NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release on March 10, 2025
The Robert M. Gates Global Policy Center issues Third Recommendations Report for Rebuilding our National Security and Competitiveness Toolkit
NEWINGTON Va. March 10, 2025 – Assuming the United States can avoid a military conflict with Russia or China, it is apparent that America’s non-military instruments of power – above all, economic ones – will be the primary national security instruments of choice in the years to come. While numerous U.S. presidents have used tariffs for leverage and other purposes, in recent years the go-to coercive economic instrument of choice has been sanctions.
Today, the Robert M. Gates Global Policy Center (GGPC) released its summary report and action plan following our recent third Gates Forum focused on how best to use the U.S. economic toolkit in today’s era of great power rivalry and economic competition with Russia and China.
“America’s economic power proved critical in the Cold War and economics will be so again in the ongoing competition with China and Russia,” said Robert M. Gates. “We need to adapt our geoeconomic toolkit to be more relevant today and to enable us to retain our global leadership throughout the twenty-first century.”
The participants at the third Gates Forum included senior representatives from across the executive branch, bipartisan representation from Congress as well as leaders from business, philanthropy and academia. The host of the forum was Robert M. Gates, who founded GGPC in 2020 and serves as its chairman of the board. The forum’s far-ranging discussions—which covered everything from the role of sanctions and tariffs to export controls and trade policy—were supported by an extensive independent and original research volume that was curated by William & Mary’s Global Research Institute (GRI).
This Gates Forum addressed a core question: What concrete actions can the U.S. take to make our sanctions more effective and to reinvigorate other components of our foreign economic toolkit to advance our many foreign interests, and integrate those tools with our other instruments of national power to compete successfully in today’s complex and ever-changing global security environment?
During the Cold War, the U.S. developed an array of economic tools as well as both formal and informal mechanisms to harness the might of our domestic enterprise and advance our foreign interests. The U.S. effectively integrated our foreign economic policies with our other instruments of power and exercised this power to foster a Free World that outperformed and defeated the communist one. For many years now we have over-relied on sanctions as our most powerful economic weapon. Meanwhile, Russia and China have adapted and fielded new economic capabilities. U.S. policymakers today must have options and the full range of our instruments of national power to compete effectively with Russia and, above all, with China.
The third GGPC summary report
The newest GGPC report identifies sanctions as one area where we can begin to exercise much needed discipline over U.S. economic statecraft. Effective use of sanctions and other economic tools will be vital in the global competitions to come.
This report is neither a distillation of the independent research effort undertaken in support of the third Gates Forum nor is it a consensus document. Rather it provides GGPC’s own recommendations and potential remedies for revitalizing U.S. economic capabilities. Some of the proposals could be implemented unilaterally by the president or secretary of state tomorrow. Other proposals may require organizational enhancements or restructuring; all proposals are meant to address issues which have hampered our competitive global engagement capability. Many of our proposals will require bipartisan action in Congress to implement and they should be a priority consideration in our national security and competitiveness agenda.
About the Robert M. Gates Global Policy Center
The Robert M. Gates Global Policy Center provides a platform for developing nonpartisan solutions to the urgent domestic and international security challenges the United States faces in the 21st century. The center produces concrete, practical recommendations for Congressional and Executive Branch officials of both parties. Under GGPC auspices, different “Gates Forums”—chaired by former Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates—will periodically convene experts, legislators and other senior officials who, informed by cutting-edge research, will debate and develop actionable recommendations designed to garner bipartisan support. GGPC will assist those who design the solutions—Gates Forum conferees and others—to build the consensus required to implement recommended changes.
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For Media Inquiries Contact:
Mike Galloucis,
Director of Strategic Communication, Mike@Gatesglobalpolicy.org