WASHINGTON, D.C. – In its latest edition, The Ripon Forum examines some of the foreign policy challenges America faces on other fronts in the war on terror and elsewhere around the world.

The April/May 2007 edition of the journal features a cover story written by U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, one of the Nation’s leading thinkers on national security policy.  In his article, Thornberry warns that the United States remains unprepared to do battle on fronts that do not require the use of our Armed Forces.

“Clearly,” Thornberry writes, “the military is an essential tool to help achieve our national objectives.  But it is not the right one to answer all of the challenges we face on the global stage. If the military is the only federal organization that can perform when called upon, we may be in danger of living out the old saying, ‘If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.’”

Other authors contributing pieces on U.S foreign policy in the April/May edition of the Forum include:

• Joshua Muravchik, of the American Enterprise Institute – writing about the future of the United Nations;
• David Schenker, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy – writing about the Middle East region;
• Carl Minzner, of the Council of Foreign Relations – writing about the rise of China.
• Daniel A. Pinkston, of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies – writing about the continuing defiance of North Korea.
• Cynthia J. Arnson, of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars – writing about the political shift to the left in Latin America; and,
• Herman J. Cohen, former Ambassador to Senegal – writing about the growing importance of Africa in U.S. foreign policy.

The April/May edition of the Forum also features Secretaries of State Sam Reed (R-WA) and Deb Markowitz (D-VT) writing about a bipartisan plan to change the way the Nation picks a president by establishing a regional primary system in the United States.

David Beasley, the former Governor of South Carolina and current head of a rural health care commission for the Bush Administration, provides a report on the state of health care in rural America today, while Pennsylvania Congressman Charlie Dentand Florida Congresswoman Ginny Brown-Waite write about their efforts, respectively, to increase the use of alternative fuels and improve care for America’s veterans.

With tax filing season upon us, the April/May edition of the Forum also includes a debate over whether Americans are overtaxed with Robert Greenstein, the Executive Director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and Ernie Christian, the Executive Director of the Center for Strategic Tax Reform.

And featured in this month’s Ripon Profile is California Congressman Kevin McCarthy (CA-22).

The Ripon Forum is a journal of political thought and opinion that was first published in 1965 and is now published bimonthly by the Ripon Society.  The Ripon Society is a public policy organization that was founded in 1962 and takes its name from the town where the Republican Party was born in 1854 — Ripon, Wisconsin.

One of the main goals of the Ripon Society is to promote the ideas and principles that have made the GOP — and America — great.  These ideas include keeping our nation secure, keeping taxes low and having a federal government that is smaller, smarter and more accountable to the people.

For more information on the Ripon Society and to view the February/March issue of The Ripon Forum, please visit https://riponsociety.org.