|
Work plan for next American president
Miami Herald
Posted on Fri, Sep. 19, 2008
By ROBERT J. NATTER, BARRY E. JOHNSON and JOEL C. HUNTER
An admiral, a business leader and a pastor may sound like a joke opening, but we come together out of concern for the serious global challenges facing the next president of the United States.
As members of the Center for U.S. Global Engagement's Impact '08 in the Florida Advisory Committee, we recognize that whoever wins in November will need to bring all our tools of national power -- defense, development and diplomacy -- to bear on those challenges. Only by investing in these ''smart power'' tools will the next commander in chief ensure our national security, economic prosperity and moral leadership in the world.
• National security. Enhancing our nonmilitary tools of engagement and increasing our readiness to deploy diplomats, teachers, road builders, doctors, nurses and other civilians will enable us to fight conditions that breed terrorists and thereby reduce the chances that we will have to commit our soldiers to the battlefield.
As Defense Secretary Robert Gates said earlier this year, 'Over the long term, we cannot kill or capture our way to victory. What the Pentagon calls `kinetic' operations should be subordinate to measures to promote participation in government, economic programs to spur development and efforts to address the grievances that often lie at the heart of insurgencies and among the discontented from which the terrorists recruit.'' We agree.
• Diplomacy. During the Cold War, our bulwark against communism included a strong diplomatic component and well-funded programs to fight poverty and disease. But we have allowed these tools to lapse during the past two decades. USAID now has less than one-fifth the employees it had during the Cold War. There are more military musicians than there are foreign service officers. And we spend 22 percent of the federal budget on the military, but just over 1 percent on diplomacy and foreign assistance. While our defense capabilities remain second to none, our ability to win the peace has suffered.
• Economy. The need for America to elevate its engagement in the world is clear. From rising oil prices to the housing crisis to the collapse of financial institutions, we live in an increasingly interconnected world in which America's prosperity is now global prosperity.
This reality is particularly evident here in Florida, where almost one in five jobs is connected to international trade and state exports are valued at about $45 billion. We cannot reverse the technological advancements that have made it possible for ideas, goods, capital and people to flow across international borders.
Florida's promising future as an international economic powerhouse is linked with the fortunes of our trading partners in Latin America and elsewhere around the world. What the U.S. invests through robust diplomacy and foreign assistance programs to fight poverty, economic inequality and instability abroad will be returned many times over in increased business activity benefiting Floridians. And what we spend to help other countries defeat disease, drug trafficking and other forms of international crime helps keep us safer within our own borders.
• Moral leadership. America has always been a beacon of hope and freedom for people around the world. We have a moral imperative to do our part in the fight against global poverty, starvation, poor health and lack of education. It is not in our character to stand idly by while, each year, more than 10 million children in poor countries die from easily preventable or treatable diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria, or while lack of education and economic opportunity leaves many vulnerable to the message of radical jihadists.
It's the right thing to do, and it's in our self-interest to do it. Strengthening our diplomacy and increasing our development assistance will restore America's moral leadership and make us safer and more prosperous. Our next president can score an early success by leading a bipartisan effort to make this happen.
Adm. Robert J. Natter, USN (Ret.), was commander of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, Barry E. Johnson is president & CEO of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce, and Dr. Joel C. Hunter is senior pastor of Northland, A Church Distributed. |
|
|