Today’s headlines have heralded two important new developments concerning the Gulf of Mexico oil spill: BP might finally be able to cap the gushing oil well, and the Obama administration has placed a new moratorium on deep-water drilling. Another event of potentially equal importance is receiving far less national attention: a commission created by President Obama to investigate the oil spill disaster is meeting for the first time.

The oil spill commission is the second major advisory panel Obama has formed this year, following his establishment of a blue-ribbon commission on the federal deficit in February. These commissions are addressing two of the most pressing and difficult challenges facing America: energy policy and our yawning national debt.

If, like most people, you are cynical about commissions, you probably assume that these panels will not accomplish anything other than giving our elected officials an excuse for delaying tough decisions while the commissions conduct their work. But my research on over 50 commissions from the past three decades reveals that, during crises, bipartisan commissions often use their powerful political credibility to spur major reforms. (I present these findings in Terrorism and National Security Reform: How Commissions Can Drive Change in Moments of Crisis, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press in 2011.) (more…)

Bipartisanship is tough in an election year.  Each candidate up for election is seeking ways to differentiate him/herself from the opposition.  Particularly in primary battles, compromise is often punished.  A few examples come to mind recently of election years politics getting in the way of bipartisan compromises.  Candidates from both parties have let the politics of the moment derail sensible policy.

Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) is one Democrat who comes to mind.  After financial regulatory reform, there are two important major legislative priorities that have a chance to getting bipartisan support in this Congress – immigration reform and climate change/energy security.  The one Republican who has been willing to stick his neck out on both of these initiatives is Lindsey Graham (R-SC).  Graham has worked with Senator Schumer (D-NY) on immigration reform and Senator Kerry (D-MA) on climate change.  They had both come up with sensible compromises that had a chance of getting bipartisan support.  It wasn’t going to be easy in an election year on either of these issues, but it was a start.  The challenge for the Democrats was to maintain Graham’s support on both issues and hope to pick up some more Republicans who were willing to put aside partisan differences.  Then came Harry Reid. (more…)

Health care is a partisan issue. Economic stimulus is a partisan issue. Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty has been a partisan issue.  One of the few issues that rises to genuine non-partisanship is support for nuclear non-proliferation funding and the fight against nuclear terrorists. It was Indiana Republican Senator Richard Lugar who joined with Georgia Democratic Senator Sam Nunn to initiate the Cooperative Threat Reduction program in the 1990’s and the program has received bipartisan support ever since.

While the Bush Administration was restrained in its enthusiasm for the program, Lugar and a bipartisan group of Members of both parties and both houses of Congress rallied support to restore funding.  When the program became encumbered by various bureaucratic hurdles, Lugar offered a Senate floor amendment in 2005 to expand the programs and remove the hurdles that won 78 – 19, including the support of 34 GOP Senators.

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On Wednesday, President Obama announced a proposal to lift the long-standing ban on offshore oil and natural gas drilling off much of the south Atlantic and north Alaskan coasts, as well as parts of the Gulf of Mexico. The announcement has drawn the ire of critics across the political spectrum. Some on the left are outraged by Obama’s “betrayal” of his environmentalist base, and some on the right have called the extent of new offshore access insufficient. In reality, the policy he outlined will do very little to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and it will have no effect on oil prices in the foreseeable future. And Obama knows it. From the administration’s perspective, this announcement is about one thing: building support in the Senate for comprehensive climate change and energy legislation.

Studies have shown that offshore drilling will have very little impact on domestic oil prices. In fact, not a drop of new oil from this proposal would be seen for at least seven years, and the modest uptick in production and negligible price dip would not even be felt for two decades. Offshore drilling’s impact on real prices pales in comparison to that which could result from sound financial regulatory reform to curb speculation in commodity futures exchanges, or from putting a stop to the supply manipulation routinely practiced by OPEC in response to the artificially rising demand.

Nevertheless, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham – who is expected to introduce a bipartisan bill co-sponsored by John Kerry and Joe Lieberman within the next month – has insisted that offshore drilling be part of the energy equation of the future. Obama’s announcement on Wednesday follows similar concessions in recent months to conservative nuclear and coal interests. The administration’s Fiscal Year 2011 budget request included $36 billion for the nuclear loan guarantee program and the stimulus bill included $3.8 billion for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) research and development. (more…)

Partnership for a Secure America is pleased to announce the participants of its Congressional Fellowship Program Spring 2010 Session. These 25 Fellows are drawn from the personal offices or Committees of 12 Senators and 13 Representatives from across the political spectrum.

The Fellows come to the Congressional Fellowship Program from diverse educational and professional backgrounds including military, political campaigns, think tanks, journalism, the legal practice and international service organizations. To view the full list of Fellows, click here.

If you had been watching the historic debate on health care reform this past weekend, it wouldn’t be hard to believe that bipartisanship was dead.  The process could not have been more vitriolic.  It degenerated to the point of racial and homophobic slurs being yelled at Congressmen.  And that was before Congressman Randy Neugebauer yelled “baby killer” from the floor of the House.  Fox News served as the mouthpiece of the Republican party as did MSNBC for the Democrats.  There were protests and counter protests.  The Chamber of Commerce attacked the bill arguing that it would cost jobs while Catholic nuns rose up in its defense.

