Although defending America is the first responsibility of government, the Constitution makes clear that "We the people"-the private sector-are the ultimate custodians of our civilization. The War on Terrorism tests our entire society, not only our brute strength, and private philanthropy can do things in this war that government cannot do, or do as well. For instance, we need to identify Muslim leaders who preach tolerance and magnify their voice, but it would be counterproductive to have the government do that. Healing rifts with allies, to take another case, will require critiques of government policies (our own and others') that, if made by diplomats, would become international incidents, but if made through think tanks and journals can remind Westerners of our common interests.
Our enemies hope our ability to fight a long war of attrition will be crippled by America's impatience and what they see as our self- indulgence. Private-sector leaders who can "mobilize" for the long term will prove them wrong. What follows are strategies in three areas where private funders can make the biggest difference: redirecting education, stimulating research, and establishing new organizations.
Redirecting Education
In our extended encounter with Muslim peoples, we must deepen our understanding of religions and cultures from North Africa through the Middle East to Southeast Asia. Yet we are critically short of linguists and area studies specialists. Education, of course, has long been a focus of philanthropy, but this is a special case. Middle Eastern studies in the United States have often been breeding grounds for politicized scholarship-anti-Western polemics masquerading as serious research-even in seemingly innocuous courses in language training. And the dearth of reliable experts explains both severe shortages in our intelligence agencies and armed forces, and also such scandals as the apparent spies at our Guantanamo Bay facilities. In addition, the normal course of study takes many years and often lacks a policy focus.
I recommend funders consider a new approach, loosely modeled on the military's ROTC program: a "corps" of specialists to be trained specifically for public service in this area under the auspices of major universities using an accelerated schedule. Just as in ROTC, those who enter such a course would be required to serve the government for a set number of years before either making a career of public service or electing other appropriate employment. The country would gain an increase of needed experts, and those among them who later entered academe would bring practical experience where it is often sorely lacking.
A second educational possibility would focus on existing secondary schools and give teachers help in dealing with the "cultural wars" raised by terrorism. Even before September 11, our identity as Americans had been disputed for years in the fights over the way to teach children about America's past and future (see "Philanthropy Brings History to Life," May/June 2002, and the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation's reports on "Reclaiming Social Studies.") At the Foreign Policy Research Institute, we run a program, supported in part by the Olin Foundation, that helps junior and senior high school teachers instruct students in history and current events. We bring together 40-odd teachers from public, private, and parochial schools across the nation and provide a weekend "institute" on such subjects as "America's Encounter with Islam" and "Geography and Geopolitics," emphasizing the distinctiveness of the American experiment. This intellectual recharge is then reinforced by the teacher's own curriculum designs using materials we give them. We have reached hundreds of teachers through this program and many thousands more through our e-mail network that offers additional materials. Other research institutes and universities could replicate this kind of program.
Another educational area worthy of support is military history. Eliot Cohen at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and now head of the new Merrill Center there, conducts seminars and courses that induct college students into defense studies that help to bridge the gap between civilian and soldier in this era of volunteer forces, no draft, and an anti-military ethos on college campuses. The generation with direct experience of war is passing on, and as Cohen puts it, "we have to equip succeeding generations so that they know what needs to be done to defend our country." In addition, promoting the study of military history could do for foreign policy what funders' promotion of sound economic knowledge has done for domestic policy-undermine the sentimental, politically correct blather common on campuses, and offer realistic understandings of the way the world works. This kind of education should work for journalists and journalism schools as well.
These efforts-a corps of Arabic and Muslim specialists, teaching teachers about issues of American identity, reviving military history, and educating the media-are all best done by the private sector and are all ripe for philanthropy.