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The Project for the New American Century, or PNAC is a Washington, DC-based think tank of the United States. The group was established in spring 1997 as a non-profit organization with the goal of promoting "American global leadership." The chairman is William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard. Present and former members include several prominent members of the Republican Party and Bush Administration, including Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, Richard Perle, Richard Armitage, Dick Cheney, Lewis Libby, William J. Bennett, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Ellen Bork, the wife of Robert Bork. A large number of its ideas and its members are associated with the neoconservative movement. PNAC has seven full-time staff members, in addition to its board of directors.
The PNAC is quite controversial. Some have raised concerns that the project can be viewed as proposing military and economic domination of land, space, and cyberspace by the United States, so as to establish American dominance in world affairs (Pax Americana) for the indefinite future—hence the term "the New American Century." Supporters argue the project's aims and agendas are often misinterpreted, sometimes deliberately.
The Project is an initiative of the New Citizenship Project, a non-profit 501c3 organization that is funded by the Bradley Foundation .
PNAC's website clearly states the groups "fundamental propositions":
In September 2000, the PNAC issued an 80-page report entitled . The report has been the subject of much analysis and criticism.
The group states that when diplomacy has failed, military action is an acceptable and necessary resort. PNAC advocates the installation of permanent military bases around the world for the establishment of a United States Global Constabulary. This global police force would have the power to keep law and order around the world in accordance with rules that the United States would establish as being proper and just. It also advocates the United States government should capitalize on its military and economic superiority to gain unchallengeable superiority through all means necessary, including military force.
The PNAC and its members had long called for the United States to abandon the ABM Treaty. The PNAC also proposes to control the new "international commons" of space and "cyberspace" and pave the way for the creation of a new military service - U.S. Space Forces - with the mission of space control. In 1998, Rumsfeld chaired a bipartisan commission on the US Ballistic Missile Threat towards advancement of these goals.
The PNAC has been the subject of considerable criticism and controversy.
Many, particularly those on the left and American isolationists, dispute the premise that American world leadership is desirable for the world or even for America. The PNAC's harshest critics argue that it represents a broad, borderline imperial agenda of global US military expansionism and dominance. Supporters reply that the PNAC's goals are not fundamentally different than what has long been proposed by other conservative foreign policy analysts, and that the PNAC is the target of unfair conspiracy theories.
Much of the basis for its critics' arguments is derived from the text of Rebuilding America's Defenses. PNAC critics suggest that portions of the document call into question the true motives behind the 2003 invasion of Iraq, although the document does not explicitly call for such an invasion.
Conspiracy theorists, especially on the left, frequently quote out of context a line from Rebuilding America's Defenses which refers to the possibility of a "catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor" (page 51), citing this as being suspiciously prescient of the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks and concluding that therefore the PNAC or its associates wanted, knew about, or even were involved in the attacks. Many even incorrectly claim that the report directly states that this "new Pearl Harbor" is needed to justify war on Iraq. In fact, however, the quote is in the middle of a discussion about military use of new information technologies, and the report is simply guessing that full transformation to new technologies is likely to be a slow process unless some "catalyzing" event causes the military to upgrade more quickly.
After the election of George W. Bush, many of PNAC's members were appointed to key positions within the new President's administration:
| Name | Department | Title | Other remarks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elliott Abrams | National Security Council | Representative for Middle Eastern Affairs | President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center |
| Richard Armitage | Department of State | Deputy Secretary of State | |
| John R. Bolton | Department of State | Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security Affairs | |
| Dick Cheney | Bush Administration | Vice President | PNAC founder |
| Seth Cropsey | Voice of America | Director of the International Broadcasting Bureau | |
| Paula Dobriansky | Department of State | Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs | |
| Francis Fukuyama | President's Council on Bioethics | Council Member | Professor of International Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University |
| Bruce Jackson | U.S. Committee on NATO | President | |
| Zalmay Khalilzad | U.S.-Afganistan Embassy in Kabul | Ambassador | |
| Lewis Libby | Bush Administration | Chief of Staff for the Vice President | |
| Peter W. Rodman | Department of Defense | Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security | |
| Donald Rumsfeld | Department of Defense | Secretary of Defense | PNAC founder |
| Randy Scheunemann | U.S. Committee on NATO, Project on Transitional Democracies, International Republican Institute | Member | Founded the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. |
| Paul Wolfowitz | Department of Defense | Deputy Secretary of Defense | |
| Dov S. Zakheim | Department of Defense | Comptroller | |
| Robert B. Zoellick | Office of the United States Trade Representative | U.S. Trade Representative |
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