It's more than you think.
Since 9/11, national security has figured prominently in the national psyche, the media, and our stated government policies. But it is not always obvious what “national security” really means. Unfortunately, the greatly intensified focus in the last seven years has almost exclusively involved trying to protect our territory from foreign threats by – for example – implementing more stringent border controls, increasing the government’s powers of surveillance, strengthening security at airports, and launching a “pre-emptive” war in a stated attempt to take the fight to the terrorists abroad. Leaving aside any discussion on whether these measures are good or effective, one consequence of this intense security focus on foreign threats is that it has detracted greatly – in terms of attention and resources – from domestic policy, to the detriment of the public good. It seems that sometimes we forget that our domestic health, too, is a matter of national security.
In what does national security consist? Ten years ago I had the great fortune to study under Professor Frank Teti at the Naval Postgraduate School. He impressed upon his students the concept that effective national security requires far more than simply securing a nation’s borders, and the instruments of national security consist of far more than simply the State Department, intelligence agencies, military, Border Patrol and law enforcement. Those are important, but what if, he challenged us, your own population is not healthy? Not educated? Not economically secure? What if your infrastructure is unsound? These things, too, are a threat to the well-being of the nation, and even its future – in short, its security. Even if a country could succeed in insulating itself from all foreign threats, it still would have a plethora of domestic threats to manage. It is a mistake to limit our definition of “domestic threats” to the Ted Kaczynskis or Timothy McVeighs of the world, or even more damaging threats like insurgencies.
A big part of responsible government is to promote an environment in which the maximum possible proportion of its citizens can secure their own futures in terms of housing, education, health care, and financial solvency. A secure citizenry will in turn tend to secure the nation through a strong economy, high levels of employment which create a strong tax base, a healthy pool of young people capable of serving in the Armed Forces, and a well-educated populace capable of thinking critically, solving problems, creating jobs, establishing businesses, and discovering and producing advanced technologies and bringing them to market. These are some of the basic ingredients that make a nation strong and that a government can draw upon to establish and implement sound national policies in both the domestic and international arenas.
Unfortunately, we have significant room for improvement. Third-world nations regularly outshine ours in mathematics, engineering and science. Our lending and investment practices have led to huge credit “bubbles” which are now bursting and sending the housing market and the economy into a decline. Our dependence on fossil fuels – mostly imported – is eating into citizens’ incomes, effectively exporting our wealth to oil-producing states, and contributing further to the economic decline. Many of our top scientists in critical facilities like Los Alamos are foreign-born, and many of our military, financial, and business systems depend on automation components made in China. While globalization has its advantages, we have reached a point of dangerous dependence on the very countries which are our fiercest competitors. Do they depend on us as well? Yes, they do, but that is no guarantee of a balance and only one factor for consideration in our own security. We cannot rely on a comfortable perception of any international partnership to guarantee our future. That is complacency.
I would argue that there is another key ingredient to national security, and that is a sense of civic duty among the general public. A sense of duty is especially important for us, because unlike authoritarian states, we cannot simply order our citizens to move here or there, to study particular topics, or to work in particular jobs. Free nations must rely on their citizens to make right choices which maintain that freedom through strength, and that requires strong leadership by word and action. Unfortunately, the trends of selfishness and blatant materialism in the popular culture have diminished our competence and contributed to our dependency on foreign suppliers of energy, critical technical components, and brainpower. We need to quickly return to a national culture of conservation, hard work, contribution to the national good, and respect for labor and education. If rebuilding our infrastructure and military and getting off of fossil fuels are tactics in a security policy, then rebuilding our citizenry is the overarching enabling strategy.
Thomas L. Friedman of the New York Times recently observed a marked difference between the way that the US has spent the last seven years in responding to a terrorist act, and the way that China has used the last seven years in preparing for the Olympics (“A Biblical Seven Years,” New York Times, 26 August 2008). One can argue that he is to some extent comparing apples and oranges, but the important takeaway is this: state-of-the-art in China’s modern cities is now more advanced than state-of-the-art in the wealthiest parts of the US. Friedman attributes this to “the culmination of seven years of national investment, planning, concentrated state power, national mobilization and hard work… they did not get all this by discovering oil. They got it by digging inside themselves.” It is worth noting here that China is one of our biggest foreign creditors, one of our biggest trading partners, and one of our biggest competitors for oil.
It’s time now for our citizens to dig inside themselves, and that will require strong leadership from our next President. We are long overdue for another leader to inspire the public and instill a sense of duty with the words: “Ask what you can do for your country.”
Copyright R. N. Phillips, 28 August 2008
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