"This is not an abstract planning exercise that goes into a report and sits on a shelf," she said. "It's a planning exercise that does connect to the budget, that's very important, but the implications go far beyond the budget. The budget is the tool to implement what we're going to come up with. This is really what I think secretaries of state should be doing, which is a kind of farsighted look into how the United States is going to implement its foreign policy agenda in the 21st century."

Perhaps the best explanation of Slaughter's international relations viewis that she believes in a "values-based" foreign policy. In her book The Idea that is America, Slaughter outlined the seven values that she says define the idea of the U.S. These include liberty, democracy, equality, justice, tolerance, humility and faith. In order to restore America to a place of prominence in the world, Slaughter argues that we must recommit to these values publically in order to win the support of international allies.

"There is a real perception in the world that we don't stand for our values, that we talk a good game, but we're not prepared to actually live up to what we say we stand for," she told Charlie Rose in 2007.

Democracy

Slaughter imagines America's liberal democracy broadly. "Yes, it means elections, but it means institutions that check power; it means accountable government; it means rights regarding government," she said in 2007. "All those things go together." In this context, she has said the U.S. can oppose democratically-elected leaders, like Hamas, which doesn't provide its followers with minority rights and a balanced government.

Terrorism

While Slaughter sees terrorism as a major threat, she believes that classifying it as the number-one danger facing America makes little sense. "Terrorism is a big problem, but so are nuclear weapons. So are things like climate change and bird flu. We've got plenty of threats," she said in 2007. "We ought to take them really seriously, but they [terrorists] are not the defining threat of our time."

She also argues that exaggerating the threat plays into terrorists hands by elevating attacks to the status of a holy war. She writes that terrorism must be attacked though a combination of criminal law, intelligence and special operations.

National Security

Slaughter launched the Princeton Project on National Security, which aimed at developing a new, bipartisan U.S. national security strategy. The report concluded that in order to secure the homeland and improve the global economy, America must do six things. The country must integrate hard and soft power; build frameworks of common interests, not common threats; develop a hopeful, not fearful vision for the future; adapt to the information age; help other governments strengthen their domestic capacity, integrity and accountability; and develop multi-dimensional approaches to the world's problems.

She has called on the U.S. to support the International Criminal Court and the closing of Guantanamo Bay prison.

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