Why polarization is our biggest security threat
America faces a number of political and economic challenges at home and abroad — but political division is one of the most urgent threats we face, says U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin. She explores what that signals for defense and business.
U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin has seen war, conflict and the surrounding polices firsthand. Her background includes deployments in Iraq with the CIA, as well as work at the Pentagon, the White House and her own stint at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Today, she represents one of the swingiest swing districts in the nation. In a global economy, conflicts in one region can affect others quickly. There are many threats out there, but she thinks the biggest is close to home.
Matt Carmichael: What is the war in Ukraine telling us about the future of conflict?
Rep. Elissa Slotkin: What we’re seeing in Ukraine is what it means when you don't invest in modernizing your military. In a weird way, it’s partially retrograde, but then you add into it modern technology like drones and cyber warfare. The U.S. would never be fighting a war like this. This is a war that for all intents and purposes is a war of attrition via artillery. The U.S. basically doesn't conduct warfare like this anymore because we have invested so heavily in air power.
Carmichael: What does that signal?
Slotkin: It shows us that the days of relying on a military heavy with only [artillery] equipment and not technology is not going to be useful in the future. Also, small investments in things like commercially available drones can undermine what should be traditional military hardware advantages [like planes and munitions].
Other countries who the U.S. has an adversarial relationship with have spent time investing in technology that undercuts American military advantages. The last thing is that you can have all the sexy tools you want, but if you can't get your logistics operation competent, then you’re going to be embarrassed on the world stage.
“If you don’t understand your own supply chains, you’re destined to be at heightened risk.”
Carmichael: It also seems that war in one part of the world can still wind up a global conflict?
Slotkin: It's changed thinking for other countries around the world. It changed the thinking of our European allies who have forever sort of had a failure of imagination that this could actually happen. And we know that China is watching and thinking and processing what this means for them and a potential clash with the United States over the Straits of Taiwan. And what are we seeing in terms of how even a conflict in one kind of small region can disrupt the entire global supply chain in our global economy.
Carmichael: It seems new to equate conflict and supply chains so closely.
Slotkin: COVID-19 plus Ukraine in such short proximity to each other has really demonstrated that supply chains are vulnerable. They are not resilient. And if you don't understand your own supply chains, you're destined to be at heightened risk. During COVID-19, we saw that with things like toilet paper. Now we understand how vulnerable our food supply chains are. Or those 14-cent microchips that enable you to make a car and keep our economy going. Or active pharmaceutical ingredients. We do not make the majority of the drugs that Americans take.
Carmichael: This is a cause that’s important to you.
Slotkin: I led a bipartisan defense supply chain task force in the Armed Services Committee with Rep. Mike Gallagher from Wisconsin. It was like picking up the rug to see what's underneath and there being a lot of creepy-crawlies under there. Even with our defense supply chains where there's so much law and regulation around buying American products because it’s military equipment, we still had all these dependencies on places like China that made us vulnerable. The most obvious example was propellant. The chemicals that make our ordinances go boom — 90% come from China. God forbid, if we had to be in a conflict with China, we would depend on them for making things go boom. The military is now taking steps to deal with that. But that played out over and over again for a million companies across the country, across the globe.
Carmichael: Will the motivations for why we go to war shift with climate change in terms of natural resources?
Slotkin: Human beings will always go to war over scarce resources, whether that's oil or water or access to places like the Taiwan Straits. It’s not a resource, but if 70% of your trade traffic goes through that one strait, then it is critical to keep those straits open to keep ourselves fed and fueled and living a normal American life.
Carmichael: How dangerous is polarization?
Slotkin: The polarization in the U.S. is the No. 1 threat to our national security because it completely freezes decision-making. It makes it difficult to have unanimity or agreement on what we want our role to be abroad. In prior eras, issues could have been worked out among adults across the political spectrum. When you leave the water's edge and go abroad, the U.S. should speak with one voice. That doesn't happen right now and that's a real problem for national security.
|
← Read previous |
Read next → |
For further reading
Why political polarization means brands need to clarify their purpose