Hart Urges Focus on "Grand Strategy"
In U.S. Presidential Campaigns

BERKELEY -- If former Colorado Senator Gary Hart had his way, this year’s presidential campaign would look a lot different.

The noted author of 13 books was on the UC Berkeley campus this week to promote his latest book, The Fourth Power: A Grand Strategy for the United States, and to issue a foreign policy challenge to all candidates vying for president in the upcoming November elections: “sit down for half a day and come up with a grand strategy for the U.S,” he declared.

In a presentation at International House, Hart, an advisor to the campaign of Senator John Kerry, addressed an audience of about 70 people in the booming bass voice of a man long accustomed to public speaking. The one-time Presidential hopeful charged that the US at present lacks what he calls a “grand strategy”, and put this deficiency into historical context.

He proceeded to outline some global trends that are rapidly changing the face of both national security and foreign policy, which will need to be considered in the formulation of a new grand strategy for the US.

Hart defines strategy as “the application of a nations powers to the achievement of its larger purposes.” The US is by far the most powerful nation in the world, and Hart suggests that our “larger purposes” are threefold: to achieve security for ourselves and cooperate in the security of our allies; to expand economic opportunities for our citizens; and to promote liberal democracy around the world.

According to Hart, the central organizing principle behind US foreign policy between 1947 and 1991- after WW II and until the collapse of the Soviet Empire- “could fit on a bumper sticker” and can be summed up in three words: “Containment of Communism.” This simple formula prompted the US to befriend any nation or movement opposed to communism, no matter their record in human rights, and overthrow the occasional government that was friendly to communists, even if that government had the popular support of its citizens.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Empire in 1991, Hart says US foreign policy “drifted for almost exactly ten years.” The Clinton administration pursued a reactive foreign policy, dealing with events as they arose rather than formulating a unified strategy to guide foreign actions, he said. This led to a botched intervention in Somalia, and a non-intervention is Rwanda where nearly a million people died in ethnic bloodshed.

In the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center, President Bush called for a global “War on Terrorism”, and that effort has defined the national “grand strategy” ever since.

Hart cautioned that the “War on Terrorism” actually represents the pursuit of Empire and global domination, and is not a viable or sustainable grand strategy. “Terrorism is a tactic, and you cannot declare war on a tactic,” Hart said. According to Hart the threat of terrorism is metastasizing; growing “like a cancer”, and is a symptom of mushrooming anti-American sentiment fueled by our current foreign policy of pre-emptive wars and “going it alone.”

Globalization and advances in information technology are leading to the erosion of the nation-state and the transformation of war, according to Hart. The US requires new methods of coping in order to effectively handle these revolutionary changes.

Hart’s own grand strategy for America, detailed in his most recent book, involves becoming a nation of production rather than consumption, focusing on environmental protection, energy security, destroying terrorism and using technology to share information and cement ties with our allies.

If all goes as Hart predicts, his grand strategy may be influential over the next four years.

At the end of his hour long presentation, when Hart announced, with complete confidence “John Kerry is going to win,” the audience erupted into spontaneous applause, but quieted to hear him utter a few final words: “I think the nation will sober up by November 2, and we will change Presidents. I certainly pray so.”