Gary Hart

No Torture. No Exceptions.

Ron Tang — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0500

The Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years War in 1648, effectively established an entity that most of us today take for granted: the nation-state. In the nation-state, it is the duty of the state to protect the nation and of the nation to remain loyal to the state. When security threats to the nation arise, the state must defend against them, and, in times of danger, liberty is often at odds with security. For authoritarian states, such tension is easily resolved: err on the side of security.

The tradeoff becomes more problematic in constitutional democracies such as the… more

My Peak Moment

adminn — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 14:48:00 -0500

Looking back well over two decades ago, it is impossible to isolate a defining moment in a dark-horse, long-shot, improbable presidential campaign in the nation's first primary. There were so many months of travel, so many hands to shake, so many questions to answer in so many living rooms and restaurants across New Hampshire that the temptation is to treat it all as a long-ago blur of memory.

Yet events and circumstances do still stand out these many years later: the good humor and hospitality of Connie and Maria at the Merrimack Restaurant in Manchester; campaigning at town dumps on Saturday… more

Tilting Toward Annapolis: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Middle East

Communications — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 15:00:00 -0500

A New America Event
11/13/2007 - 3:00pm

On November 13, Patrick Doherty and the American Strategy Program hosted the Hon. Gary Hart and Daniel Levy in the third of a series of briefings on the run-up to the upcoming Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, MD. Gary Hart represented Colorado in the United States Senate from 1975 to 1987, where he served on the Armed Services Committee and specialized in nuclear arms control, among many other topics. Sen. Hart is a distinguished fellow at the New America Foundation, and the author of sixteen books, plus one forthcoming entitled “Under the Eagle’s Wing: a National Security Strategy for the United States: 2009.” He is also the chairman of the Council for a Livable World and an endowed professor at the University of Colorado-Denver. Daniel Levy is the director of the Middle East Policy Initiative at New America and publisher of www.ProspectsForPeace.com. He has been intensively involved with Israeli/Palestinian negotiations for many years.

Sen. Hart opened by vehemently questioning the unspoken assumption that there is unlimited time to reach a final settlement between Israel and Palestine. “The amount of time to play a broker’s role is finite,” Sen. Hart said of the United States’ position in negotiations. He noted the Bush administration has neglected the situation for seven years and is lucky that there have been no major conflagrations or massive destabilization in Israel/Palestine conditions.

After recounting some of his time in Jordan, Egypt and Israel in the 1980s, Sen. Hart observed, “This situation of neglect is exacerbated by the war currently going on in Iraq.” Sen. Hart also expressed his concern over growing uncertainty in Iran’s nuclear program. The combination of little time, the Iraq war, and the potential for a regional conflict make it “difficult if not impossible to make any real progress at Annapolis,” Sen. Hart predicted.

The senator also pointed out several other factors that contribute to his belief that Annapolis will not be particularly productive: the American public’s decreasing patience for resolving the situation and the growing appeal of a more isolationist position with respect to Israel and Palestine; the erosion of U.S. moral authority in the world; and U.S. dependence on oil in the Persian Gulf. Sen. Hart worried that the loss to American standing worldwide is non-recoverable, even after President Bush is no longer in office; people could view the United States as “the great hypocrite of the world,” he stated.

Sen. Hart encouraged economic cooperation between Israel and Palestine in the hopes that increased communication and transportation between the regions will allow younger generations of Israelis and Palestinians to work together to move past old feuds.

Daniel Levy then thanked Sen. Hart for reminding everyone of the ‘big picture,’ which can get lost in day-to-day negotiations and details. Mr. Levy shared Sen. Hart’s concern that seven years of neglect by the Bush administration has done little to stabilize the region or protect American or Israeli interests. He hoped that negotiations will not be “spooked” by domestic Israeli politics this time around and warned that Annapolis could play a negative role in moving negotiations forward because it could “feed into domestic frustration” of a why-bother sentiment. “You can’t fix anything in the region now unless you fix everything,” Mr. Levy concluded, with his belief that the U.S. needs to engage Syria, Iran, and Hamas in negotiations.

Patrick Doherty moderated the following question and answer session, and the panel discussed the efficacy of American mediation given decreased standing in the world, the possibility of another party acting as peace broker, and the next administration’s agenda in the Middle East.

-Katherine Tiedemann, Research Associate for the Fellows Program

Gary Hart

adminn — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 23:57:00 -0400

Distinguished Fellow, American Strategy Program

Gary Hart represented Colorado in the U.S. Senate from 1975 to 1987, where he served on the Armed Services Committee, specializing in nuclear arms control and military reform. He is the author of sixteen books. The Baltimore Sun called his 2004 book on American foreign policy, The Fourth Power, "extraordinarily thought-provoking." Hart holds law and divinity degrees from Yale University, and in 2001 earned a D.Phil. in Politics from Oxford University.

A member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Science and Security, Hart was recently named a Distinguished Fellow of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation… more

The Shield and the Cloak

Communications — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 11:00:00 -0500

A New America Event
03/02/2006 - 12:00pm

With his usual candor, former Senator Gary Hart (D-CO) addressed the issues of security and military strategy -- the same issues he adopted while serving on Capitol Hill and which he explores in his new book The Shield and the Cloak: The Security of the Commons. His provocative remarks, delivered before a packed audience, offered a sobering assessment of America's security climate and a number of proposals to improve it.

Senator Hart -- noting that our Cold War-era military is ill equipped to counter non-state actors or fight low-intensity urban conflicts -- argued for a more comprehensive conception of security than the prevailing one. "The Cold War," he said, "was two dimensional," but our current conflicts are more complicated and they require a deeply nuanced understanding of history if they are to be salvaged. Citing the looming civil war as an example, he warned, "America can lose its army in Iraq."

Senator Hart issued a call to public officials to ramp up military intelligence, make math and science the focus of public education, and mend our alliances with European nations who, he says, are now at the center of a jihadi maelstrom. To underscore the internationalization of threats and the subsequent need for security and intelligence cooperation, he stated, "In 25 years, anyone who says 'national security' will be laughed out of the room."

-Brian Beutler

U.S. Grand Strategy

Communications — Wed, 20 Oct 2004 12:00:00 -0400

A New America Event
10/20/2004 - 12:00pm

In his book The Fourth Power, Gary Hart demonstrates the linkage between a principled foreign policy and national security in the age of terror. He argues that when U.S. sanctions on the world stage are inconsistent with established democratic values, America is made more vulnerable. Stating that policies that erode America's image weaken our fight in the war of ideas, Hart argues there may be no more important arena going forward.