National security and terrorism analyst and retired four-star general Barry McCaffrey visited the Mercer Island Rotary club on April 5, outlining what he perceives to be the biggest threats to global stability.
He also noted that there “has never been a more fortunate nation” than the present-day U.S. in terms of its wealth and historically low crime rate, and that the country has never been safer, despite having the smallest Army since 1939.
McCaffrey served in the U.S. Army for 32 years before retiring. He then served as director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy for five years, and went on to be a professor at his alma mater, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He has lived off and on in the Seattle area since 1982.
He said that the U.S. military is “unbelievably capable, and competent and courageous,” but faces challenges, including the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, a growing naval and air threat in China and continuing regional conflicts in the Persian gulf, around North Korea and along the Russian border.
There are 59 identified foreign terrorist organizations in the world. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is the richest one, bringing in more than $1 million a day in revenue, McCaffrey said. There are between 30,000 and 50,000 militants fighting for ISIS, compared to 4,450 U.S. troops currently in Iraq.
The U.S. backs up diplomatic efforts with military power that is at least two generations ahead of other nations, he said. But it’s becoming easier for other countries to build and acquire nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, meaning it’s more likely that eventually, they’ll be used.
“The actual science of it is on the internet. We figured it out in 1944,” McCaffrey said. “The entry threshold for being able to make chemical weapons is about the level of, ‘can you make decent beer?'”
McCaffrey said that there is no way to take the nuclear threat out of existence, but that the U.S. needs a serious strategy to address it, especially with India, Pakistan, North Korea and self-declared threat Iran emerging. He also said that the plan is not under the Army’s jurisdiction.
“It’s a civilian responsibility to identify threats out 20 years and develop organizations to fight them,” he said, noting that international laws, treaties and consortiums are the best tools to contain the threat.
Another growing threat is cyber crime. Hacking costs the U.S. more than $300 billion per year, and Edward Snowden, who leaked information from the National Security Administration (NSA) to the press, “did more damage than anyone since the Wehrmacht,” McCaffrey said.
Still, he commended the NSA, FBI and local law enforcement for keeping people and information safe.
An improving area is U.S. energy policy, in which “everything is moving in the right direction, by accident,” he said. Due to the controversial practice of fracking, the U.S. is no longer dependent on foreign oil, and could be the world’s biggest oil producer by 2020, overtaking Saudi Arabia.
Inevitably, a Rotary member asked McCaffrey what he thought of the field of presidential candidates. He does not align with either political party, but said he admires President Barack Obama for his intelligence and integrity.
He noted that one of the major problems in the U.S. is that “the country is angry” and that the government, especially Congress, is “badly structured” and “partially broken.”
“Is it actually [Donald] Trump versus Bernie Sanders?” he asked. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Rotary meetings are at noon on Tuesdays and open to the public. For more, visit www.mirotary.org.
