How Healthy Is Globalization For National Security?

BY MICHAEL LINN JONES

Today Matthew O'Keefe at PAPAMOKA STRAIGHT TALK has a piece, It's The Economy, Stupid.....Again! It's well worth a read, and the last two paragraphs sent me off in another direction.

When Barack and Hillary figure out who is a racist and who is a bitch then somebody please pass a note or tell them that “It’s the damn economy!” Vote for change or fight for your bread in the next economy.

Maybe the problem we as Americans have is we keep electing millionaires as President that have forgotten what it is truly like to be hungry. Not politically hungry, stomach pain, have not eaten hungry.

I would differ in that I would qualify one statement in that we don't need, nor can afford, any more UNCARING millionaires in the White House. Or in Congress, either. Economically, the United States has been cutting off its nose to feed its face. If you think the geniuses on Wall Street or on the board of the Federal Reserve have any more common wisdom than some poor slob trying to balance a checkbook you're badly mistaken.

The experts possess a great deal of knowledge. Knowledge, as the saying goes, is power. That does not denote wisdom. And one must wonder how much of the decades-old push to de-industrialize America is advanced by stupid greed.

Don't misunderstand me: greed is part and parcel of capitalism and there is NO other economic system that beats it. Capitalism has one glaring drawback, though. It's corrosive, like living in a 100% oxygen environment is corrosive. It's the inert gases in our atmosphere that prevent everything from going up in flames.

Globalization is a very oxygen-rich capitalistic phenomenon. We're told that globalization is here to stay, so deal with it. I've been told the same thing about hurricanes. Difference is; you can avoid a hurricane if you have the economic mobility. In that, hurricanes and globalization are similar.

We can argue all the livelong day about the negative aspects of globalization, but it will not affect the ongoing process of it. What is NOT discussed is how far does globalization go before the economic and military security of the United States is compromised? I've read where workers in the new economic scheme of things will be part of the process of "innovation." Blue collar jobs were to be the only casualty of this changing order. Then white collar jobs started flying way like leaves on the wind.

But not to worry. The economy of the United States will be based on "innovation." Okay, here's a question: how many 'innovators" are there in Iraq and Afghanistan? How many divisions of "innovators" can we send into combat should the United States find itself under direct threat from another nation?

In the race to send as much manufacturing abroad as possible, to look with disdain upon a low-brow "old" economic base, corporate America has lost sight of the fact that there IS a United States. That might be understandable in that most corporations have no loyalty to anything but themselves, but for the government to lose sight of the importance of certain industries' role in national security is inexcusable.

There are little things and big things. For U.S. Special Forces to have their berets made in China is absurd. If you think, "It's only cloth" then you have no concept of what those volunteers go through to wear such an item.

Perhaps I am a throwback, a person concerned with the capability of the United States to maintain the economic and military strength required in a very hostile world. So be it. Should, God forbid, the United States find itself dealing with a belligerent Russia, China, India, or Pakistan......aircraft, bombs, tanks, soldiers and rifles cannot be overcome by innovation in the form of briefcase-toting experts.

Look back, and you will find that prior to any major war there is a period where war itself is declared obsolete. It won't ever happen again; that modern forms of diplomacy and economic interaction preclude any possibility of war. Prior to Hitler invading the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Soviet Union's largest trading partner was.....Germany.

I have deliberately used the words "the United States" because this nation is, after all, an experiemnt. And an ideal. Being American is a frame of mind. It should precede any global identity.

A dissolved or diluted United States should not be our reward for this global economy.
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Cross-posted at Michaellinnjones.com