America’s Strategic Poker Face
America’s Strategic Poker Face – Michael Gerson, Washington Post opinion.
… It is commonplace to assert that there are economic foundations of national power. It is shameless to use a national security document to advance a debatable domestic agenda that shows scant understanding of how economies actually grow stronger. And it is doubly shameless – naked-on-a-downtown-bus shameless – for this administration to assert “responsible management of our federal budget” as a national security priority.
In most areas, the 2010 NSS expresses unobjectionable continuity. America frowns on nuclear proliferation. America likes democracy. America will act along with its allies — except when it needs to act alone. Portions of the document are admirable, especially its emphasis on the promotion of development and global health as instruments of national influence. But it is not surprising that nearly everyone can find something to like in the NSS, since it reads like a State of the Union without space constraints. “The United States is an Arctic nation,” we are informed, “with broad and fundamental interests in the Arctic region.”
Much that is old in the NSS is obvious. Much that is new is not actually new. The contention that health entitlements, infrastructure construction and education spending are really national security priorities is a repolished version of an argument made for decades on the isolationist left. “How many schools could we build for the price of an aircraft carrier?” has become the claim that domestic spending is the national security equivalent of building an aircraft carrier…
More at The Washington Post.
National Security Strategy – White House Web Page
Labels lose their utility when they are applied to everything. I suppose that one can rationalize an explanation for why education, infrastructure, and carbon emissions are elements of national security. But that begs the question of, What is not an element of national security?
This is not leadership. This is a lumping of all initiatives under the guise of national security. National security is a salient issue in the minds of voters, so wrapping the issues in the label of national security lends credibility to those initiatives. That is salesmanship, not leadership. This document essentially lays out promises to build bridges, but it is really little more than an offer to sell us some bridges.
I agree with Schmedlap concerning the latest National Security Strategy. One, it lacks strategy; and two, much is included that lacks the qualification to be listed as critical elements of national security.
It seems the more we wallow in the feel good/pie in the sky aspects of national security issues, of which measurable results are very subjective, the more we risk being widely off the mark and set ourselves up for the next strategic surprise.
This NSS is nothing but a guise to subtly tuck in the administrations domestic agenda under the always high-priority pedestal given to our nations security. Unfortunately, this will probably sell well with the current Congress and Executive Branch as well as with much of the population.
Gerson not only points out the desires of a group he calls the isolationist left, but also shreds light on a frame of thought that is carried by leftists with a global linkage. This is a resurgence of the “think globally, act locally” crowd. In my book the NSS document only reflects this global leftist bent.
We see in the 2010 document a not so subtle articulation of what the “multilateral fora” would define security as, in contrast to the defintion we have seen previously within “the-dreaded-Washington-consensus” security literature. Obviously there is a broad chasm between the two.
Having sat through a few interagency/NGO round table discussions concerning “security” issues, I was amazed at the number of issues that would be wrapped in the cloak of “national security” or rather “global security.” Issues such as womens’ reproductive rights, child labor, and why the USA operates both nationaly and internationally under a different set of rules made for many moments that made you go “Hmmmmmmmm.”
Schedlap is correct, and more to the point, this document could be read as an abrogation of leadership.
Shameless self-promotion, I know, but Gerson says basically the same thing I did last week (in less politic fashion).
Gulliver’s critique of the NSS is the best I’ve seen. I shared it with many of my State colleagues.
Agree, kudos to Gulliver.
It was interesting, thanks
It was interesting, thanks