]
Our 2006 strategy called for the enforcement of existing immigration laws.[16]Over the years, the Center proposed strengthening railroad security,[17]airport security,[18]and seaport security,[19]and making better use of drones to protect our borders.[20]
“Pursue threats to their source.”Until Donald Trump, no American president has executed a strategy to “pursue threats to their source.” This means going after the state sponsors of terrorism and its motivating ideologies, which George W. Bush and Barack Obama never did. Trump started early in his presidency, in his earth-shattering “drive them out” speech to leaders of Islamic countries in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. His strategy – consistent with the Center’s long-held positions – shows a clear intent to execute.
First, Trump called for the United States to “defeat jihadist terrorists.” This is a vital step. In its 2006 War Footingstrategy, the Center criticized the Bush administration for failing to identify the enemy, and later routinely attacked the Obama administration for denying that jihad was a problem. Trump’s strategy clearly defines the enemy, using various terms that indicate a behind-the-scenes policy battle on the National Security Council and staff, but that show presidential intent.
Again, some of Trump’s priority actions are uncontroversial: “disrupt terror plots,” “take direct action,” “eliminate terrorist safe havens” (which Bush and Obama failed to do), and “sever sources of strength” for terrorists.
This last point is vital. Trump’s strategy plainly states, “This includes combating the evil ideology of jihadists.”[21]No other American president has said that. The Center has taken some hits over the years by consistently pressing for ideological warfare against jihadists and the ideology that motivates them, along with the sponsors of what our circle has called “Islamist” or “Muslim extremist” or Sharia ideology.
The Center long advocated all the points in the new Trump strategy to sever sources of jihadist strength. In 2003, the Center organized Senate hearings to confront the ideological threat.[22]In 2006 we laid out a plan to wage political warfare against the jihadists and their sponsors.[23]We described the ideological threat and how to combat it in our Team B II report in 2010.[24]In 2015 outlined a plan for economic warfare against terrorists and their sources of support.[25]
Further priority actions of Trump’s get-them-at-their-source strategy are to get other countries and stakeholders to “share responsibility” more than they have been, and to “combat radicalization and recruitment in communities.” The Center’s Senate hearings, studies, monographs, and strategies over the years, sometimes alone and often with others, helped pioneer combating community radicalization and recruitment in the United States.[26]
The Center began warning in 2002 that the new Department of Homeland Security and other government agencies were being infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists, earning hostility from elements of the Bush administration and the entire Obama administration.[27]OurSecure Freedom Strategy: A Plan for Victory Over the Global Jihad Movementalso offered solutions to the ideological warfare and civilization jihad problems that the Bush and Obama administrations denied, but that Trump recognizes as core threats.[28]
“Dismantle transnational criminal organizations.” The Trump strategy calls for dismantling – not simply countering – international organized crime syndicates. The priority action items are to “improve strategic planning and intelligence,” “defend communities,” “defend in depth,” and “counter cyber criminals.”[29]
“Keep America safe in the cyber era.”Much of this portion of the Trump strategy is relatively uncontroversial. However, it specifically calls for protecting America’s electrical grid, a trademark Center for Security Policy issue, reflecting Step 6 of our 2006 strategy,[30]our Tiger Team’s Secure Freedom Strategy of 2015,[31]and our Secure the Grid campaign.[32]Most of the electric power and energy industry has opposed securing the grid, for short-term purposes, and recognition of the problem – and promoting solutions – received little traction.
Trump’s strategy offers that traction to secure the grid. His priority actions are to “identify and prioritize risk,” “build defensible government networks,” “deter and disrupt malicious cyber attackers,” “improve information sharing and sensing,” and “deploy layered defenses.”
