Food For Thought

A recent intelligence forecast being prepared for the next president should actually inform Americans who that president should be. The article referencing the forecast and its conclusions is at - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/09/AR2008090903302.html

...but it envisions a "steady decline in U.S. dominance in the coming decades, as the world is reshaped by globalization, battered by climate change and destabalized by regional upheavals over shortages of food, water and energy." It also predicts that the one key area of continued U.S. superiority - military power - will "be the least significant" asset in the increasingly competitive world of the future because "nobody is going to attack us with massive conventional force."

This is a reality check to all those Americans who continue to believe that American swagger and military bravado are possible -- or even useful. Furthermore, it should inform voters in the upcoming election that the qualities of the next president should rely less on his role as commander-in-chief and more on his diplomatic skills in a world where the U.S. must share a leadership role with other nations with whom we have mutual economic dependencies. Americans continue to place too much stock in the military role - based on irresponsible fear mongering - when the real threats and challenges are economic.