The Obama administration's decision to preview its National Security Strategy at West Point highlighted its coverage of security crises from Afghanistan to North Korea. But back-to-back events at Brookings with Hillary Clinton and Samantha Power today showed that the core of the strategy is a deeper argument about the central challenge confronting America -- the increased impact on our economy and security of a new global reality.

For two decades, the United States could take economic and security supremacy for granted. Three things have changed.

First, the global economic boom. Yes, boom -- remember? Before the crash, there were two decades of uninterrupted growth in the global economy, global trade, and global financial activity. The U.S. profited, but so too did China, India and Brazil, which grew into major economic players; so did several others, like Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey, which have emerged as the new middle powers.

Second, the Iraq war. Love or loath U.S. policy in Iraq, it launched us into sustained expenditure of financial and military resources alongside another draining war in Afghanistan. In the minds of the Vulcans, decisive U.S. victory in Iraq was to assert global order by force of -- well, force. The strategy backfired, and rising states from Ankara to Brasilia found few, if any, costs to opposing U.S. strategy in the Middle East -- and domestic political points to be won. The Obama administration is feeling the consequences in its Iran policy.

Third, the global financial crisis. The bust, when it came, reaffirmed the centrality of the U.S. in the short term. But it also showcased the growing weight of the emerging economies, which now lead the global recovery. Before Lehman Brothers collapsed, other big players may have disliked our Middle East policy, but they banked -- figuratively and literally -- on our stewardship of the global financial system. Since then, doubts have crept in, and a new assertiveness to match.

The net result is rising global influence and solidifying regional power for China, India, and Brazil -- and less room for maneuver for the US.

The administration will be criticized in predictable terms from predictable quarters for acknowledging any of this, even in tacit terms: for 'giving ground' to the emerging powers, for 'ceding' American supremacy, for forgetting to carry a big stick while talking softly. But that dog won't hunt. The Bush administration had begun to adapt to these changed realities towards the end of its tenure, and the Obama administration deserves credit for putting the new global realities front and center in its assessment of U.S. national strategy. The core concepts of revitalizing international order, pressing others to take up their responsibilities and working within, not against, multilateral arrangements are the right ones.

The tougher question is, will it work? Skeptics will point to Chinese heel-dragging and Brazilian gallivanting on Iran to say no. Optimists will point to Chinese cooperation on the financial crisis, and everybody's cooperation on Somali piracy and counter-terrorism, to say yes.

The reality is, we don't know. There's a struggle in Beijing between betting on cooperation with the US, and those who seek sharper competition. A pro-U.S. strategy in India has the high ground for now, but divisions remain. The better angels in Brazil's foreign ministry can't quite hold back Lula's dalliance with global populism -- an October election there may tilt the balance.

But we know this much: if the U.S. doesn't try, no one will succeed. None of the emerging powers can underwrite stability, and none that are serious want the job. The emerging powers may not play ball, and if so, we'll be in a lose-lose global game. But only U.S. strategy can pull us into win-win, and the Administration is right to try. Making this point to the American people won't be popular; but reality is reality, and denial does not a strategy make.

Thirteen fellows, including three first-time Stanton Nuclear Security Fellows, will be in residence at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) during the 2010-2011 academic year.

Fellows and their research topics include:

• Alexander Betts, a post-doc from Oxford University. "Global Migration Governance: Multiple and Contested Institutions."
• Edward Blandford, a post-doc from the University of California at Berkeley. "Scaling of Hierarchical Engineered Systems."
• David Blum, a Stanford pre-doctoral candidate. "Probabilistic Early Warning Systems for National Security Crises."
• John Downer, a post-doc from the London School of Economics. "Administering Aircraft: The Security Implications of Technological Ecosystems." Zukerman Fellow.
• Matthias Englert, post-doc, CISAC. "Managing the Proliferations Risks of Gas Centrifuges-Analysis in View of Possible Solutions."
• Katherine D. Marvel, post-doc, CISAC. "Understanding the Regional Consequences of Global Climate Change" and "Game Changers for Nuclear Energy."
• Aila Matanock, a Stanford pre-doctoral candidate. "Reformed or Reconfigured? Explaining why Militant Groups Participate in Elections."
• Brenna M. Powell, pre-doc from Harvard. "Normalizing Security after Conflict: Jobs for the Boys and Justice for the Hoods."
• Jan M. Stupl, post-doc, CISAC. "Controlling the Spread of Ballistic Missiles."
• Michael Sulmeyer, D.Phil candidate, Oxford University; law student, Stanford Law School; teaching assistant for CISAC Honors Program. "Weapons under Fire: Terminating Major Weapons Contracts for the U.S. Military."