“Promote American resilience.”Promotion of resilience moves the US away from its centralized approach to homeland security, and empowering the American people and their communities.[33]Trump’s approach precisely matches the Center’s “Equip the Home Front” element of its 2006 strategy, which included waging counterterror at home, providing a panoply of legal and physical tools for war on the home front, preparing the police for terror war at home, preparing community leaders before disaster strikes, and citizen-based awareness and action.[34]Trump’s priority actions to “build a culture of preparedness” and “improve planning” echo Step 5 of our 2006 strategy.[35]
Pillar II: Promote American Prosperity
The Center’s approach to the US economy has been in the context of national security, but Trump takes a more overarching approach in his America First strategy. To the president, American prosperity is what national security is supposed to ensure. Domestic economic and business issues have not been consistent subjects of the Center’s research and analysis, but Trump’s philosophy of rejuvenating the American economy as a national security issue is consistent with the Center’s general worldview.
Trump lists five components of his American prosperity pillar: “rejuvenate the domestic economy,” “promote free, fair, and reciprocal economic relationships,” “lead in research, technology, invention, and innovation,” “promote and protect the US national security innovation base,” and “embrace energy dominance.”
The president’s strategy broadens the Center’s narrower approach. Our 1996 policy to deny MFN status to China,[36]and our 2006 War Footingstrategy repeatedly called for reciprocal economic relationships, specifically concerning Communist China.[37]
Maintaining the lead and protecting our national security technology and innovation bases have been Center themes, concerning not only China but US allies who steal our technology or transfer technology to our adversaries. Step 3 of our 2006 strategy, for energy security, presumed energy dominance through improved energy technologies and alternative domestic sources.[38]A Trump “priority action” for energy dominance is to “ensure energy security,” which was the subject of the Center’s first policy paper 30 years ago.[39]
Like the Trump strategy does today, the Center long advocated policies to counter foreign corruption as a weapon against adversaries large and small,[40]facilitate new market economies in friendly countries,[41]and screen out foreigners posing a threat the American economy and industry.[42]
Pillar III: Preserve Peace Through Strength
Popularized by President Reagan and adopted as the Center’s motto, Peace Through Strength is a foundational core of the Trump national security strategy. We devoted Step 2 of our 2006 strategy to the issue,[43]and our Tiger Team devoted a section to “Restoring Peace Through Strength” in the Center’s 2015 strategy.[44]Peace Through Strength carries enormous philosophical assumptions to reduce our political leaders’ perceived need for warfare, while reducing our adversaries’ confidence that they can challenge our vital interests.
An overarching theme of Trump’s Peace Through Strength pillar is to prevent hegemonic powers from becoming peer competitors of the United States. This is precisely what the Center has been calling for since the Reagan years, and as we outlined in our 2006 strategy.[45]
Trump’s strategy calls for rejuvenation: “Renew America’s competitive advantages,” “renew capabilities” including military, the defense industrial base, nuclear forces, space, cyberspace, and intelligence. It demands better, more innovative, and more integrated and strategic diplomacy and statecraft – words seldom heard among Washington power elites.
The Center spelled out elements of rejuvenation in all these areas. Trump’s priority actions for military renewal are modernization, acquisition, improved readiness, and to retain a full-spectrum force.[46]
We have long maintained these same priorities, but would like to have seen the president call for draining the defense swamp of waste, fraud, abuse, self-serving careerism, and cronyism between much of the defense policy establishment, senior echelons of the uniformed services, and the pork-filled defense industrial base. The revolving door of defense policy, the uniformed services, and industry is bogged down in regulatory and cronyistic rot that wastes tax dollars and damages our readiness. By cross-breeding the national security strategy with the president’s “drain the swamp” campaign pledge, the nation will be much better off.
