Dean's Foreign Policy Team

The Howard Dean campaign has released additional information about its foreign policy team -- and policy aims. A couple of days ago, Dan Drezner blogged about the team and then he blogged about Dean's major foreign policy address. Unfortunately, I only have time today to discuss the team. Consider this a followup to my earlier comment about Danny Sebright.

Later, I promise to take up the speech.

Dean's website has the list of new advisors (and it mentions Sebright and a couple of other longer-term people).

Overall, it's not an especially radical team, though there are several controversial figures. Dan Drezner pointed out that Warren Christopher was standing next to Dean when some important recent foreign policy announcements were made, but given his work in Florida 2000, it's not surprising that Christopher doesn't appear on this list.

Here's my brief rundown:

Ben Barber is a Professor at Maryland (disclosure: I obtained my PhD from Maryland). Barber is a longtime advocate of "strong democracy," which basically means he wants much more deliberation about public policy issues and much more democracy in global politics. This is an interesting choice for Dean. Barber wrote Jihad vs. McWorld, a book that managed to criticize both ethnic nationalism and economic globalization as threats to democracy.

Ash Carter is a longtime defense policy wonk. I first read his work back in the 1980s when I too wanted to be a defense policy wonk. He worries a lot about problems like missile defense.

Ivo Daalder is a Brookings fellow and another Clinton-era guy (everyone I mentioned so far worked for the Clinton administration). Whenever I read his work, it seems solid and mainstream.

Morton Halperin has been around a long time. He coauthored a famous book on arms control with Thomas Schelling (that basically says we should embrace deterrence as arms control and plan weapons choices accordingly). His phones were famously bugged by Kissinger/Nixon and he's been left-of-center for decades. He's most lately been a multilateralist writing for the American Prospect.

Elisa Harris is a WMD proliferation specialist. Her work is quite solid.

Tony Lake was Clinton's National Security Advisor. To many, he personifies the Democratic Party's foreign policy establishment. Note: Kissinger tapped Lake's phones too (someone leaked the secret bombings in Cambodia and Kissinger suspected his aides). Question: What has happened to the political landscape?

Clyde Prestowitz scares some people. Anyone who has authored something called "Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism..." is going to have that effect on those wedded to the status quo. Disclosure: I once wrote an op-ed called "Is an Outlaw State Calling the Shots?" (warning: pdf file). It was written in December 2000, prior to Bush's ascendance to power.

Susan Rice has been first consulting and then writing for Brookings since leaving the Clinton administration. She is an Africa specialist.

Jeffrey Sachs. Best known for his work "helping" Russia, Poland and other European nations make transitions from state socialism. Janine Wedel offered a fairly strong critique of his efforts, as I've noted previously.

Admiral Stansfield Turner is a former CIA Director and has lately been very worried about WMD proliferation.

Also named: Franklin Kramer, General Joseph Hoar, Major General Randy Jayne, General Merrill McPeak and William Woodward. I don't know of them -- or do not recall offhand. I'll try to update when I learn more.