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[[Donald H. Rumsfeld]] "was a founding member of the '''Committee on the Present Danger''', which effectively undermined President Jimmy Carter's arms control policies. He was the first major advocate of the MX missile, and he was a moving force behind the Republican right's [[Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States]], which rejected the [[CIA]]'s more moderate 1995 estimate of the ABM threat."[http://www.prospect.org/print/V12/4/reich-r.html]
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[http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index.jsp?section=static&page=message Message from the President and CEO], [[Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.]], [[Center for Security Policy]], no date:
"At this writing, the Center for Security Policy is undergoing an exciting transition.
"Loosely modeled after the legendary '''Committee on the Present Danger''' - a non-partisan coalition of prominent Americans who in the 1970s challenged the view that détente with the Soviet Union was a viable basis for American security - the Center has been a forceful, and often lonely, voice of reason and realism in recent years.
"Like the '''Committee on the Present Danger''', too, the Center helped preserve a sense of identity and community among like-minded security policy practitioners, awaiting a day when many of them would be called upon to serve once again in government. That occurred in the [[Ronald Reagan]] Administration in which many members of the Center held senior posts.
"Happily, that day has now arrived for the Center for Security Policy and its associates, as well.
"An early member of the Center's Board of Advisors, [[Richard Cheney]], is now Vice President of the United States. President [[George Walker Bush]] appointed a distinguished recipient of the Center's Keeper of the Flame Award, Donald Rumsfeld, to be his Secretary of Defense. And Secretary Rumsfeld and his counterparts elsewhere in the government have invited an extraordinary number of members of the Center's [[National Security Advisory Council]] and others of the Center's colleagues to serve in top positions in the U.S. government.
"With the return of such highly qualified, skilled and principled men and women to high office in the U.S. government, the Center for Security Policy looks forward to playing a new and, we hope, even more influential role in the years ahead. To be sure, the Center will remain a source for ideas, information and recommendations associated with promoting the policies of peace through strength. The presence in government of so many of those who broadly share the Center's commitment to this philosophy - and who have, over the years, helped us in advancing it - should, however, enable the Center to direct less energy towards the inside-the-Beltway debate and more to educating and engaging the American people and friends of freedom around the world.
"The need for such an initiative, of course, has become both glaringly apparent and intensely urgent in the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks and the war on global terrorism they precipitated. Accordingly, we intend to redouble our efforts in Washington, across the United States and internationally.
"In this connection, we are beginning some dramatic changes in our products and the means by which they are made available - notably, via a vastly more useful and user-friendly new Web site (www.CenterforSecurityPolicy.org).We believe that the cumulative effect of these efforts, together with improved governance in Washington, will greatly improve the prospects that the United States will continue to enjoy the fruits of peace and prosperity made possible, in no small part, by its vigilance and strength."
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In his [http://freezerbox.com/archive/2000/04/republicans/ April 2000 article] "Lest We Forget: Neo-conservatives and Republican Foreign Policy, 1976-2000," Alex Zaitchik, who "researches security policy at the [[Institute of International Relations]] in Prague, Czech Republic," and who is also an editor at ''Freezerbox.com'', prophetically wrote:
"Such worries have led [[Gideon Rose]] of the [[Council on Foreign Relations]] to doubt that the Republicans are ready to 'exercise power responsibly.' He sees recent statements by influential neo-conservative strategists as 'cause for alarm' and says that their eerily familiar ideological passion 'remains constant and dangerous.' Mr. Rose is no dove, and for him to caution that the current constellation of forces in the GOP is incapable of producing a foreign policy of mature adults should stop us in our tracks.
"The lessons of 1980 are loud and they are clear. Militarists and loose cannons can capture the White House and hold the world hostage."
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