Even so, the Center is enthused with President Trump’s overall Peace Through Strength strategy. Key parts that the Center has promoted for decades include Trump’s call for sustaining and modernizing the American nuclear weapons arsenal and infrastructure.[47]
Space.Equally exciting is Trump’s call to for the United States to make outer space, like the high seas, an unchallenged area of American influence. All of the president’s priority actions are consistent with our positions since 1988, when the then-new Center for Security Policy called for US dominance of outer space.[48]We organized a Space Working Group in 1989 to develop a strategy for the US government’s new National Space Council.[49]In 1990, the Center opposed the Bush41 administration’s sacrifice of the US space launch industry to the Soviet Union,[50]which made NASA and the US Air Force dependent on the Kremlin for its supply of rocket boosters. We led a campaign to develop a prototype of a technologically promising National Aerospace Plane (NASP) by 1995.[51]
The Center’s then-futuristic space proposals[52]are consistent with Trump’s priority action to “promote space commerce.”[53]
With the incoming Bush43 administration in 2001, we offered a vision for the US to be the unchallenged space power, but the focus on the Global War on Terror after September 11 of that year diverted attention from space.[54]The Center promoted space commerce in a 2012 article to break US dependency on Russian rocket motors.[55]This policy recommendation helped squeeze the Russians out so that private American companies like SpaceX could provide lower-cost, reliable services to the US military, NASA, and private business. We called for “rediscovering an American vision for space” in 2015.[56]
Cyberspace.Trump’s national security strategy for cyberspace is relatively non-controversial, calling for improvements and better integration of what we already have. It shares the Center’s long-held views on dominance of cyberspace and the need for constant and rapid innovation and integration. When considered alongside other sections of Trump’s strategy, such as economic warfare and layered approaches to missile defense to get inside enemy systems, Trump’s basic cyberspace approach appears sound.
Intelligence.The president’s relatively short section on intelligence strategy is good and mainly consistent with the Center’s previous positions and recommendations. It falls far short of meeting basic counterintelligence needs – for decades, the intelligence community has frowned on real counterintelligence – and in that regard, this part of the strategy is disappointing. The White House should revive a real innovation put in place by Bush43: The National Counterintelligence Executive (NCIX) that was intended to institutionalize a strategic counterintelligence capability for the United States. After a promising start, NCIX devolved to become another part of the bureaucratic swamp.
However, parts of Trump’s intelligence strategy look promising. As priority actions, the president seeks to “improve understanding” and “harness all information at our disposal” – the latter a reference to the intelligence community’s frequent reluctance to use open source intelligence.
The Center’s 2006 strategy called for the US to improve understanding through intelligence, and to “encourage more risk-taking and competitive analysis,” among other intelligence reforms.[57]We also called for an overhaul of human intelligence collection, to “liberate US intelligence collection,” and to “undo recent, harmful intelligence ‘reforms.’”[58]That was more than a decade ago. To guide the incoming Trump Administration through the Russia “collusion” narrative during the 2016-17 transition, the Center proposed, among other things, that President Donald Trump and Congress expandthe Russia investigations to include all areas of Russian influence operations over a long period of time, which the US intelligence community had not effectively done.[59]
Diplomacy and statecraft.This is a welcoming part of the Trump strategy, because it defies the public image of a president who does not understand diplomacy. Indeed, it shows that the brash businessman-turned-commander-in-chief appreciates diplomacy a great deal, but is stymied by a diplomatic establishment that has lost sight of the national interest. Our 2006 strategy stressed taking an integrated approach to diplomacy and statecraft, combining all elements of national power. President Trump embraced the same idea, using the words “tools of national power.”
American diplomacy under Trump will become “competitive diplomacy,”[60]a reminder of the Center’s 2006 strategy to combine better “competitive analysis” in intelligence, and to “bring intelligence professionalism into the State Department,” part of what we called “effective diplomacy.[61]The Center published a plan to address State Department failures in 2009,[62]but the US had the wrong secretary of state at the time.
