Voices of Clarity and Sanity at the Pentagon

     The following materials are from the April 26th edition of "On Point," WBUR'S and NPR's public affairs program hosted by Tom Ashbrook.  Please read carefully and then check out the links (that I've posted at the bottom of the page) to the show and to the document, A National Strategic Narrative, which envisions a new national security policy for the United States eclipsing the containment policy that the U.S. has so religiously followed since the close of World War II. 


     This is the most encouraging set of ideas that I can recall emerging from the U.S. military establishment.   

The Pentagon’s ‘Mr. Y’ And National Security

Two Special Assistants to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen say (unofficially) it’s time, strategically, to spend more on education and less on guns. We’ll hear them out.

A National Strategic Narrative

What if the United States has started a new century stuck in the last one, pouring resources into its military and short-changing what should be the real heart of its strength – that is, strength at home?
A strong economy.  A strong society.  The point is raised and made powerfully in a new essay from – of all places – the heart of the Pentagon.
Two top U.S. military strategic thinkers under the pen name “Mr. Y” are pushing hard for a new American vision.  Less bristling with guns.  More spending on education.  For real prosperity and security.
This hour: a Pentagon call for change at home.

- Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Captain Wayne Porter, US Navy, and Colonel Mark “Puck” Mykleby, US Marine Corps, both Special Assistants to the Chairman for Strategy to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen.
Writing under the shared pseudonym “Mr. Y.” they have published a paper called “A National Strategic Narrative” released by theWoodrow Wilson Center.  Also described as ‘the Y article,’ it was decribed recently in Foreign Policy.com.

Link to the show:

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2011/04/26/pentagon-security

Link to the Report:

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/events/docs/A%20National%20Strategic%20Narrative.pdf