To Advance Freedom, Remember Religion, Labor, and Technology

How to overcome the new Vietnam Syndrome

Pope John Paul II visits Poland in 1983. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, photograph by Bernard Gotfryd.

Ten of the wisest national security and foreign policy minds in America participated in our recent forum on what America can do to promote freedom, democracy, and rule of law in other countries.

As a reminder, the prompt was:

What are the most promising, concrete, specific steps America can take over the next few years to promote freedom, democracy, and rule of law in other countries? What places and people would you focus on, what’s the case for making the efforts, and how, practically, do you get it done given the constraints imposed by the American political and fiscal landscape?

And the answers included:

“Don’t Lose Any Countries” Is Elliott Abrams’s Advice, by Elliott Abrams

Counter Communist China in the U.S. and at the U.N., Ellen Bork Recommends, by Ellen Bork

Help Ukraine and Israel Prevail, Says Carl Gershman, by Carl Gershman

Resist Redefining “Democracy” as Elite Preferences, Kontorovich Says, by Eugene Kontorovich

Spend More on Defense and Less on Everything Else, Mandelbaum Warns, by Michael Mandelbaum

More Building, Less Lecturing, Mansour Recommends, by Hussein Aboubakr Mansour

Tell the World the Truth About Iran, Says Richard Perle, by Richard Perle

Let Argentina, Israel, Italy, Taiwan and Others Lead, Daniel Pipes Says, by Daniel Pipes

Free Trade for Free Nations, Scheinmann Suggests, by Gabriel Scheinmann

Encourage the Iranians to Liberate Themselves, Wurmser Says, by David Wurmser

The quality of the responses surpassed even my high original expectations, and I’m super-grateful to all ten of the contributors for taking the risk of writing for a new publication like this one. 

Before moving on to other topics, I want to take the editor’s prerogative to circle back, fill some gaps, and add my own final suggestions, and a postscript, to the series. This is intended not to disagree with the earlier contributions, but to add on and perhaps synthesize and summarize some: