From the Summer 2006 issue: The Democracy Bureaucracy Thomas Melia

TO: Secretary Rice

FROM: Thomas O. Melia

SUBJECT: The Democracy Bureaucracy

With his second Inaugural Address, President Bush elevated the longstanding American interest in the spread of democracy into the preeminent goal of U.S. foreign policy. In doing so he has subsumed the Global War on Terror within a larger and more forward-looking doctrine, transforming the shorthand “GWOT” from a Global War on Terror to a more ennobling Global War on Tyranny.

This memo describes the array of American assets in this effort; briefly distills several issues that impede policy implementation; and recommends you establish a “grand bargain” with the Congress, DoD and other Executive branch agencies, as well as with key actors in the non-governmental community to reconfigure the “democracy bureaucracy” to better translate the President’s vision into reality.

As this policy is the President’s strategic response to 9/11, its success or failure will be his principal legacy in foreign affairs. It is already clear that shortcomings will be attributed by critics to a failure in conception, not implementation. But implementation is not a simple matter.

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