On February 22,
Dr. Kurt M. Campbell,
former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asia
and the Pacific, and presently a Senior Vice President
& Director of International Security of the
Washington-based prestigious Center for Strategic and
International Studies, offered an excellent briefing
to our Executive Lecture Forum members. In an analytic
way, he forecasted the foreign policy and security
challenges facing the new Bush Administration. He
started out by saying that, most probably, the US
foreign policy focus will shift from Europe to Asia
where China represents a real danger to our security.
He spoke also about the Bush Administration’s plan to
build a missile defense for America. He predicted that
plan will create resistance at home and abroad. In
addition, Dr. Campbell compared the decision making
process of former President Clinton and President
Bush. According to his personal experiences, Clinton
was always interested in the details of a given
international problem, while Bush most likely would
make a quick decision and then delegate power to his
Secretary of State to carry out the decisions. It was
interesting to hear how he compared the Clinton and
Bush National Security Council (NSC). In Clinton's
time, the NSC was a large bureaucratic governing body,
dealing with everyday policy problems. Now, President
Bush prefers to work with a smaller NSC, which will
concentrate on planning and proposing policy
directives to the President. Meanwhile, President Bush
has delegated the conduct of foreign policy to the
State Department.
