National Security, Climate, and Startups

When I started at the US Naval Academy as a midshipman in 1998, there was a focus on state-on-state conflict within national security. The security establishment of the United States was still in the mental framework of the Cold War, preparing for potential conflict with a peer adversary that had disappeared. By the time I graduated in 2002, the focus had completely changed to the threat that the security establishment had long undervalued – the non-state actors like Al Qaeda that brought about the events of September 11th. The US government and its national security establishment became heavily, even myopically, focused on a “War on Terror”, leaving the focus of state actors behind.

Now in 2023, having recently retired from service, I watch as we return to prioritizing near-peer adversaries. It’s a move that makes much sense with belligerence and violence from those we should keep a wary eye upon. But we should learn from our earlier mistakes and remember that other concerns may actually cause greater harm.

There is an emerging school of thought about how the greatest threat isn’t from other nation-states, or even from non-state actors, but from things that aren’t even human. I’m speaking of non-traditional threats like pandemics and, of course, climate.

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