Intelligence services ignore the threat of crumbling infrastructure to our national security and instead prefer to focus on our national debt instead.
After observing the TV broadcast of the Senate Intelligence Committee (on February 13, 2018) as they interviewed the multiple assembled heads of our numerous so-called intelligence agencies, I was sadly disappointed by Director Coates’ list of security threats. He focused on our national debt problem as if it was a major threat. It was a common theme he favored as a Senator. Now he is supposed to be functioning in a different capacity—-providing meaningful “intelligence”. There he failed,
Director Coates, took his audience (of mostly nodding in affirmation Senate heads) through a litany and laundry list of world “hot spots” (according to him) of “concern for our national security”. His presentation was designed to intimate that every one of them—even those in the most far flung places around the world—is a threat that should be attended to by the US military (or clandestinely by the CIA) as if the USA was capable of absolute world domination. The fact is that we simply do not have the resources, ability or even the moral right to take on all those problems and take on the role of world policeman. It is unfair and unwise to ask the American taxpayer to suffer a life lived in a nation of crumbling infrastructure so we can make the world safe for every one else as Coates and the military establishment “save the world from itself”.
But most distressing was Director Coate’s final “hot spot” one he considered a primary threat to our national security. According to Coates, that threat is right there in Washington D.C. For Director Coates our burgeoning national debt—- now nearing $20 trillion dollars—is a threat to our security.
Yes, it is true, our national debt could rise to such proportions that just paying the interest could financially cripple us. But that likelihood is still far down the road. On crossing the a busy road, one must first avoid the bus bearing right down on you before you consider the threat of a distant train whistle.
What Mr Coates sadly ignored is the immediate threat of our burgeoning MILITARY expenditures and our CRUMBLING INFRASTRUCTURE. (Budget overruns and debt accumulation due to military largess is apparently OK with Coates.) What Director Coates ignores is the impact of our over-extended world military commitments that threaten our ability to effectively respond to an actual existential threat. Over the decades since WWII, we have put our military expenditures in the forefront of our budget outlays. Today military expenditures consume nearly half of our budget..leaving little for essential repair and renewal of our nation’s underpinnings.
The bloated military/defense budget (including that of Coates’ NSA) gobble up so much of our income it leaves little for essential (and long over-due) maintenance and refitting of our out-dated, failing infrastructure. Our roads, bridges, airports, electrical grids etc. etc, all date from the mid-to late 20th Century. Since the end of WWII we have done little but spend trillions of dollars on foreign adventures and ignored our own nation’s needs. We live now in a nation with infrastructure dating from the mid-20th Century at a time one-fifth through the 21Century! If this trend line continues on its present course we will become the “Venezuela of North America” in. A few short decades! Our infrastructure is certainly not up to par with the standards one finds in or most critical competitor China! And Forget Western Europe where we lag far far behind .
But our crumbling infrastructure, collapsing bridges, our trains running off their tracks, air facilities dating to the last century, and coastal ports in decay, these are all imminent existential threats to our survival and our competitiveness. A nation that can not reliably and safely travel to work due to dilapidated roads and bridges, or depend on the electrical grid providing adequate service, or which ignores the essential access to broadband wifi, or fails to provide means of fast and safe essential bulk transport by road and rail is a nation in economic decline— and certainly not likely to be able to survive a real militarily threat.
So Director Coates should rethink his ‘intelligence” and his list. Perhaps he could cut his “world threat” list down to real, actual threats. In that case we could then spend much less than we do now on military “defense” and spend more on repair and replacements of infrastructure necessary for our survival.
We probably should trim Coates’ budget as well—considering the weakness and illogic nature of his “intelligence” concerning real “threat assessments” .
On another matter, Director Dan Coates..should know how to properly pronounce “nuclear”. The word “nuclear” is: “nuc lee ar”— not— “nuc U lar”! Ugh!
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