Among the major policy recommendations put forward by Williams are the following:

The United States should increase its relative emphasis on the nonmilitary international tools that offer the hope of genuine prevention of conflict and terrorist attacks.

This includes a doubling of nonmilitary foreign aid, and better targeting of this aid to "poverty reduction and other measures in the world’s poorest countries."

Further, in order to "enhance American prestige in the world, improve the chances of early warning of conflict or terrorist attacks, and secure the cooperation of allies in the fight against terrorism," Williams calls on the U.S. government to "improve the capacity of the State Department by investing more in personnel, improving communications and information systems, and upgrading embassies."

Finally, and in general, "the US government should be more explicit about the tradeoffs between military and nonmilitary security expenditures. Moreover, within the defense budget, it should purposefully pursue integrated tradeoffs among offensive, defensive, and preventive defense expenditures, moving steadily toward a more sensible balance between warfighting and conflict prevention."

The Policy Analysis Brief, "Beyond Preemption and Preventive War: Increasing U.S. Budget Emphasis on Conflict Prevention," was published by The Stanley Foundation in February 2006, and is available for download in its entirety here:

http://www.stanleyfoundation.org/reports/pab06budget.pdf

About the author:
Dr. Cindy Williams is a principal research scientist in the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Formerly she served as associate director for national security in the Congressional Budget Office and in the directorate of program analysis and evaluation in the Office of Secretary of Defense. Her current research focuses on the processes by which the US government plans for and allocates resources among the programs related to national security and international affairs. She is a member of the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy.