The two greatest threats to US national security: Climate change and nuclear holocaust. Both threats MUST be addressed internationally. The stress put on our common life support system by the two fold doubling of human population in the past 75 years has contributed to the refugee crisis. World views that see parts of humanity and certain economic arrangements as evil or that view the current situation as irreversibly headed to self destruction freeze our capacity to address these threats and fuel an irrational militarism. Thus the US two fold doubling in the US national “defense” budget.
As the mid-term election approaches both of these threats are hardly mentioned even though US budget priorities and administration policy move in opposite directions from reasonable solutions. The few candidates who do mention them are labeled “out in left field progressives”. The MAGA Republicans have declared civilization caused Climate Change a hoax, Our current Secretary of “War” sees the noble life as a military Crusade against evil.
Massive commitments have been made towards “modernizing” the nuclear weapons complex and creating new “useable” nukes. The latter has led to increased military posturing and another nuclear arms race .
The United States has withdrawn from treaties designed to reduce nuclear weapons including the IMF treaty, ABM Treaty, the 6 nation JCPOA agreement with Iran to halt Iranian nuclear weapons development , and the Paris Climate accords. The US has led efforts to prevent the Nuclear Ban Treaty from ratification at the United Nations. From afar the United States looks like a nation unwilling to work cooperatively to reduce the threat of accidental or intentional nuclear weapons use, as well as working with the rest of the world to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate the damage being caused by Climate Warming.
It is important that we elect leaders who will change this dangerous unilateral path we are on. Money committed to nuclear weapons development and Space Warfare should be redirected to human need and to greening our aging infrastructure. We should ratify the Nuclear Ban Treaty and rejoin international Climate Change mitigation efforts. Just as “No one is free till everyone is free” so “No one is secure unless all are secure”. As one great religious leader said long ago, “He who would be greatest of all must be the servant of all” (rather than the dominator of all.) Mk 9:35
We pay for Climate Change intensified disasters through increased insurance costs, lost lives. Changes in climate threaten world food production via drought, increasing storms, and flooding, new diseases, economic collapse, refugees, unstable governments, and increased potential for nuclear weapons use.
Even if serious efforts toward a world wide cooperative effort to address these existential issues with liberty and justice for ALL fail at least we would have tried. But pouring our resources into weapons of destruction and dominance positions among competitive nations to be “The Greatest” will lead to the end of it all, if not with a “bang, then a wimper”
