The Woodrow Wilson Center has just published A National Strategic Narrative, which should be required reading for any serious contender for national public office. Published under the pseudonym "Mr. Y," evoking George Kennan's 1947 "Mr. X" essay The Sources of Soviet Conduct , the piece argues that in our new interconnected global system the United States must invest less in defense and more in sustainable prosperity and renewed global engagement.
No kidding, right? Except Mr. Y is actually two of Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen's top strategic thinkers, Captain Wayne Porter, USN and Colonel Mark Mykleby, USMC. This really shouldn't be a surprise. Many of the Pentagon's best thinkers have long maintained that old systems of fear-based containment - be they focused on Communism or Terrorism - are calcifying in the face of today's Internet-accelerated, asynchronous, and sometimes-unpredictable open systems. Indeed, both Mullen and Defense Secretary Gates have delivered major speeches on the need to demilitarize U.S. foreign policy. Amen! The problem is politicians and large defense contractors who insist on their big fat slabs of pork in the form of expensive and even needless weapons systems designed to fight the last war; platforms that Gates, Mullen, and many of our top warriors say they don't need and don't want.
Porter and Mykleby urge Americans to compete on innovation and trade with a renewed willingness to invest in education, infrastructure, and alternative energy sources. Yes, they fully understand that our deficit and debt addiction is our greatest national security threat. They realize, however, that reducing the deficit has much to do with appropriately calibrated withdrawals from the $3 trillion Afghanistan and Iraq forays, reductions in gold-plated weapons systems that are unneeded and unwanted by so many people in uniform, and wise, serious restructuring of entitlements.
What they and most thinking people "get," but that otherwise eludes too many politicians and pundits, is that deficit and debt reduction cannot come at the expense of addressing our second and third most serious national security challenges - energy and education. We do need to walk and chew gum at the same time. Seriously, can there be any doubt that finding alternative sources of energy for a post-oil world and ridding ourselves of reliance on the likes of Saudi Arabia is a more serious existential challenge than terrorism? Can there be any questioning that our broken K-12 mediocracy is more of a clear and present danger than terrorism? No!
Besides, how should a proud and patriotic American feel about this country spending more on defense - in what has become something of a national security state - than the rest of the world combined and at a time of untenable deficits? Well, I feel that something is very wrong. It's made so much worse by any media focus whatsoever on clowns like Bachmann, Palin, Gingrich, Trump and even Huckabee and Santorum. Mullen, Porter and Mykleby are real leaders and they are showing us the way? Will we listen?
p.s. Captain Williams and I served for a week with Admiral Mullen in the mid-90s. You'd be hard pressed to find a better leader and Naval officer, whose well-deserved retirement from service later this year is nonetheless making me squeamish.
No kidding, right? Except Mr. Y is actually two of Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen's top strategic thinkers, Captain Wayne Porter, USN and Colonel Mark Mykleby, USMC. This really shouldn't be a surprise. Many of the Pentagon's best thinkers have long maintained that old systems of fear-based containment - be they focused on Communism or Terrorism - are calcifying in the face of today's Internet-accelerated, asynchronous, and sometimes-unpredictable open systems. Indeed, both Mullen and Defense Secretary Gates have delivered major speeches on the need to demilitarize U.S. foreign policy. Amen! The problem is politicians and large defense contractors who insist on their big fat slabs of pork in the form of expensive and even needless weapons systems designed to fight the last war; platforms that Gates, Mullen, and many of our top warriors say they don't need and don't want.
Porter and Mykleby urge Americans to compete on innovation and trade with a renewed willingness to invest in education, infrastructure, and alternative energy sources. Yes, they fully understand that our deficit and debt addiction is our greatest national security threat. They realize, however, that reducing the deficit has much to do with appropriately calibrated withdrawals from the $3 trillion Afghanistan and Iraq forays, reductions in gold-plated weapons systems that are unneeded and unwanted by so many people in uniform, and wise, serious restructuring of entitlements.
What they and most thinking people "get," but that otherwise eludes too many politicians and pundits, is that deficit and debt reduction cannot come at the expense of addressing our second and third most serious national security challenges - energy and education. We do need to walk and chew gum at the same time. Seriously, can there be any doubt that finding alternative sources of energy for a post-oil world and ridding ourselves of reliance on the likes of Saudi Arabia is a more serious existential challenge than terrorism? Can there be any questioning that our broken K-12 mediocracy is more of a clear and present danger than terrorism? No!
Besides, how should a proud and patriotic American feel about this country spending more on defense - in what has become something of a national security state - than the rest of the world combined and at a time of untenable deficits? Well, I feel that something is very wrong. It's made so much worse by any media focus whatsoever on clowns like Bachmann, Palin, Gingrich, Trump and even Huckabee and Santorum. Mullen, Porter and Mykleby are real leaders and they are showing us the way? Will we listen?
p.s. Captain Williams and I served for a week with Admiral Mullen in the mid-90s. You'd be hard pressed to find a better leader and Naval officer, whose well-deserved retirement from service later this year is nonetheless making me squeamish.