Improving what the president calls the “tools of economic diplomacy” in the strategy is consistent of the Center’s stress on what we called “economic leverage” in our 2006 strategy, especially toward countries like Communist China.[63]Trump’s priority economic diplomacy actions, like the Centers, include calls to “reinforce economic ties with allies and partners,” “deploy economic pressure on security threats,” and “sever sources of funding” for problematic regimes and movements.[64]
Information statecraft.The final element in Trump’s diplomatic strategy, information statecraft, calls for combining cyber warfare with a form of political warfare. This is consistent with Step 8 of our 2006 strategy, which called for the US to build a capability to wage political warfare globally.[65]
Pillar IV: Advance American influence worldwide
President Trump’s strategy emphasizes expanding American global influence in diverse and creative ways that do not require force. It appears to reject nation-building. Instead, it appears to envision the US as an inspiration and “catalyst” for change, but not a driver of change to re-create the world order in an American image.
Consistent with his theme of sovereignty, Trump calls for other countries to share the burdens that the US has overwhelmingly shouldered, and to continue to be generous to help other countries escape the cyclical ruts that have doomed them to corruption and poverty. “A world that supports our interests and reflects our values makes America more secure and prosperous,” the president says.[66]
This sounds like nation-building or interventionism. Some elements of the administration favor nation-building worldwide, but Trump has set limits. He has jettisoned the crusader mentality of democracy-at-whatever-the-cost (the kind that tried to build democracies of countries with no hope, like Afghanistan; or respected democratically-elected politicians-turned-tyrants as with the regime in Venezuela).
Trump has replaced the establishment democratization mantra with a call to help others to help themselves. The commitment in the strategy, as with Trump’s first State of the Union address, is to inspire others, especially those living under tyrannical regimes. “[W]e will remain a generous nation, even as we expect others to share responsibility,” he said.
Some of the priority actions for promoting American influence are bland and un-specific, but provide a catalyst for taking a more businesslike approach to influence, and ensure that the US diplomatic service and Agency for International Development (USAID) no longer serve as engines of social engineering and global community organizing. Trump is blunt that the State Department be friendly to American business worldwide – an approach consistent with the Center’s 2017 case study of how the diplomatic service can deliberately subvert American business and traditional values.[67]
Trump also calls for the US to “commit selectively” when assisting other countries, especially fragile states, and to shape events that are both advantageous to the United States while promoting the sovereignty of the individual country in question. He also calls for “working with reformers” in dictatorial regimes. This is mindful of one the Center’s early initiatives, in 1990, when we pushed the reluctant Bush41 administration to recognize the independence of Lithuania from the USSR.[68]That move hastened the collapse of the entire Soviet Union – something the Bush administration had sought to avoid – and shaping the collapse in a peaceful fashion that promoted US interests.
Re-take the international institutions that America created and built. Finally, the Trump strategy lays out an approach to recover the regional and global organizations that the US created but essentially gave away. These appear to include the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, and the United Nations. Re-taking, rather than surrendering, these institutions, in Trump’s view, will protect US interests.[69]
The Center’s 2006 strategy emphasized how foreign hegemonic powers like Communist China were abusing, infiltrating, and subverting the multilateral institutions the US had established with democratic allies.[70]The Center’s approach had advised to give up on the United Nations, or “hold the UN accountable again”[71]but marginalize it as much as possible.[72]Trump takes a more entrepreneurial stance: to take it back.
This takes bold leadership, which President Trump certainly offers. It takes coherence and vision, which the National Security Strategy now provides. It will also take the right people to implement, which Trump generally has yet to do.
Fortunately, most of the extended Center for Security Policy family that did the hard thinking, drawn on extensive professional and scholarly experience in real-life situations, is still available to staff up the Trump Administration’s national security cadre. As much or more than any group in Washington, our network offers the proven vision that the president has embraced.
