Sustainability: A National Strategic Imperative
In 2011, a strategic document entitled “A National Strategic Narrative” emerged from the Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The “Narrative” argues for a new American grand strategy that would focus the nation’s foreign and domestic policies toward the common goal of building our national strength at home as a means to foster our credible influence abroad. Specifically, the National Strategic Narrative offered the concept of sustainability as our national strategic imperative for the twenty-first century.
In partial response to this call for grand strategy, the New America Foundation – defining grand strategy as the correlation of America’s economic engine, its foreign policy, and its governing institutions to meet the great global challenge of the era – has developed a strategic framework to functionally and pragmatically implement the concept of sustainability in order to take on our generation’s great challenge, “global unsustainabiity.” In the face of the combined challenges of a burgeoning world population that must be folded into the global economic system; ecosystem depletion at a scale never before seen; the ongoing global “contained depression” that cannot be remedied with paradigmatic fiscal and monetary policy; and a resilience deficit within global economic and political systems; America’s response must be to lead – and lead by example. The country must put its own house in order and, with willing partners, author a prosperous, secure, and sustainable future. The task is clear: The United States must lead the global transition to sustainability. An American grand strategy of sustainability is the key to unlock that leadership.
Patrick Doherty is deputy director of the National Security Studies Program and director of the Smart Strategy Initiative. The Smart Strategy Initiative seeks to provoke a new discourse across the United States and world capitals on the central challenge facing the United States, the nature and function of American grand strategy and the contours of a new grand strategy capable of forging a prosperous, secure and sustainable future for the United States. His writing has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN.com, ForeignPolicy.com, The Washington Monthly, and The Chicago Tribune. He has appeared on CNN, ABC, BBC, NPR, Bloomberg, the Nightly Business Report and the Australian Broadcasting Service.
Mark Mykleby was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps following his graduation from the United States Naval Academy in 1987. He was designated a naval aviator in April 1990 and as a qualified F/A-18 pilot in December 1990. From January 1991 to May 2006, he served in five fleet fighter squadrons and performed numerous operational squadron billets to include Director of Safety and Standardization, Pilot Training Officer, Aircraft Maintenance Officer, Operations Officer, Executive Officer, and Commanding Officer. He is a graduate of Marine Weapons and Tactics Instructor School (WTI), the Navy Fighter Weapons School (Topgun), and the Allied Air Forces Central Europe’s Tactical Leadership Program (TLP). Mark’s operational experience includes numerous deployments (land based and ship borne) to the European, Pacific, and Southwest Asian theaters in support of Operations PROVIDE PROMISE, DENY FLIGHT, SOUTHERN WATCH, and IRAQI FREEDOM.
Date: March 20, 2013
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Place: DiStefano Lecture Hall – Antone Academic Center
Salve Regina University
Lawrence Avenue (at the intersection of Leroy Avenue)
Newport, RI
RSVP to [email protected] or 401-341-2927