A Plan for Action: Renewed American Leadership and International Cooperation for the 21st Century

From his first day in office, President-elect Barack Obama will face a daunting inbox: from the global financial crisis to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and transnational threats such as nuclear proliferation, terrorism and global climate change. No nation, including the United States, can insulate itself from these borderless threats, nor can one nation solve these problems alone. To succeed, the new administration will need to forge global partnerships and usher in a new era of international cooperation.

On November 20, the Managing Global Insecurity (MGI) Project released A Plan for Action, a comprehensive set of foreign policy recommendations for the next U.S. president—and other world leaders—to address the most critical challenges facing the world today. Based on 20 months of research plus U.S. and international consultations, the MGI Plan provides a strategy for advancing this complex but critical agenda.

Brookings hosted a distinguished panel of experts to discuss the MGI Plan for Action, including former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana; former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Thomas Pickering; UN Development Program Administrator Kemal Dervis; and Brookings President Strobe Talbott. The event will be led by MGI Project co-directors Carlos Pascual of Brookings, Stephen Stedman of Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and Bruce Jones of New York University’s Center on International Cooperation.

After the program, panelists took audience questions.