In the end, it passed. And I’m glad it did.  At the same time, I was deeply disappointed by how the debate sank to such a low level.  However, I don’t think that this is a necessarily a harbinger of things to come, particularly when it comes to foreign policy.  Here’s why:  the health care debate was framed (incorrectly in my view) in terms of the deep philosophical differences between the parties.   Republicans portrayed the bill as a government takeover of health care.  Democrats portrayed the bill as addressing a fundamental human right – affordable health care for all Americans.  At the root of this debate is one’s view of the role that government should have in society.  Getting bipartisan agreement on such deep philosophical differences is going to be difficult indeed!  Considering how the bill was framed by both sides, the intensity of the debate does not altogether surprise me.  Democrats and Republicans clearly have very different philosophical views about the role of government and the health care debate was the framework in which that debate played out.  What is most disconcerting is the name calling and deeply offensive language used by some in the process.  (more…)

Last Friday, Reps. Howard Berman (D- CA) and Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) introduced the Global Science Program for Security, Competitiveness, and Diplomacy Act, which proposes an increase in the application of science and scientific engagement in America’s foreign policy.  This follows the recent appointment of U.S. Science Envoys by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and according to its authors, “formalizes the Obama Administration’s intention to enhance international science cooperation.”

Science and technology (S&T) remain among the most admired aspects of American society, even among nations without a wholly favorable opinion of the U.S.  Science has the power to inform decisions and serve as a core instrument of diplomacy.  Science cooperation is critical to America’s ability to win worldwide respect and support and can help build bridges for peace and prosperity worldwide. (more…)

Last week well-known neoconservative Robert Kagan had a column in the Washington Post and Foreign Policy magazine that argued that bipartisanship in foreign policy was alive and well in the Obama administration.  Although, I agree with Kagan’s central argument, I have issues with his rationale about why this came about and his prescriptions for the future.

Kagan writes,

Unnoticed amid the wailing about “broken government,” a broad bipartisan consensus is emerging in one unlikely area: foreign policy. On Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran — the most expensive and potentially dangerous foreign challenges facing the United States — little separates the Obama administration from most Republican leaders in and out of Congress.

Indeed, the fact that President Obama and many Republicans generally agree on the way forward in these major foreign policy challenges – despite sometimes sharp rhetoric to the contrary from both sides – is quite an achievement.  Or perhaps these bipartisan achievements appear noteworthy more so because the debate on domestic issues such as health care and the economy has become so caustic.

Why did this happen?  Kagan argues that it’s because Democrats now have the responsibility of governing and can’t just be critics.  That’s part of it.  The other part, though, is that the second term of the Bush administration was actually much more centrist than the first. This was in response to the dramatic overreach of the first term.  So, on many of the big issues, there was already much more consensus moving forward.

So, many conclude, in foreign policy, what’s the difference between having a Democrat or a Republican in charge?  I can’t say exactly how John McCain would have governed.  Perhaps the outcomes on these three big issues would have been similar.  My argument, however, is that it’s not just the outcomes that we should examine.  We also need to examine process.   In foreign policy, the process by which one reaches a policy decision is quite important and has tremendous ramifications for how the U.S. public and the world perceives that policy. (more…)

On Tuesday, PSA Advisory Board member and chairman of the 9/11 commission Thomas Kean, along with 9/11 commission senior counsel John Farmer Jr., published an op-ed in The New York Times on what must be done in the aftermath of the attempted Christmas Day bombing.  Gov. Kean and Mr. Farmer called the thwarted attack a “systemic failure” to effectively analyze available intelligence.  Therefore, they insist that:

“First, we should dismiss the partisan bickering over the issue. Both parties have presided over security failures and successes; systemic failures cannot be ascribed to the stewardship of a political party.  Any effort to take partisan advantage of this unfortunate event, moreover, can only mask the more serious underlying issues, which President Obama raised squarely in yesterday’s remarks: are lapses in information gathering and sharing like those that occurred here endemic, or fixable?”

What Congress and the administration really must ask themselves, they say, is “whether the system we have in place has reduced the likelihood of human error to an acceptable, if not irreducible, margin.”  Gov. Kean and Mr. Farmer say that finding the solutions to the lingering failures of 9/11 that led to the 12/25 attempted attack require that President Obama and Congress “resist superficial sound-bite solutions and undertake the harder task of reinventing our national security system.”  Human error and an “element of judgment” will always exist in intelligence, but partisanship will only impede the procedural and structural changes necessary to prevent another systemic breakdown like the one that occurred on Christmas Day.

Click here to watch an interview of Gov. Kean
speaking about the importance of bipartisanship

Tonight I will be participating in a bipartisan debate titled “The Hard Path Forward,” on whether the US military presence in Afghanistan should be increased or reduced.  The debate is the first event co-sponsored by the DC Democratic and Republican parties, and should be interesting as much for what we wonky panelists have to say, as for who turns out to listen, and how they interact with us and with each other.  I find it significant and positive that at least on a local level, Democrats and Republicans have recognized that national security and foreign policy is an appropriate subject for productive bipartisan engagement.

Here are the details:

When:  Wednesday, November 18, 7:00 p.m.-8:30 p.m.

Where:  University of the District of Columbia, David A. Clark School Of Law, 4200 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Building 39, Room 21.

Who:  Dr. Assem Akram, Professor, American University, School Of International Service; Matthew Rojansky, Executive Director, Partnership for a Secure America; Malou Innocent, the Cato Institute (standing in for Michael Darner from Rep. Conyers’ office, a PSA Congressional Fellow); Mackenzie Eaglen, Research Fellow, Heritage Foundation.

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