[1]Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., et al., War Footing: 10 Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World(Naval Institute Press, 2006). Foreword by R. James Woolsey; introduction by Victor Davis Hanson. Contributors: Alex Alexiev, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, Amanda Bowman, Christopher Brown, Mark Chussil, Timothy Connors, LTC Gordon Cucullu USA (Ret), Fred Gedrich, Colleen Gilbert, Caroline B. Glick, Daniel Goure, Thor Halvorssen, Bruce Herschensohn, Christopher Holton, Rosemary Jenks, Cliff Kincaid, Anne Korin, Gal Luft, Andrew McCarthy, David McCormack, LTG Thomas McInerney USAF (Ret), VADM Robert R. Monroe USN (Ret), Claudia Rosett, Michael Rubin, Al Santoli, David Satter, James M. Staudenraus, Sarah N. Stern, Kenneth R. Timmerman, MG Paul E. Vallely USA (Ret), J. Michael Waller, R. James Woolsey.
[2]LTG William G. Boykin USA (Ret) et al., Shariah: The Threat to America: An Exercise in Competitive Analysis, Report of Team B II(Center for Security Policy, 2010).
[3]LTG Wiliam G. Boykin USA (Ret) et al., The Secure Freedom Strategy: A Plan for Victory Over the Global Jihad Movement (Center for Security Policy, 2015).
[4]President Donald J. Trump, introduction to America First National Security Strategy, 2017, p. 4.
[5]“Sovereignty” research area, Center for Security Policy, /category/sovereignty/
[6]Due to a particular set of developments at that time, the Center’s 2006 strategy made a specific call to deploy sea-based missile defense. “Appendix III: “Deploy Sea-Based Missile Defenses,” War Footing, pp. 282-284.
[7]Mark B. Schneider, “Russian Nuclear Weapons, Strategic Defenses, and Nuclear Arms Control Policy,” in Putin’s Reset, pp. 37-52; and Daniel Gouré, “Russia’s New Military in the Service of Old Ambitions,” in Putin’s Reset, pp. 53-64.
[8]Frank Gaffney, “Sounds of a Ticking Biological Clock,” op-ed, February 25, 1998, /1998/02/25/sounds-of-a-ticking-biological-clock-2/; Gaffney, “Clinton Legacy Watch #20: More Evidence of the Mounting Biological Warfare Threat and the Inadequate US Response,” op-ed, March 10, 1998, /1998/03/10/clinton-legacy-watch-20-more-evidence-of-the-mounting-biological-warfare-threat-and-the-inadequate-u-s-response-2/
[9]“Iraqi Biological Weapons Capabilities Require New US Debate on ‘Assured Vulnerability,’” Center for Security Policy press release, September 29, 1990. /1990/09/29/iraqi-biological-weapons-capabilities-require-new-us-debate-on-assured-vulnerability-2/
[10]/1998/04/21/taming-the-biological-beast-2/
[11]“Step 7: Secure Our Borders, Secure Our Country,” War Footing, pp. 113-135.
[15]Tessa Berenson, “President Trump Calls for Ending Diversity Visa Lottery Program,” Time, November 1, 2017. https://time.com/5005647/diversity-visa-lottery-donald-trump/
[17]Ben Lerner, “US Rail Security and Terrorist Track Records,” Center for Security Policy essay, July 18, 2014, /?s=transportation+security; Ben Lerner, “Losing Track On Rail Security,” Center for Security Policy/Homeland Security Today, April 25, 2016, /2016/04/25/losing-track-on-rail-security/
[18]Frank Gaffney, “Port of Entry,” op-ed, February 13, 2006, pertaining to contracting out airport security to an Arab-owned company, /2006/02/13/port-of-entry-2/
[19]Ben Lerner, “Rough Waters Ahead for Port Security,” Homeland Security Today, October 5, 2016, /2016/10/05/rough-waters-ahead-for-port-security/
[20]Ben Lerner, “Home-Drone Terrorism,” The Hill, January 6, 2016, /2016/01/06/home-drone-terrorism/
[21]Donald J. Trump, National Security Strategy of the United States of America, December 2017, p. 11.
