Considers the future of the United States' overseas representation. Appraises its condition. Offers practical recommendations on how best to organize and manage overseas posts.

"After our examination of the new strategic environment of the next quarter century (Phase I) and of a strategy to address it (Phase II), this Commission concludes that significant changes must be made in the structures and processes of the U.S. national security apparatus. Our institutional base is in decline and must be rebuilt. Otherwise, the United States risks losing its global influence and critical leadership role. We offer recommendations for organizational change in five key areas: ensuring the security of the American homeland; recapitalizing America's strengths in science and education; redesigning key institutions of the Executive Branch; overhauling the U.S. government's military and civilian personnel systems; and reorganizing Congress's role in national security affairs"--P. xiii.

A select group of analysts, practitioners and scholars assembled in 1997 and 1999 at the University of Oklahoma to lay the groundwork for a new foreign policy. This carefully edited collection includes those major policy statements and discussions by the best minds of our time. Index.

Kori Schake shows how the deficiencies in focus, education, and programmatic proficiency impede the work of the State Department and suggests how investing in those areas could make the agency significantly more successful at building stable and prosperous democratic governments around the world. She explains why, instead of burdening the US military with yet another inherently civilian function, work should focus on bringing those agencies of the government whose job it is to provide development assistance up to the standard of success that our military has achieved. Schake presents a vision of what a successful State Department should look like and seeks to build support for creating it—a State Department that makes possible the projection of US civilian power as well as US military force.

This independent assessment is a comprehensive study of the strategic benefits, risks, and costs of U.S. military presence overseas. The report provides policymakers a way to evaluate the range of strategic benefits and costs that follow from revising the U.S. overseas military presence by characterizing how this presence contributes to assurance, deterrence, responsiveness, and security cooperation goals.