Setting National Security Priorities

The goal of our national security strategy-by definition-is to guarantee the safety and well-being of American citizens. In practice, this term implies courting our allies, closely monitoring possible adversaries, and maintaining a strong military in case anything should ever go wrong.

The U.S. now has the most powerful, best-equipped armed forces in the world and the capacity to destroy the entire Korean peninsula while the first North Korean missile would still be en route to the American continent. Presently, there is no way to intercept such a missile in flight before hitting the U.S., but I am pretty confident that North Korea's leader would not want to see South Korea become an island before his own missile ever reaches its target. In this regard, I feel pretty safe in the U.S.

However, there's more to national security than preventing North Korean missiles from shortening Long Island. Guaranteeing the security of every American citizen also involves making sure that the New York City subway system does not fall victim to a similar attack to Tokyo's sarin gas tragedy in 1995. For such terrorist attacks, a strategic national security response is much less clear-cut. After the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the U.S. military reacted with missile attacks in Afghanistan and the Sudan-by some considered terrorist acts in themselves. Not surprisingly, the reaction to the USS Cole attack in Yemen was much less drastic. In this case, the U.S. is trusting in the Yemen court system to punish the alleged terrorists.

But there is yet another dimension to national security. Last summer's West Nile virus outbreak in New York City extending up to Boston was also a situation putting the life of American citizens at risk. Luckily, the virus could be contained and the death toll was relatively low. But it could have easily become a serious tragedy as it did in Israel, where the same virus caused 30 deaths throughout the summer. For such a threat to national security, the military is a decidedly unsuitable candidate to call for help.

The list of non-military threats to the well-being of American citizens goes on. A recent report by the bipartisan Commission on America's National Interests cited that ensuring the viability and stability of major global systems, such as the environment, was vital to national self-interest. Madeleine Albright recently declared AIDS a threat to U.S. national security. Both decisions were well-substantiated. Environmental problems can either directly affect the well-being of Americans or act indirectly by destabilizing foreign regions, posing a potential threat to the U.S. The same reasoning applies to public health problems, with the AIDS pandemic being an obvious example.

Yet, president-elect George W. Bush's choice for his foreign policy advisor, Condoleezza Rice, and his pick to head the State department, General Colin L. Powell, have shown little or no interest in national security issues beyond military deployments, and even these limited only to certain types of engagements.

National security is much more than "fighting and winning wars for the U.S.," as Bush put it during his campaign. When announcing his choice for Energy Secretary, he acknowledged that "our national security depends on energy security." Let's hope that this statement was not merely a call for drilling oil in the Alaskan wildlife refuge and a justification for the enormous U.S. military presence in the Middle East, but also a sign that Bush and his foreign policy team are dedicated to branching out even more and expanding their definition of national security.

While touring the State department, Powell showed a particular interest in Africa. It might be a long shot to expect the Bush administration to classify another epidemic or even an environmental problem like global warming as security threats to the U.S., but we can always hope. Perhaps Powell at least realizes that AIDS poses an enormous problem on the African continent, destabilizing entire regions, and that he should therefore uphold Albright's decision to call it a threat to national security.