Our Values

Today's security threats come in new packages. Traditional threats, such as countries that wish us harm, now share space with non-state threats such as terrorists.  Deadly diseases, climate change, and natural disasters may weaken our country or kill our citizens as much as or more than traditional and non-traditional enemies. The internet and the 24-hour media provide a new environment in which threats can spread quickly, and containing situations is more difficult. We must use all the tools at our disposal: development aid and trade; our military and our allies' forces; our reputation, diplomacy, and negotiation, to create a stronger, more stable, more just world.

Our security strategies recognize the new challenges of the 21^st century. We believe that seven common principals are essential to meeting those challenges successfully, and underlie all of our training programs.

1. Supporting human rights and democracy protects American national security. Protecting American national security requires us to promote consistently our deepest values of freedom and human rights — with actions as well as words. Countries that provide peaceful political voice to their citizens, abide by the rule of law, and uphold human rights are more stable and less likely to go to war with one another. They are also less likely to breed the anger and hopelessness that provide fertile recruiting grounds for terrorist leaders. Rights-supporting democracies cannot come at the barrel of a gun. America must instead engage with those inside oppressed countries to help their peoples build strong democratic institutions and liberate themselves.
2. Promoting development abroad protects American national security. Protecting American national security requires addressing state weakness, poverty, corruption, and social breakdown abroad. Terrorists and organized criminals take advantage of these conditions to further their aims, including the drug trade, arms smuggling, terrorist training, and human trafficking. States that lack the capacity to respond to internal crises can also pose inadvertent but equally deadly security threats, such as through the spread of infectious disease. America must attack these threats with a serious investment in strategic development aid — aid coordinated with trade, diplomacy, and military assistance — to reduce poverty and build security abroad.
3. Strong alliances protect American national security. Protecting American national security requires investing in strong standing security alliances, not ad-hoc coalitions of the willing. Our interests may at times require unilateral action, but America simply cannot solve today’s transnational threats without the ongoing cooperation of many nations who understand that we face shared foes. We are stronger with allies than without them.
4. Legitimate international behavior protects American national security. Legitimacy — the sense among the world community that America is following accepted norms of international conduct — gains America allies, makes other nations less likely to question our motives, and encourages other states to cooperate in our endeavors abroad. Without legitimacy, the costs of promoting our security rise sharply.
5. Open trade protects American national security. Protecting American national security requires promoting open trade by supporting multilateral free trade agreements and eliminating domestic protectionism. Trade is a key means lifting countries out of poverty, encouraging non-corrupt government, and breaking authoritarian regimes' control over their societies. A commitment to open trade requires an equal commitment to supporting labor rights at home and abroad. American workers displaced by trade should be protected through domestic policies that provide support, retraining, and create a competitive economy, not protectionism.
6. Robust military and intelligence capabilities protect American national security. Protecting American national security will always require maintaining a robust capacity to use overwhelming force, including a strong military and intelligence apparatus. Strong military and intelligence services allow us to deter violence and diffuse threats. They provide teeth to our diplomacy, and are necessary for times when diplomacy fails and the threat warrants.
7. Comprehensive policy coordination protects American national security. Protecting American national security requires coordinating strategies across our diplomatic, military, trade, aid, and intelligence communities both in Washington and abroad. These communities have previously operated as if they exist in different worlds. In fact, they are all distinct tools of the U.S. government that can and must be deployed together towards common goals.