Here's a radical thought on national security:

National Security policy that ISN'T focused on the military or counterterrorism.

The product of a left-wing think tank?

That's what I would have expected.

But the authors of the study? A US Navy Captain and a Marine Lt. Colonel!

From the paper:

"We cannot isolate our own prosperity and security from the global system. Even in a land as rich as ours, we too, have seen the gradual breakdown of rural communities and the rapid expansion of our cities. We have experienced migration, crime, and domestic terrorism. We struggle with joblessness and despite a low rate of illiteracy, we are losing our traditional role of innovation dominance in leading edge technologies and the sciences. We are, in the truest sense, part of an interdependent strategic ecosystem, and our interests converge with those of people in virtually every corner of the world. We must remain cognizant of this, and reconcile our domestic and foreign policies as being complementary and largely congruent."

These officers are suggesting that the stronger the US is at home, the stronger it is abroad. And they're exactly right. We need to focus on education, infrastucture improvement, etc. in order to keep our position as Top Dog.

Such we are, despite the alarm bells being rung by the declinists. Those bells have been effective - 47% of Americans believe China is the world's #1 economy, according to a National Journal poll conducted last year.

That's not even close.

Today the U.S. economy is still 2 1/2 times larger than the Chinese economy with only 1/6 of the population. Their per capita GDP is 1/20 of ours. And they're not going to be putting the screws to us over our debt anytime soon, either - we are, by FAR, their #1 export customer - they try to destroy our economy, theirs goes down the drain first!

This is one of the reasons I lean to the left - most conservatives have far too simplistic a worldview, and fail to take into accouint the complexity of the modern world.