[22]See the Senate hearings the Center organized for Senator Jon Kyl and the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security, Committee on the Judiciary, in 2003: “Terrorism: Growing Wahhabi Influence in the United States,” June 26, 2003; “Terrorism: Two Years After 9/11, Connecting the Dots,” September 10, 2003; and “Terrorism: Radical Islamic Influence of Chaplaincy of the US Military and Prisons,” October 14, 2003.
[23]“Step 8: Wage Political Warfare,” War Footing, pp. 136-146.
[24]LTG William G. Boykin USA (Ret) et al., Shariah: The Threat to America: An Exercise in Competitive Analysis, Report of Team B II(Center for Security Policy, 2010).
[25]The Secure Freedom Strategy: A Plan for Victory Over the Global Jihad Movement, pp. 71-81.
[26]See the Senate hearings the Center organized for Senator Jon Kyl and the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security, Committee on the Judiciary, in 2003: “Terrorism: Growing Wahhabi Influence in the United States,” June 26, 2003; “Terrorism: Two Years After 9/11, Connecting the Dots,” September 10, 2003; and “Terrorism: Radical Islamic Influence of Chaplaincy of the US Military and Prisons,” October 14, 2003.
[27]“Islamist Penetration of Homeland Security?” Center for Security Policy article, June 22, 2004, /2004/06/22/islamist-penetration-of-homeland-security-2/. The Washington Times edited out Frank Gaffney’s name from his op-ed, “Dubious Company,” Washington Times, June 21, 2004, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/jun/21/20040621-095849-8791r/
[28]The Secure Freedom Strategy: A Plan for Victory Over the Global Jihad Movement, pp. 91-94.
[29]National Security Strategy of the United States of America, p. 12.
[30]“Step 6: “Counter the Mega-Threat: EMP Attack,” War Footing, pp. 100-112.
[31]LTG Wiliam G. Boykin USA (Ret) et al., The Secure Freedom Strategy: A Plan for Victory Over the Global Jihad Movement (Center for Security Policy, 2015).
[32]SecureTheGrid.com, https://securethegrid.com.
[33]National Security Strategy of the United States of America, p. 14.
[34]“Step 5: Equip the Home Front,” War Footing, pp. 75-99.
[35]For training, see War Footing, pp. 75, 90-94.
[36]“Center’s Sven Kraemer Warns Senate Against Renewing MFN for China,” Center for Security Press Release, June 6, 1996. /1996/06/06/watch-this-space-centers-sven-kraemer-warns-senate-against-renewing-m-f-n-for-china-2/
[37]War Footing, pp. 183-186, and 190-191, including a recommendation for the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission to “be asked to assess the cumulative effect of China’s unfair trade practices, investments, technology thefts, and diversions, as well as its acquisitions of long-range, offensive military capabilities and dominant positions in strategic choke points around the world and in key industries. The commission should be tasked with developing options for responding appropriately in those areas.” The Center then laid out five points for such a strategy, pp. 190-191.
[38]“Step 3: Provide for US Energy Security,” War Footing, pp. 39-58.
[39]“The Energy Security Project Mission Statement,” Center for Security Policy, January 1, 1988, /1988/01/01/the-energy-security-project-mission-statement-2/.
[40]Nicholas Hanlon, “Banking 101 with Chavez and Ahmadinejad,” Center for Security Policy, The Americas Report, May 7, 2009, /2015/06/03/jihad-in-post-soviet-central-asia/;
[41]Nicholas Hanlon, “House Democrats Cut Aid to Africa by 60%; Where Is Obama?” Center for Security Policy article, March 11, 2009, /2009/03/11/house-democrats-cut-aid-to-africa-by-60-where-is-obama-2/;
[42]The Center called for “pre-visa security checks” in 2006 to weed out terrorists and other “national security cases.” War Footing, pp. 125-126.
[43]“Step 2: ReallySupport the Troops,” War Footing, pp. 20-38.
[44]The Secure Freedom Strategy: A Plan for Victory Over the Global Jihad Movement, pp 37-48.
