• I believe that we are currently engaged in a world war. This war is not a conventional war, and these terrorists are not a conventional enemy.
• The top priority of the President as Commander in Chief is first and foremost protecting our own citizens.
• With a focus on renewed diplomacy and inclusion, we can accomplish the goals of our nation without having to go it alone.
• During the Cold War, we had hawks and doves, but this new war requires us to be a phoenix, rising reborn to meet each new challenge and seize each new opportunity.
• As President, I will fight this war hard, but I will also fight it smart, using all our political, economic, diplomatic, and intelligence weapons as well as our military might.
• The terrorists train in small, scattered groups. We can accomplish a great deal with swift, surgical air strikes and commando raids by our elite units.
• We have to get tough with President Musharraf who has allowed Al Qaeda and the Taliban to have bases in Waziristan.
• We don't have a dog in the fight between Sunnis and Shiites - our enemy is Islamic extremism in all its guises.
• The long-term solution is to empower moderates in the region by attacking the underlying conditions that breed terror.
• Part of winning the war on terror is achieving energy independence.
• I believe in the Powell Doctrine of using overwhelming force to accomplish a mission.
• I have the executive and crisis management experience, the judgment and the temperament to be an effective commander in chief.
• I will expand the army and increase the defense budget.

I believe that we are currently engaged in a world war. RadicalIslamic fascists have declared war on our country and our way of life.They have sworn to annihilate each of us who believe in a free society,all in the name of a perversion of religion and an impersonal god. Wego to great extremes to save lives, they go to great extremes to takethem. This war is not a conventional war, and these terrorists are nota conventional enemy. I will fight the war on terror with the intensityand single-mindedness that it deserves.

The top priority of the president as Commander in Chief is first andforemost protecting our own citizens. While we live in a neighborhoodof nations and must strive to be good neighbors, as President, I willensure the peace, safety, and well-being of American citizens at homeand abroad.

While I prefer America to be safe and secure within her own bordersrather than loved and appreciated abroad, I believe we can accomplishboth goals. We can resurrect relationships with our allies andneighbors. With a focus on renewed diplomacy and inclusion, we canaccomplish the goals of our nation without having to go it alone.

When the sun rose on September 11, we were the only superpower inthe world; when the sun set that day, we were still the onlysuperpower, but how different the world looked. During the Cold War,you were a hawk or a dove, but this new world requires us to be aphoenix, to rise from the ashes of the twin towers with a whole newgame plan for this very different enemy. Being a phoenix meansconstantly reinventing ourselves, dying to mistakes andmiscalculations, changing tactics and strategies, rising reborn to meeteach new challenge and seize each new opportunity.

As president, I will fight this war hard, but I will also fight itsmart, using all our political, economic, diplomatic, and intelligenceweapons as well as our military might. The terrorists unfortunatelyhave a great many sympathizers all over the world, folks who are happyto show up and be filmed shouting "Death to America," but the actualnumber of those willing to blow themselves up is relatively few, andthey train and plot in small, scattered groups.

It's an enemy conducive to being tracked down and eliminated byusing the CIA and the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations Command. Wecan accomplish a great deal, we can achieve tremendous bang for thebuck, with swift, surgical air strikes and commando raids by our eliteunits, working with friendly governments, as we've done with theEthiopians in Somalia. These operations are impossible withoutfirst-rate intelligence. When the Cold War ended, we cut back on ourhuman intelligence, just as we cut back on our armed forces, and bothhave come back to haunt us. As President, I will beef up our humanintelligence capacity, both the operatives who gather information andthe analysts who figure out what it means.

Right after September 11, with wounds fresh and emotions runninghigh, President Bush declared that all other countries were either forus or they were for the terrorists. Such a black-and-white stancedoesn't work in the Arab and Muslim worlds, where there are more shadesof gray than you'll find at Sherwin-Williams. Is President Musharraf ofPakistan for us 100%? No, since September 11, he's been playing bothends in the middle to survive. At the moment he's pulled too far awayfrom us. While we have been focused on Iraq, Al Qaeda and the Talibanhave expanded their training camps in the Waziristan region of Pakistanwith impunity. This bodes ominously not just for Afghanistan, but alsofor Al Qaeda's plotting and training for more attacks all over theworld, including here in the United States. This is the direct resultof an ill-conceived autonomy agreement President Musharraf made withWaziristan's tribal leaders. In fact the tribal leader Musharaff haspraised for fighting foreign terrorists, Mullah Nazir, recently saidthat he would protect Osama bin Laden! We have to get tough withMursharraf and re-calibrate the carrots and sticks we use with him.Pakistan is the fifth largest recipient of American aid, and right nowwe're not getting real good value. We're in a game of chicken with thismilitary dictator: he warns us not to pursue terrorists across theborder with Afghanistan, not to strike their bases on his territorybecause it could cause his government to fall and an even less friendlyfigure to take his job. But we have to make clear to him that he is ofno use to us if he allows the Taliban and Al Qaeda to use his territorywith impunity. The current situation highlights that, despite ourgenerous aid, both the Taliban and Al Qaeda enjoy a disturbing degreeof popularity in Pakistan. Ultimately it is this popularity contest,this war of ideas, that we have to win. Creativity and flexibility areMusharraf's keys to retaining power.

