Before joining the Bush administration, Wolfowitz was the dean of the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, the DC-based graduate school that has been home to a number of key neocon figures, including Gary Schmitt of the Project for the New American Century and the Defense Policy Board's Eliot Cohen.
In 1992, while he was Cheney's undersecretary of defense for policy, Wolfowitz was charged with producing a guidance aimed at formulating a post-Cold war defense posture. Upset by President H.W. Bush's decision to leave Saddam Hussein's regime in place after the 1991 Gulf War, Wolfowitz--along with I. Lewis Libby--argued in a draft version of the Defense Policy Guidance that the U.S. should actively deter nations from "aspiring to a larger regional or global role," use pre-emptive force to prevent countries from developing weapons of mass destruction, and act alone if necessary. Although the draft guidance was quashed soon after it was leaked to the New York Times, many of its ideas--in particular, the doctrine of pre-emption--later found their way into President George W. Bush's national security strategy. The document also seems to have served as a template for the founding statement of principles of the Project for a New American Century, which was signed by a who's who list of hawks and neocons who now serve in the current administration, including Cheney, Libby, Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Elliott Abrams, Peter Rodman and Zalmay Khalilzad.
At the World Bank, Mr. Wolfowitz will be dealing not with tank divisions and theories of deterrence but rather with using America’s “soft power” to tackle poverty. Two well-known development economists, Jeffrey Sachs and Joseph Stiglitz, have bemoaned his nomination, as have the world's aid agencies. But Mr Wolfowitz's lack of experience in the development community does not necessarily make him a bad candidate....................