Stanton Nuclear Security Fellows and their research areas include:

• Anne Harrington de Santana, a post-doc from the University of Chicago. "The Fetishism of Force: Nuclear Weapons as a Currency of Power."
• Gaurav Kampani, a Cornell pre-doctoral candidate. "The Weaponization Paradox: Why some Emerging Nuclear Weapons Powers Delay Building Operational Forces."
• Riqiang Wu, a pre-doc from Tsinghua University in China. "How to Establish and Maintain an Asymmetric Deterrence: China-U.S. Strategic Relations."

Article Highlights: 

• A recent model reveals that sheltering could save tens of thousands of lives after a nuclear terrorist attack in a large city such as Washington, D.C.

• However, as a society, we have largely forgotten about the importance of sheltering--a mainstay of Cold War-era civil defense training.

• That's why it's incumbent upon the federal government to immediately start a comprehensive public education campaign about the benefits of sheltering during a nuclear terrorist attack.

Of the 15 terrorism and natural disaster scenarios used by the Department of Homeland Security for planning purposes, the first scenario is the most feared: Terrorists detonate a 10-kiloton improvised nuclear device at ground level in the National Mall in Washington at 10 a.m. on a weekday morning.

In an attempt to understand what can be done to mitigate the consequences of such an attack, I, along with Stanford graduate students Sylvie Denuit and Youngsoo Choi, constructed a detailed mathematical model of this scenario that includes the initial effects of the detonation, the radiation fallout in subsequent days, the traffic flow of vehicles exiting the city, and the behavioral responses with respect to shelter versus evacuation. (Our full study will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Risk Analysis.)

The results are on the order of what happened in Hiroshima nearly 65 years ago: Approximately 80,000 people would die from the immediate effects of the blast and heat and the radiation generated in the first minute. (These numbers are rough estimates and depend upon a number of irreducible factors, including the precise weather conditions.) Additionally, fallout--radioactive material carried by the explosive force and prevailing winds for up to 20 miles--would kill 20,000-40,000 pedestrians (i.e., commuters and residents without access to a vehicle) and 20,000-60,000 people in vehicles. The lower range represents the case in which most people shelter in basements or large buildings (office or residential) for 12-24 hours after the blast; the upper range represents the case in which most people attempt to immediately evacuate (by foot or vehicle).

These 60,000 saved lives far exceed the number of lives that would be saved in our model by medical care. Transfusion support and antibiotics obviously have the potential to save many lives, but such care will be practically impossible in the aftermath of a nuclear terror attack.

More to the point, as a society, we have forgotten about the importance of sheltering--a mainstay of Cold War-era civil defense training. This is partly because there isn't a scientific consensus on the shelter versus evacuation decision. Recommendations range from "evacuate if you can do it quickly" to "everyone shelter-in-place." Subtler strategies include "shelter unless you're in an area that will receive a potentially lethal dose of radiation" and "evacuate if your shelter isn't very good and you can rapidly get away from the plume."

Our analysis suggests that there is only a tiny fraction of people who would be better off by evacuating. And we should note that these people won't know who they are when the decision about evacuation needs to be made. Accurate plume information--the cloud can be irregularly shaped due to different wind directions at different altitudes--and travel-time estimates won't be available, and the ability for the government to communicate to those impacted by the attack will be extremely limited, perhaps restricted to battery-powered radios.

And even if the information and communication were perfect, historical data suggests that citizen compliance to a government-managed evacuation would be far from perfect. Although just 3,500 people within a 5-mile radius of Three Mile Island were told to evacuate when the plant melted down in 1979, 200,000 people within a 25-mile radius actually evacuated. Further, a 2007 survey found that the self-evacuation after a dirty bomb attack would be 65 percent in the absence of government advice and 39 percent if the government advised against evacuation. Moreover, our traffic-flow calculations suggest that even if a small percentage of those who aren't supposed to evacuate do so anyway, all of the evacuees will be stuck in traffic jams and therefore, exposed to much more radiation, especially because vehicles provide almost no protection from fallout.

Thus, the only robust strategy is to advise everyone to shelter.

To start implementing such a planned response, the government must first relinquish control of consequence management to our citizenry and then initiate an aggressive public-education campaign. The irony is that U.S. government websites currently contain excellent advice--including "everyone should shelter"--but they have neglected to tell people about them. Consequently, Homeland Security needs to get its message out creatively (how about Kiefer Sutherland, a.k.a. Jack Bauer, as the department's primary spokesman?); simply ("stay indoors for 12-24 hours"); and broadly (ask companies near large cities to have simple sheltering strategies).

The cost for such an educational campaign would surely be less than what we spend on other catastrophic terror threats ($877 million contract for an anthrax vaccine). The bottom line: The public must be educated about this issue now, because it's a lesson we don't want to learn from experience.