Creativity and flexibility are our keys to dealing with him andother Muslim leaders. Instead of asking if someone is for us, insteadof demanding that every ally be at the level of Great Britain, I willask if we should be for them, if they can be useful in any way, howeverlimited, however temporary.

The terrorists have succeeded in dividing us over how to fight them,but we are not taking full advantage of their divisions and of thebroader divisions in the region. For example, Hamas, Al Qaeda, andHezbollah are all terrorist groups, but Hamas and Al Qaeda are Sunniand hate Hezbollah, which is Shiite, as much as they hate us. We areworried about the Iranians extending their sphere of influence west,but so are the Sunni Arabs in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, whodislike the Iranians not just because they are Shiites, but becausethey are Persians. Fighting smart means learning the neighborhood,achieving a level of political, religious, and cultural sophisticationabout the Arab and Islamic worlds that will pay huge dividends for us.We have to know the cast of characters, not just the national politicalleaders and their leading opponents, but the clerics, the tribal andclan leaders. We get criticized for our arrogance, but it's ourignorance that's killing us.

As for the underlying dispute between Sunnis and Shiites that's beengoing on for fourteen hundred years, we don't have a dog in that fight.Our enemy is Islamic extremism in all its guises. The Saudis want us tosupport extremist Sunni groups to counter growing Iranian influence.The Saudis assure us that they can control these groups and keep themfrom turning against us. We saw how well that turned out with Al Qaeda.I will support moderates, not extremists, with no favoring of Sunnis orShiites.

The long-term solution to terror is to empower moderates in theregion. My goal in the Middle and Near East is to correctly calibrate acourse between maintaining stability and promoting democracy. It'sself-defeating to try to accomplish too much too soon, you just haveelections where extremists win, but it's equally self-defeating to donothing. First, we have to destroy the terrorists who already exist,then we have to attack the underlying conditions that breed terror, bycreating schools that offer an alternative to the extremist madrassasthat take impressionable children and turn them into killers, bycreating jobs and opportunity and hope, by encouraging a free press andother institutions that promote democracy. The recent rising appeal ofAl Qaeda across North Africa - Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia - shows why wehave to do better in the war of ideas - and soon.

In the past, we've been constrained from helping some of the goodguys because our dependence on oil has forced us to support repressiveregimes, to conduct our foreign policy with one hand tied behind ourback. It's time, it's past time, to untie that hand and reach out tothe moderates with both hands. Oil has not just shaped our foreignpolicy, it has deformed it. When I make foreign policy, I want to beable to treat Saudi Arabia the same way I treat Sweden, and thatrequires us to be energy independent. These folks have had us over abarrel - literally - for way too long. The first thing I will do asPresident is send Congress my comprehensive plan for energyindependence. We will achieve energy independence by the end of mysecond term. We will explore, we will conserve, and we will pursue allavenues of alternative energy - nuclear, wind, solar, hydrogen, cleancoal, biodiesel, and biomass.

If I ever have to undertake a large invasion, I will follow thePowell Doctrine and use overwhelming force. The notion of an"occupation with a light footprint" that was our paradigm for Iraqalways struck me as a contradiction in terms. Liberating a country andoccupying it are two different missions. Occupation inevitably demandsa lot of boots on the ground. Instead of marginalizing General Shinsekiwhen he said we needed several hundred thousand troops for Iraq, Iwould have met privately with him and carefully weighed his advice andhis underlying analysis.

Our current armed forces aren't large enough - we have been relyingfar too heavily on our National Guard and our Reserves, we have wornthem out. When our enemies know that we are spread thin, they're moreapt to test us by provoking a crisis. Having a sizeable standing armyactually makes it less likely that we'll have to use it. So I willincrease the defense budget. We have to be ready to fight bothconventional and unconventional wars against both state and non-stateenemies. Right now we spend about 3.9% of our GDP on defense, while wespent about 6% in 1986 under President Reagan. I would return to that6% level. I believe we can do this without raising taxes. I will limitincreases in other discretionary spending and rely on the normalincrease in federal tax revenue that is generated annually asAmericans' incomes rise.

Crises arise suddenly and unpredictably, and no one has the databasefor every possible scenario. What we have to evaluate is the strengthof a leader's operating system, because if that's sound, he can alwaysadd the data. I'll be an effective commander in chief because I haveexecutive experience and crisis management experience. My record asGovernor shows that I'm intellectually curious, a quick study, and havesound judgment. I will get advice from a broad circle with differingperspectives and portfolios; encourage dissent and stay out of thebubble; refuse to wilt under criticism, but also be flexible and readyto change course if a policy isn't working. I will communicate myrationale for our foreign and defense policies clearly and frequentlyto Congress and to the American people.