Guest Blog by Lorelei Kelly - New Mexico: Centerpiece of a New Security Strategy

This is a guest blog by Lorelei Kelly, whose experience includes working with the underground democracy movements of eastern Europe in 1989, teaching at Stanford University's Center on Conflict and Negotiation, working on bipartisan national security education in Congress, and working as a professional mediator in both domestic and international conflict resolution settings. She recently co-authored "A Woman's Guide to Talking About War and Peace" and blogs at Huffington Post. She will be making a presentation tonight from 7-9 PM on "New Mexico and Our National Security Future: How to Frame an Argument for Change" at the Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice. Click for more information on the event.

In the final weeks of this campaign season, and with Sarah Palin accusing Candidate Obama of being pals with terrorists--the McCain campaign is going to a familiar conservative comfort zone on National Security: fearmongering.

There are many reasons why the Republican candidates should not do this: First of all, it hurts our nation to make national security a political football. It endangers all of us because it silences debate. I worked in Congress for nearly a decade and saw the impact of this climate of fear. Entire conversations become off-limits. Israeli-Palestinian issues, for example, or defense spending...These public challenges would only benefit from better communication and more creative ideas. For a safer and more prosperous tomorrow, Americans should decidedly reject the kind of conservative leadership that has made our nation vulnerable and less equipped to handle today's real security threats. Americans need a new direction for national security--and New Mexico should be the centerpiece of it. Why? Because New Mexico remains economically dependent on a concept of security that no longer exists. The state's nuclear labs--full of brilliant people--must break with the past and lead the way forward.

America's leadership crisis on national security is not new. For nearly two decades, our elected leaders, both in Congress and the Presidency, have maintained a simplistic vision of national security that prevailed during the Cold War; "us vs. them" and "guns vs. butter". But the rationale for that worldview ended in 1991 when the Soviet Union disappeared. National security-wise, our world went from a world that was linear, predictable and technological to one that is chaotic, random and very human. It really isn't all about rocket science anymore. The terrorist attack on 9/11 made this change undeniably clear. Other examples exist: Our military's own doctrine now puts civilian protection and reconstruction at the center of its mission. Our soldiers and Marines could just as likely be engaged in positive social change activities as combat. Military officers testifying in front of Congress for the past few years have pointed out that the conflict in Iraq cannot be solved by the use of force. They wait, like the rest of us, for our elected leaders to have a new conversation about security.

New Mexico is poised to start a conversation about how national security is a much broader concept than it was even two decades ago. During the Cold War, security was easy to define as a military responsibility and to measure by arms control treaties and borders. Containment was the name of the strategy we used against the Soviet Union. But today's threats do not remain within borders. From global warming to pandemic disease, today's threats require the consideration of people across borders just as much as people within them. The notion of the nation state needs to evolve, and there is nothing more symbolic of this obsolete notion that nuclear weapons. The ability to dominate and coerce is fading. Where we need skills is in the ability to influence the intentions of others. Containment is not going to disappear completely, but we must replace that form of strength with legitimacy--the moral authority to lead.

A lot of great new initiatives are already happening at the state level in NM. Governor Richardson and others have taken significant steps forward on clean energy, environmental building standards, and collaborating with neighboring states. You can see more about that here: www.westernclimateinitiative.org/.

Back in 1993, at the end of the Cold War but before the Congress flipped to the conservatives, several organizations began a much-needed discussion about converting the activities of the nuclear weapons labs to modern needs. Environmental technology and renewable energy, for example. The best of these studies came from the Office of Technology Assessment, a think tank of scientific professionals who served Congress. Sadly, this organization, along with much of the institutional memory of the American legislature-was wiped out in 1995 when Newt Gingrich took over as the new majority leader.

But these studies--along with many others--are still relevant and ready to be implemented. You can find them online here: https://fas.org/ota/otareports/topic/dtopics/

In other words, converting the labs is not about reinventing the wheel. We just need to get it rolling. Many lab personnel are already contributing to a new vision for themselves and the future: on verification technology, cultural counter-terrorism research, convening international teams....

When Obama is elected president, we must support his efforts to lead the Congress in a conversation about a security strategy that truly meets today's threats. Elected leaders haven't had a serious priorities discussion for years. They have not put everything on the table, matched ends to means, and made some hard decisions about where we spend taxpayer dollars. The list of urgent issues for the next president is getting longer by the day, so New Mexico's leadership role on shaping this conversation matters today more than ever.

Lorelei Kelly
Policy Director, Real Security Initiative
www.thewhitehouseproject.org
202-487-7728
www.huffingtonpost.com
www.democracyarsenal.org

This is a guest blog by Lorelei Kelly. Guest blogs provides our readers with an opportunity to express their views on topics of interest. To submit a piece for consideration as a guest blog, click on the Email Me link at the upper left-hand corner of the page.