When Harry Truman was president, security was a broad concept.  It implied not just a strong military, but also a strong economy, strong morale at home, and strong alliances based on shared threat.  After World War II, President Truman and his able foreign policy corps created a security structure that would buttress world stability for the good of America.  They had the vision to see that America was safer in a world that was more peaceful, more just, and more prosperous.  And they articulated that vision of enlightened self-interest to the American people, explaining why it was in America’s security interest to support the unprecedented foreign aid of the Marshall Plan, reduced protectionism that spurred trade and revived the world economy, and binding alliances such as NATO.

In recent decades, this broad understanding of global security has been dismantled.  Conservative think-tanks teach that national security equals military strength alone.  Liberal pundits want an America so humble that we retreat from global responsibilities, leaving countries like flood-soaked (and nuclear-armed) Pakistan to their own devices.  From both sides of the political spectrum, we pursue narrow self-interest over enlightened self-interest, and are surprised that we reap resentment, anger, and distrust.

When I was finishing a D. Phil in England, supported by my Truman Scholarship, I saw firsthand how these twin strands of policy could tighten into a noose that would harm America – and the world.  Doing dissertation research in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation, I saw how anti-Americanism plummeted after our tsunami assistance – and how America’s right wing was forcing politicians into cutting such aid and supporting simplistic militarized security measures.  While working in Albania, I saw the gratitude that had come from years of American support for their human rights – most recently through the war in Kosovo.  And yet from the left came cries of hubris if America intervened to assist the lives of the marginalized, poor, and oppressed.

We founded the Truman National Security Project to create a strong voice for Americans who supported a third way in foreign policy.  We wanted to articulate a strong, smart, and principled set of policies that harkened back to the wise worldview of President Truman while meeting the challenges of the 21st century.

Five years later, the Truman Project and its sister organization, the Truman Educational Institute, have become the nation’s largest organizations training progressive leaders in national security.  Each year, we offer courses for more than 200 Congressional staff, scores of political candidates, and hundreds of progressive political consultants and activists who may never have considered security issues before.  Our flagship Truman Fellowship trains a handpicked cohort of future leaders.  Over 100 Truman Fellows now serve in the Obama Administration and in Congress, ranging from special assistants to National Security Advisor General Jim Jones, General David Petraeus, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and speechwriters for President Obama, to on-the-ground military officers and USAID leaders in Afghanistan.

Our trainings emphasize hard moral and policy questions: for instance, a recent scenario on what to do about Iran’s nuclear weapons program was co-created with Harvard University’s Graham Allison, and moderated by leading Iran experts.  Those we train are inspired by personal meetings and mentorship from security leaders such as Homland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano (NM ’77), General Petraeus, and Anthony Lake.  We provide deep training in effective communication, drawn from cutting-edge psychological research.  And we position those we train to impact the public conversation, by placing them in the media, in advocacy campaigns, and in the political sphere.

A crucial part of our effort is to reconnect foreign policy leaders with the military.  In a democracy, civilians must lead the military.  But as the left became estranged from our fighting forces following Vietnam, it left a legacy of separateness that harmed our ability to understand what our military could, and could not, do.  That hurts policy.  Thucydides said that “The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools.”   By bringing together rising policy-makers under 40 with their military peers, we hope to overturn such a damning indictment.

We also work to bridge the gap between foreign policy makers and politicians.  For decades, foreign policy thinkers have disdained American politics.  The political process removes so much nuance from tough foreign policy questions that to engage in politics was seen by many as a betrayal of their policy wisdom.  But in a democracy, policy is made through politics.  We help rising foreign policy leaders under 40 become comfortable with the political sphere, and able to communicate their policy case in language that resonates politically – not just to the illuminati of Beltway Washington!

One of our most recent projects in this sphere has been in the area of climate change and energy.  Our addiction to oil has poured billions of dollars into the coffers of countries arrayed against us – such as Iran and Russia.  It also filters into terrorist networks. In the words of former Director of Central Intelligence R. James Woolsey, our oil addiction has created the first time since the Civil War that we are funding both sides of a conflict. Meanwhile, climate change is a threat multiplier, sparking famines and floods and exacerbating migration in the poorest parts of the world, creating uprooted populations ripe for riot and radicalism.

But the issues of energy and climate had become partisan.  Half our polarized country saw them as left-wing issues, rather than looking at the policy facts.  The Truman Project has mobilized more than 700 veterans in our OperationFree program (watch video here) to speak out on the national security need to reduce climate change while freeing America from oil dependence.  They have spoken in more than 200 cities across America, and have been hosted twice at the White House.  Their efforts to lobby Congress for action – from supporting a cap on carbon, to working for higher fuel efficiency standards – are changing the terms of this debate, and helping everyday Americans to understand the security need to move to a new energy future.

As President Truman said, “America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.”  We hope through the work of the Truman Project to create a new generation of leaders who can help America stay great, and the world to be ever more peaceful and just.

Rachel Kleinfeld (AK '97) is the CEO and Co-Founder of the Truman National Security Project and Truman Educational Institute.

Janine Davidson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, and Aron Ketchel, Truman Fellow

Gayle Smith, Senior Director at the National Security Council, with Phil Carter, Truman Fellow

Truman Fellows at the annual conference