Winning the Right War: The Path to Security for America and the World

by Philip H. Gordon

A new strategy for American foreign policy that looks beyond Iraq and changes the way we think about the war on terror. Six years into the “war on terror,” are the United States and its allies better off than we were before it started? Sadly, we are not, and the reason is that we have been fighting – and losing – the wrong war. In this paradigm-shifting book, Philip H. Gordon presents a new way of thinking about the war on terror and a new strategy for winning it. He draws a provocative parallel between the world today and the world of the Cold War, showing how defense, development, diplomacy, and the determination to maintain our own values can again be deployed alongside military might to defeat a violent and insidious ideology. Drawing on the latest scholarly research, his own experience in the White House, and visits to more than forty countries, he provides fresh insights into the nature of the terrorist challenge and offers concrete and realistic proposals for confronting it. Gordon also asks the question “What would victory look like?” – a topic sorely missing from the debate today. He offers a positive vision of the world after the war on terror, which will end not when we kill or capture all potential terrorists but when their hateful ideology collapses around them, when extremists become isolated in their own communities, and when Americans and their allies will again feel safe. His vision for promoting these goals is achievable and realistic, but only if the United States changes course before it is too late. As we look beyond the presidency of George W. Bush, we must seize the opportunity to chart a new course to security for America, the West, and the world at large. The stakes could not be higher.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Philip Gordon is an American diplomat and foreign policy expert. From 2013 to 2015, Gordon served as Special Assistant to the President, and White House Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Persian Gulf Region. From 2009 to 2013, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs.

Reviews

[Tom Sulcer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Philip Gordon has intelligent criticism of the Bush administration's War On Terror and outlines a more sensible, pragmatic, moderate yet costly approach. Still, like most terrorism experts, Gordon fails to understand terrorism or chart a "path to security" as the subtitle promises.

He criticizes Bush for fighting terrorism like a hot war. After six years, the US military is exhausted, friends and allies are alienated, billions of dollars are wasted, and America's moral authority is squandered, he notes. Gordon favors a more subdued strategy requiring patience, akin to the Cold War, to prevail in a long moral struggle against a hostile ideology. He advocates restoring America's image (better treatment of prisoners), improving intelligence, and restoring cooperation with allies. Like many experts, he sees a danger in over-reacting, and recommends putting the threat of terrorism in perspective -- for example, the chances of death from terrorism are less than from a car crash (other writers make similar observations).

Like Stephen Flynn, Gordon thinks not all attacks can be prevented. "Though a shooting or a bombing anywhere would obviously be horrific, the United States must put particular emphasis on preventing attacks that would cause massive loss of life or destruction or that would shut down large sectors of the economy," he writes, and urges upgrading defenses against those targets which, if destroyed, would have a "spillover effect" on the rest of the economy. But his list of targets needing extra protection is uncomfortably long. It includes nuclear & chemical plants, airports, and seaports. There are several hundred major airports in the US alone. How can they all be defended? He doesn't say.

Gordon has other suggestions: examining cargo in international ports, using nuclear tracking & screening technologies, and stockpiling antidotes to biological weapons. He likes new technologies such as iris identifiers, explosive sniffers at airports, smart shipping containers with tamper-proof seals & transponders, and systems to counter surface-to-air missiles. He'd shift America's emphasis in the Middle East. He'd provide hope and dignity to alienated Muslims but it's not clear how this might be accomplished. He'd encourage exports to moderate nations such as Egypt, Pakistan and Turkey. He'd stop the Iraq war and re-direct these funds to increase goodwill. He'd provide aid to Arab nations (technical assistance plus private investment), increase the US Information Agency's budget, assist the Peace Corps, encourage education, literacy, and the empowerment of women. Back home, Gordon would raise fuel efficiency standards as well as encourage adoption of plug-in hybrid cars to help reduce dependence on foreign oil. He'd have a separate agency identify possible threats. He'd hire more foreign-speaking intelligence officers.

How much will this cost? At present America's economy is in recession. Massive aid programs ... heightened security measures ... new technologies ... aren't we talking billions of dollars? Remember many targets remain unprotected -- landmarks, reservoirs, ballparks, malls. Further, my sense is that even if his suggestions were followed precisely, the United States would remain vulnerable.

So, in my view, Gordon's strategy is flawed.

