Gates Pushes for Stronger International, Interagency Relationships
USIP's first Dean Acheson Lecture | Few weeks old, but still good...

In closing, I would note that the crisis faced by the West in Dean Acheson’s time was that our erstwhile ally in the bloody victory over the Axis powers wound up in charge of half of Europe. The Marshall Plan and other measures that Acheson and other “wise men” put in place were, to borrow the phrase of historian John Lewis Gaddis, “enlightened counter-measures” designed to contain the Soviet Union, to dissuade those not under its sway from voluntarily choosing Communism, and to give hope to those under the heel of the tyrant.
Enlightened counter-measures we take today will bolster the internal strength of vulnerable states so that they will not harbor violent networks seeking to launch the next attack. So they will not fall prey to ethnic fissures, sectarian conflict, crime, terrorism, national disasters, economic turmoil, and disease – each of which can be every bit as destabilizing as militaries on the march.