[45]“Step 9C: “Thwart China’s Ambitions for Hegemony in Asia and Beyond,” and “Step 9E: Challenge Russia’s Ruling Autocracy,” War Footing, pp. 179-291 and 206-215.
[46]National Security Strategy of the United States of America, pp. 28-29.
[48]“Summary of ‘The Need for American Space Dominance,’” January 15, 1998. /1998/01/23/summary-of-the-need-for-american-space-dominance-2/
[49]Frank Gaffney, “Defining a US Space Policy: Getting from Here to There,” op-ed, April 21, 1989. /1989/04/21/defining-a-us-space-policy-getting-from-here-to-there-2/; and /1989/04/21/center-issues-major-paper-on-us-space-policy-and-programs-2/
[50]“Why is Bush Sacrificing the US Space Launch Industry to Promote Those of Foreign Competition?” Center for Security Policy press release, July 9, 1990. /1990/07/09/why-is-bush-sacrificing-the-us-space-launch-industry-to-promote-those-of-foreign-competition-2/
[51]“Save the National Aerospace Plane,” Center for Security Policy press release, July 14, 1989. /1989/07/14/save-the-national-aerospace-plane-2/
[52]Frank Gaffney, “Space: The Strategic High Ground,” op-ed, January 25, 1989. /1989/01/25/space-the-strategic-high-ground-2/; “Save the National Aerospace Plane,” Center for Security Policy press release, July 14, 1989, /1989/07/14/save-the-national-aerospace-plane-2/.
[53]National Security Strategy of the United States of America, p. 31.
[54]See: /2001/01/09/space-power-what-is-at-stake-what-will-it-take-2/; /2001/01/29/grasping-the-importance-of-space-power-2/
[55]J. Michael Waller, “Why did we give Putin control over our satellite launches?” Daily Caller, May 19, 2014.
[56]/2014/09/25/rediscovering-an-american-vision-for-space/
[59]J. Michael Waller, “13 Reasons Why the Russia Probes Must Be Expanded,” Center for Security Policy paper, May 3, 2017, /2017/05/03/13-reasons-why-the-russia-probes-must-be-expanded/
[60]National Security Strategy of the United States of America, p. 33.
[61]“Step 10: Wield Effective Diplomacy,” War Footing, pp. 228-262.
[62]J. Michael Waller, “Getting Serious About Strategic Influence: How to Move Beyond the State Department’s Legacy of Failure,” Center for Security Policy Occasional Paper, December 2, 2009, /2009/12/02/getting-serious-about-strategic-influence-how-to-move-beyond-the-state-departments-legacy-of-failure/
[64]National Security Strategy of the United States of America, p. 34.
[65]“Step 8: Wage Political Warfare,” War Footing, pp. 136-146.
[67]J. Michael Waller, “Making the World Safe for Prosperity: State Department Needs and Overhaul to Become More Business Friendly,” unpublished paper, October 2017. https://jmichaelwaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/State-Department-Overhaul-Guatemala-Case-Study-FINAL-.pdf[This is not a Center paper, but can be credited as one if desired.]
[68]“Recognize Lithuania Now! Silence is Concent to Moscow’s Coercion,” Center for Security press release, March 22, 1990, /1990/03/22/recognize-lithuania-now-silence-is-consent-to-moscows-coercion-2/
[70]War Footing, pp. 185-186, and passim.
[71]See John Hayward, “$285M Funding Cut Should Make UN ‘Sit UP and Take Notice There Is A New President,” Breitbart, December 26, 2017, https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2017/12/26/clare-lopez-285m-funding-cut-make-u-n-sit-take-notice-new-president/; Fred Fleitz, “How the Trump Administration Can Hold the UN Accountable Again,” National Review, December 30, 2017, https://www.nationalreview.com/article/455019/donald-trump-nikki-haley-un-reformers
[72]“Step 10B: Marginalize the UN,” War Footing, pp. 241-254.
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