The correct strategy, in my view, is to reform America in serious ways to substantially reduce the threat of serious terrorism. And that means a new understanding of terrorism as well as substantial political reform that requires, in effect, a Second Constitutional Convention. Gordon, along with terrorism experts like Hoffman and Jenkins, sees terrorism as essentially a government and military and police problem. And I think that's a mistake. I think terrorism is a bigger problem. It's a citizens' problem. We're the ones who suffer when it happens. So citizens need to prevent it. Citizens have a power which government lacks because we can change the framework in which law enforcement operates.

Terrorism, in my view, is "violence against individual rights". Begin with my definition and a solution will follow. One can then suppose there are three types of terrorists -- criminals (neighbors who violate our rights), tyrants (our own government officials who violate our rights) and foreign terrorists (powerful individuals abroad or heads of state.) All three types of terrorism must be prevented, in my view. In America, it's not enough for only government to try to fight terrorism, because in trying to fight terrorism, government may become a terrorist towards its own people. It's a multi-faceted problem, larger but solvable, in my view.

My book "Common Sense II: How to Prevent the Three Types of Terrorism" (Amazon & Kindle, 184 pages) offers a prevention strategy. The key is applying light (meaning information, exposure, awareness) to all three types at the same time. For example, to prevent crime, we must identify all movement in public while strengthening privacy. For this to happen, it's necessary for citizens to think through tough choices and agree to such monitoring, and for this to happen, it's necessary for people to become real citizens, not merely apathetic consumers disinterested in governing themselves. Citizenship should be a contract between individual and state with specific responsibilities and privileges, again illuminated with light. It's possible to prevent almost every instance of home-grown terrorism using my method. Light can shine on the other two types of terrorism. For example, I think the architecture of government requires an overhaul so that America can have an intelligent long-term foreign policy, consistently rewarding friends and punishing enemies; but right now, America can't do this because administrations change every eight years, sometimes after only four, and allies can't depend on us. Gordon correctly criticizes America's foreign policy but blames the president; rather, I blame the architecture of government because it allows one person -- the president -- to have too much power to manage foreign policy.

My strategy will prevent all types of terrorism, including smuggled nuclear bombs. Gordon's won't. My strategy is brief, rational, non-religious, written by a citizen for citizens, non-technical. It's plain logic from one citizen to another. Gordon's strategy is better than President Bush's and includes many smart suggestions which should be considered if serious political reform of America is impossible. Please read my book and judge for yourself.

I challenge Mr. Gordon to debate the merits of my strategy.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Publishers Weekly
Foreign policy scholar Gordon offers an eminently reasonable new strategy for fighting the war on terror that can be added to the growing pile of substantially similar denunciations of President Bush's strategy. Precise and persuasive yet oddly unimpassioned, he calls for more attention to global jihadist networks and less on Iraq, aggressively pursuing a negotiated settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and constructively engaging with Iran while attempting to contain its ambitions as a regional hegemon.

This is the stuff of countless op-eds over the previous few years; one gets little sense that Gordon has brought much of his substantial experience and expertise to bear on this slim volume. By drawing parallels between the current struggle, the war in Vietnam and the Cold War, he highlights the need for creatively rethinking policy in the face of setbacks.

Yet the lessons he draws from history are mostly platitudes: The United States cannot extricate itself from the Iraq quagmire without damage or risk.... Whatever the damage may be to U.S. credibility and in the war on terror, the reality is that staying in Iraq is already damaging America's prospects, and to a greater degree and at a higher cost. The same was true in Vietnam.

[Jerry D. Vanvactor, DHA · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting book that poses some critical questions that should be answered within the senior levels of our government. We, as Americans, tend to view issues through a diadic lens within the U.S. - right versus wrong, good versus evil, and so on. Unfortunately, this approach does us more harm than good in many instances. Our pervasively failing "war on drugs", "war in crime", "war on poverty", "war" on everything just leads us down a militaristic-ideolized path of perpetual waste of resources with little to show for our effort. Most people would likely agree we have made little, when any, progress among any of the above and the problems will not disappear despite immense effort otherwise. The author, of this book, takes us down a path of questioning such logic and encourages us to re-evaluate our approach through a different lens - one of understanding that the "war on terror" is not like other, more conventional, fights in which the U.S. has become involved. The current war, much like the Cold War, will not be won with hardware and military tactics. I would recommend this book - especially to other leaders of governmental processes and organizations. Whether we choose to agree or disagree with all or some of the author's position, the text deserves to be read and considered.