Hidden within the many dramas of the early 21st century is a profound question: What does security mean in this new age?
For the better part of a half century of Cold War, security meant containment and deterrence of communism. It was a national security concept pursued almost exclusively by military means. Exactly a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, our central organizing principle of containment of communism was replaced by war on terrorism. Both have the advantage of being bumper-sticker simple.
They also are based on the premise that insecurity is the result of some external threat, justifying a foreign policy of confrontation and a military policy of unilateral intervention. It is no accident that our messianic and utopian goal is to eliminate evil from the world. What greater way can there be to achieve security? It is more than reasonable to assume that, had Sept. 11 never occurred, we would today be in a serious confrontation with China.
But what if security now means more than the elimination of al-Qaeda? What if we eliminate terrorism, in effect “win” the war on terrorism? Would we then feel secure?
The answer is clearly “no.” That is because there are too many new realities creating insecurity. These include proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, globalization, failed and failing states, climate change, pandemic threats, mass south-north migrations, and many others. They share two characteristics: They cannot be solved by military means, and they cannot be solved by one nation – including the United States – by itself.
True security in the early 21st century must include security of our borders, security of livelihood, security of energy, security of the environment, and security of health. Understanding security in this light then requires a completely new look at how it is to be achieved. It requires, at the very least, a much different approach to homeland security, much greater job and retirement security, dramatic reduction of dependence on Persian Gulf oil, serious attention to climate change, and universal health care. And, in light of tragic recent events, security must include protection from domestic mass murderers.
The prize of governance awaits the candidate and the party that raise the standard of public understanding of the nature of security in this new era. Once Americans rise above the traditional military concept of security and broaden its definition, to be secure then requires action on a variety of economic and social fronts. This will not be easy. We are all conditioned by opinion elites to think of “national security” as a special domain for foreign policy and military experts. We view it through threat-based lenses and therefore seek increased troops and weapons to achieve it. That is why our energy policy of reliance on unstable supplies of imports now drives our foreign policy, our economic policy, and our military policy.
Our policy of oil dependence is why we are engaged in the second Persian Gulf war in a decade and why we will continue to fight wars in the Gulf for decades to come. To believe that military intervention is the key to security is to badly miss the point. Were we to become sufficiently independent of Persian Gulf oil, so that our economy could flourish without it, we would liberate our foreign and defense policies, contribute substantially to solving climate change, make our livelihood more secure, liberate resources for education and health, and dramatically increase our sense of genuine security.
Not incidentally, we would also save the lives of future generations of our sons and daughters, and thus bequeath greater security for future generations.
In a perfect world, each candidate for the presidency would be given one mandate: define security in the early 21st century and tell us how we should achieve it. Of course, this notion is nonsense because what really matters is how much money each candidate has raised.
But the first presidential candidate to introduce into the public dialogue a new understanding of security and the means to achieve it will have demonstrated the kind of leadership worthy of election and of governance.
Former U.S. Sen. Gary Hart lives in Kittredge.
