Winning the Right War

On Sept. 27, scholar Philip H. Gordon of The Brookings Institution discussed his new book, Winning the Right War: the Path to Security for America and the World (Times Books, 2007), and entertained questions from an audience at the New America Foundation. After a brief introduction by Peter Bergen, terrorism analyst and senior fellow at New America, Dr. Gordon asserted that six years into the war on terror, “we are not doing as well as we could be.” He proposed that the war on terror is better compared to the Cold War than a world war because it is primarily an ideological struggle.

Dr. Gordon drew several lessons for winning the war on terror from the Cold War: first, that containment can prove to be a better strategy than the alternatives of another world war or total capitulation. However, he noted, “It was hard for Americans to accept containment then, and it’s hard for Americans to accept anything like containment now,” because the American inclination is toward action-oriented policies, not waiting.

Dr. Gordon observed, secondly, that American values and ideas can be important weapons, and that American reputation abroad has suffered tremendously from Guantanamo, black CIA prisons all over the world, Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse, and other scandals. Thirdly, he opined that, unlike during the Cold War, the current administration has not done an adequate job in making smaller nations feel “like their voices matter.” Fewer nations want to be American allies, he argued, which detracts from our effectiveness in fighting a global conflict.

Finally, Dr. Gordon criticized the Bush administration’s technique of referring to one monolithic enemy in the struggle against extremism, and advocated trying to divide the global struggle into smaller pieces.

Dr. Gordon declared that we should be optimistic about overcoming the challenge of radicalism because the ideology of jihad will collapse from within in the end, much like communism disintegrated eventually. He predicted that Muslims will want to distance themselves from extremism and initiate reform independent of the West.

The subsequent question-and-answer session touched on the root causes of terrorism, the political feasibility of a modern day containment policy, and the role of different religions in the war on terror.

-Katherine Tiedemann, Research Associate for the Fellows Program

Participants

• Philip H. Gordon
  Senior Fellow, U.S. Foreign Policy
  The Brookings Institution
  Author, Winning the Right War
• Peter Bergen
  Schwartz Senior Fellow
  New America Foundation
  Terrorism Expert, CNN