A Progressive Security Narrative

On April 8, 2011, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at Princeton hosted a conference to discuss the need for a national security narrative. The conference was based on a recent paper by two active duty military officers, Captain Wayne Porter of the Navy and Colonel Mark Mykleby of the Marine Corps. Their paper, titled "A National Strategic Narrative," can be downloaded from here.

As William Rivers Pitt put it in his April 29th article for Truthout:

It is not a perfect document by any means, and many progressives may recoil at the deep vein of militarism woven throughout the work. Consider, however, the fact that here is a well-crafted argument for slashing military spending, resolving the health care crisis in a way that benefits people instead of profit, refining the way we educate our children so that educational funds are not an afterthought, fixing our crumbling national infrastructure, and turning away from the decades-old habit of approaching our national existence from a position of strife, distrust, conflict and war.

It is not a perfect document by any means, and many progressives may recoil at the deep vein of militarism woven throughout the work. Consider, however, the fact that here is a well-crafted argument for slashing military spending, resolving the health care crisis in a way that benefits people instead of profit, refining the way we educate our children so that educational funds are not an afterthought, fixing our crumbling national infrastructure, and turning away from the decades-old habit of approaching our national existence from a position of strife, distrust, conflict and war.