Clean Break Memo
Also known as: A Clean Break · Clean Break
Summary
A 1996 policy memorandum outlining the structural containment of hostile states, authored for Benjamin Netanyahu.
Definition
'A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm' (1996) is a policy memorandum authored by Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser for then-Prime Ministerial candidate Benjamin Netanyahu. It outlines the structural containment and border realignment of hostile states, creating the modern blueprint for the network's geopolitical strategy.
Background & History
'A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm' is a 1996 policy memorandum authored by Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser for then-Prime Ministerial candidate Benjamin Netanyahu. The document was prepared by the Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000, convened at the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies. It outlined a strategic vision for Israel that rejected the Oslo Accords framework in favor of structural containment and border realignment of hostile states including Iraq, Syria, and Iran.
Operational Role in the Network
The Clean Break Memo functions as the foundational strategic blueprint for the network's geopolitical strategy, establishing the doctrine of structural containment of hostile states that has guided decades of policy advocacy. Its recommendations—including regime change in Iraq, containment of Syria, and confrontation with Iran—were subsequently pursued through neoconservative think tanks including FDD and the Hudson Institute, and were partially realized in the 2003 Iraq invasion. The memo created the intellectual framework that connects Israeli strategic objectives to U.S. military and foreign policy action.
Documented Actions & Evidence
Authoring of A Clean Break memorandum
Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser authored the policy memorandum for Benjamin Netanyahu's prime ministerial campaign, outlining a strategy of structural containment and border realignment of hostile states including Iraq, Syria, and Iran, and rejection of the Oslo Accords framework.
Iraq invasion as partial implementation
The regime change in Iraq recommended in the Clean Break memo was partially implemented through the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, with several memo authors and associates occupying key positions in the Bush administration's defense and policy apparatus.
Aliases & Alternative Names
PDF Source Verification
Direct page-level links to primary source documents referencing this term:
Referenced In
This entity is discussed in the following investigation pages: