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The Foreign Policy Initiative is a Washington D.C.-based advocacy group (FPI) that was founded in early 2009 by several high-profile neoconservative figures. The group is similar in its aims and operations to an earlier neoconservative-advocacy initiative, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a now defunct letterhead organization associated with the American Enterprise Institute that played a singular role in advocating the U.S. invasion of Iraq after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. [1] As a successor to PNAC, FPI is devoted to promoting an aggressive U.S. security posture in the post-George W. Bush era.

Arguing that “strategic overreach is not the problem and retrenchment is not the solution,” FPI highlights five key items on its agenda: the promotion of “continued U.S. engagement—diplomatic, economic, and military—in the world and rejection of policies that would lead us down the path to isolationism; robust support for America’s democratic allies and opposition to rogue regimes that threaten American interests; the human rights of those oppressed by their governments, and U.S. leadership in working to spread political and economic freedom; a strong military with the defense budget needed to ensure that America is ready to confront the threats of the 21st century; international economic engagement as a key element of U.S. foreign policy in this time of great economic dislocation.” [2]

As of July 2009, FPI’s board of directors included three individuals closely associated with the Bush administration’s “war on terror” policies: neocon stalwarts Robert Kagan and William Kristol, who during the Bill Clinton presidency cofounded PNAC; and investment banker Dan Senor, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who served the Bush administration as a Pentagon adviser to Central Command. [3]

As of July 2009, FPI's staff included: Ellen Bork, daughter of former Supreme Court Justice nominee Robert Bork and former acting director of the Project for the New American Century; Jamie Fly, head of FPI’s foreign policy programs, who worked in the National Security Council at the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 2004-09; Rachel Hoff, director of FPI’s external affairs, who doubles as director of media relations for the Young Republican National Federation; and Christian Whiton, FPI’s policy advisor, a Bush-era State Department staffer assigned to North Korea policy and other Asian issues. [4]

FPI’s 2009 Mission Statement highlights a number of “foreign policy challenges” confronting the United States: “They come from rising and resurgent powers, including China and Russia. They come from other autocracies that violate the rights of their citizens. They come from rogue states that work with each other in ways inimical to our interests and principles, and that sponsor terrorism and pursue weapons of mass destruction. They come from Al Qaeda and its affiliates who continue to plot attacks against the United States and our allies. They come from failed states that serve as havens for terrorists and criminals and spread instability to their neighbors.” [5]

Activities

Like its predecessor, PNAC, FPI apparently aims to build alliances across ideological lines through the mechanics of open sign-on letters supporting particular stances on key foreign policy issues. In early July 2009, for example, FPI released an open-letter to President Barack Obama urging him to promote human rights during his summit in Russia with President Dmitry Medvedev. Among the signatories to the letter were several long-standing neoconservative associates, including Max Boot, Jeffrey Gedmin, Carl Gershman, Max Kampelman, Bruce Jackson, Clifford May, Danielle Pletka, Randy Scheunemann, Gary Schmitt, Peter Wehner, and James Woolsey. In addition to these names, however, were those of several well known human rights and civil liberties experts, like Larry Cox of Amnesty International-USA, Clinton administration official Morton Halperin, and Stephen Rickard of the Open Society Institute. [6]

Commenting on the letter, Jim Lobe of the Inter Press Service wrote, “That several genuine human rights activists … should have chosen to associate themselves with such a group is remarkable and offers additional evidence that Kagan and Kristol are trying to reconstruct the neocon/liberal coalition that pressed the Clinton administration to intervene in the Balkans during the late 1990s. ... [T]o the extent that prominent liberals publicly endorse it, neoconservatives … regain respectability.” [7]

Earlier in 2009, FPI played a vocal role in supporting President Obama’s approach to confronting the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Central Asia. The group’s inaugural conference, held in Washington on March 31, 2009, was titled “Afghanistan: Planning for Success.” Among the participants were Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), a long-time supporter of neocon-led causes like the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq; Frederick Kagan, brother of Robert and coauthor of a 2007 American Enterprise Institute study that reportedly served as a blueprint for the “surge” in Iraq; and I. Lewis Libby, former Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff who was convicted in connection with the federal investigation into the “outing” of CIA agent Valerie Plame. Commenting on the conference, Matt Duss of Thinkprogress.org told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, “It was kind of a reunion of John McCain`s presidential campaign.” [8]

The conference devoted significant time to pushing counterinsurgency strategies in Afghanistan, which was the topic of a discussion led by Robert Kagan and John Nagl, a retired Army officer and president of the Center for a New American Security who has promoted applying counterinsurgency techniques learned in Vietnam to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. [9] According to a summary of the discussion published by FPI, “Nagl stated that the ‘means’ which President Obama described in the strategy—an increase of 17,000 troops along with 4,000 more trainers and advisors—is merely a down-payment on the vast force necessary to protect the Afghan people, that is, to effectively carry out a population-centric counterinsurgency strategy. An effort to expand the Afghan National Army (not mentioned in the president’s remarks) would be the most prudent means of resolving this manpower shortfall. While the deployment of a dedicated training and advisory force is an encouraging and long-overdue step, the number of troops in the country even after the announced increase will be insufficient to achieve even the limited short-term goals laid out by the administration.” [10]

According to FPI’s summary, Kagan agreed with Nagl, arguing that “that while the president appears to have committed himself to a real, comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy—instead of a more minimalist counterterrorism approach—he risks under-resourcing the strategy.” However, Kagan also praised Obama’s overall approach, saying it “portends further encouraging trends in the administration’s foreign policy. … The president has said ‘no’ to pulling back. Obama has renewed America’s commitment to the conflict in Afghanistan and set a precedent in the process; it seems unlikely for him to push forward in this case, but to retreat elsewhere.” [11]

The conference, as well as its show of support for Obama’s emerging foreign policy, caused a considerable stir among political observers. Wrote David Weigel of the Washington Independent, “We knew it … when Bill Kristol praised President Obama’s decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, but the degree to which neoconservatives are happy with the plan is striking.” [12]

Commented Spencer Ackerman, “On March 31, FPI holds its first public event, ‘Afghanistan: Planning For Success,’ though, given the heavy representation of Iraq war advocates, I think a far better title would be ‘Afghanistan: Dealing With The Huge Problems Created By Many Of The People On This Very Stage.’ The broad consensus among national security analysts and aid officials is that the diversion of troops and resources toward Iraq beginning in 2002 was one of the main reasons the Taliban and Al Qaeda were able to re-establish themselves in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border areas.… It’s deeply absurd that some of the people most responsible for the crisis in Afghanistan would now presume to tell us how to deal with it.” [13]