Madeleine Albright is on a mission to educate our next president, the United Nations and the world on just how important it is to stop genocide in its tracks.

The former secretary of state and author of Memo to the President Elect: How We Can Restore America’s Reputation and Leadership, is a co-chair on the Genocide Prevention Task Force. That group has released  “Preventing Genocide – A Blueprint for U.S. Policymakers,” co-authored by former defense secretary and fellow co-chair, William S. Cohen.

“It is basically when civilian groups are attacked and there is the determination to exterminate one group of people for who they are,” Albright said on MSNBC Tuesday morning.

On Tuesday – the 60th anniversary of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which defined “genocide” and calls on all participating countries to prevent and punish the act – Albright and Cohen were heading to U.N. headquarters in New York to present their commission’s final report, which makes the case for why genocide and mass atrocities threaten core American values and national interests, and how the U.S. government can prevent these crimes. It offers 34 recommendations. Click here to read more.

“What we were trying to do in this book is to put a blueprint down and a process so that it would first of all be a high agenda item for the president and in terms of national security and morality and then that there be a group of people designated to be watching all the time, and then certain trigger mechanisms so there would be action,” Albright said.

Although military action is not always preferable as the first response, she said forces should always be trained and prepared to deal with countries or individuals perpetuating mass killings.

One big hurdle that needs to be overcome is to convince U.N. member countries to train their troops to be ready to deal with genocide at the drop of a hat. Many U.N. countries are often reluctant to offer up their troops for peacekeeping or other missions.

“We also are going to have to talk to our allies more and support the U.N. but this is a major problem because you can’t sort of start with a tin cup, asking for troops once genocide has begun. You have to be prepared to do it,” Albright explained. “People do have troops – there’s no question. The question is, whether they train ahead of time, whether they speak the language,” and whether the United Nations puts a mandate out that’s “doable.”

But what will help in this effort is having Hillary Clinton as Barack Obama’s secretary of state, and Susan Rice as his ambassador to the U.N.

“I can also assure you that with Susan Rice as ambassador up there and Hillary Clinton in Washington – they’re a great team, along with [Defense] Secretary [Robert] Gates,” Albright said.