Between interest on the debt, unnecessary military systems, unnecessary secret satellites, and a wide variety of subsidies and tax loopholes, we waste $500B/Year.
For lack of good economic intelligence and counterintelligence, and ethics at the top, we forego $500B a year in corporate tax contributions to revenue, import-export pricing and insurance fraud, and lost revenues from bandwidth and federally-controlled properties.
Policy-Intelligence Failure Public is Neither Engaged Nor Informed
Why This Matters
Homeland security--”A Nation’s best defense is an educated citizenry.” (Thomas Jefferson)
Prosperity--the financial value of ethics, trust, strategic culture
Global security--the long-term value of public intelligence to multi-cultural policy initiatives, the best pre-emption is moral.
Pelton on Ground Truth
Most government and media sources have not actually had eyes on target and boots in the local mud
You don’t have to travel to these places to have them affect home front security
We simply are not grasping essential ground truths
Shawcross on Endless Conflict
Peace operations are as complex and difficult as war operations
Humanitarian assistance can create black markets and sustain a conflict
Good will without strength makes things worse
Kaplan on Frontier of Anarchy
History, geography, and traveling third class are vital to true understanding
We are engaged in "a protracted struggle between ourselves and the demons of crime, population pressure, environmental degradation, disease, and culture conflict."
Heidenrich on Genocide
15-18 genocides going on today--scores more over time
Genocide can be forecast and can be prevented
Indifference is murder
Global force needed
Klare on Resource Wars
Energy, Water, Timber, and Minerals will be at the heart of future war
Ethnic conflict and great power disconnects will compound the challenge
In this light, corporations are now belligerents and must be treated as such
de Villiers on Water
It is the average person, not the corporation, that does the most damage
We need a national and global water conservation and replenishment strategy.
Helvarg on Oceans
Oceans more important than Amazon, should be protected
Western economic interests are treating oceans as private mines and private cesspools
Information available from NOAA and UN is not reaching public domain and could help citizen action
Thornton on Industrialized Poison
Need new paradigm for controlling bio-chemical threats to society, one focused on probability of risk instead of permission to kill pending proven risk
“Good science” is code for value-free policy that risks citizens’ long-term health for short-term corporate profit
Garrett on Globalized Disease
Health of our Nation depends on health of other nations
Insurance and doctors have helped kill public health (prevention) in favor of hospitals and antibiotics
We have created resistant forms of disease and may not be able to contain epidemics
Over time strategic culture is more important than arms or money.
Brzezinski on Grand Strategy
Europe, Russia, and Eurasian “stans” are the hearth of 21st century opportunity and threat
Core new players are Turkey and Indonesia
Iran is more stable, and China less of a threat, that conventional wisdom says
Geopolitics more important than technology
Kupchan on Failure of Empire
Strategic cultures resist incoming information and suffer from “adjustment failure”
Foreign internal instability merits rapid intervention with strong economic incentives
Failure to intervene early will lead to emergence of aggressors that are difficult to defeat once out of the box.
Shultz et al on Complexity
“Most policymakers do not fully realize the dynamics of the world we live in.” (Graham Fuller)
History and culture are vital to security policy
Non-military operations are as important as military operations at all times
Cimbala on Friction
Friction is real and is destroying our ability to match ends with means
We don’t have a strategy; we don’t try to understand the strategies of others; we do not have unity of effort across the diplomatic-defense-justice continuum
