Mr Obama said his new team would bring fresh thinking
The UK should seize on Barack Obama's victory to reshape its national security policy, a think tank says.
A report from the Institute for Public Policy Research says the new president offers the chance for more diplomacy.
It argues that there should be a change of diplomatic strategy on Afghanistan by bringing in partners, such as Iran, Russia, Pakistan and China.
Former defence secretary Lord Robertson has said he believes the PM may create a security minister at cabinet level.
Lord Robertson, who was also secretary general of Nato, told the BBC security was no longer just a matter for the Ministry of Defence, but crossed government departments.
"That necessitates a minister who's in charge of making sure the country is secure given the new vulnerabilities.
"I think the prime minister is certainly looking at that and is worried about the consequences for the country if we don't address the new threats and challenges."
'Devastating threats'
He and Lord Ashdown, the former high representative in Bosnia, co-chaired the commission which produced the cross-party interim report launched earlier.
It projects the world's population will reach 9.2 billion by 2050, with only 1.25 billion people living in developed countries.
Poverty and climate change should be considered in depth when formulating foreign policy, the report says.
It also says that there should be a security minister in the cabinet.
Lord Robertson told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We need to be more proactive diplomatically and to realise that power has shifted from the West to the East.
"We face many potentially devastating threats to our security.
"We need to focus on failed states and see conflicts [developing] before they happen."
Speaking after more than 100 people were killed in attacks in India, Lord Ashdown said: "We need to realise that national structures cannot be effective on their own and we need international structures to make a global campaign [against terrorism]."
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said it believed there was a special need to present "constructive external challenge" to the government on its security agenda.
Its interim report considers:
How the modern world is changing
How these changes threaten global security
How these threats in turn affect the UK
How the government is responding to them
Where the gaps are in the UK's response and how they should be filled
The document proposes the principles that should shape British security policy over the next decade and beyond, and makes some specific policy recommendations.
Among them are calls for new arrangements to deal with bio-security issues, including pandemic disease. It describes current provisions as inadequate.
An IPPR spokesman said: "Over the last 20 years the national and international security environment has changed dramatically.
"The end of the cold war and the horrific attacks of 9/11 are but two developments among many that have signalled the arrival of a new 21st century security landscape.
"New processes and drivers have come to the fore, from globalisation to climate change, and from the growth of political Islam to a more infrastructure reliant society, and now challenge both outdated analytical frameworks and old policy prescriptions."
It also contends that the UK should move to support a nuclear weapon-free world.
The commission says Iran should be stopped from developing nuclear weapons and that nuclear deterrence is no longer a sound basis of security policy.
The UK's long-term goal, it says, should be a nuclear weapon-free world, a goal also talked about by President-elect Obama during his election campaign.
The commission's full report is due to be published in summer 2009.
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