What is the National Interest?

First there are current events.

The war in Iraq and the Global War on Terrorism take much of our best people’s time in figuring out a best course of action for our nation. Our best people are both elected politicians and their appointed minions, and then we citizens. None of them or us wake up in the morning wanting to do a bad job.

Often, as humans do, these people can be distracted by too many things on their plate at one time. Our National Interest can get short shrift in their thought processes.

Then there are future events.

The past is, the past. Most of us focus on the future.

The future for our National Interest has both domestic and foreign impacts on us, we the people.

To take the time to back off and consider what is our National Interest brings up the fact that there are differences of opinion.
Many differences are honest, as in our heart and minds.
Other differences are political, mostly from politicians from our national past.
Some differences are from political scientists who would impose their vision on us.

There are historical analogies.
One is the “fat and lazy” theme that suggests why tribes and civilizations have been superseded, often by barbarians.
Another is the “kill the goose that lays the golden egg” theme. In this scheme, too much of a good thing can kill or replace the tribe or civilization.

If we the people understand and believe in and dictate what is our National Interest, then the elected politicians and their appointed minions should have an easy time of deriving policies and laws that give us what we vote for. Don’t we wish it were this easy. But between the honest differences, the politician motivated differences, and the social do gooder differences, it is confusing and full of friction. There is hope for the future, however.

I have several suggestions about our National Interest. What follows is my definition of our National Interest.

We must do everything we can to preserve our new world special experiment and country.

We must defend our experiment against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That our founders included the term “foreign and domestic” says much about their concern about the fragility of our government based on a constitution. Our enemies, in my opinion, are either overt, covert, or coincidental.

We must be prepared to use all means available to achieve our National Interest.

Is there anything new in this discussion. YES! That there is always friction in the world is normal. What is new is US, the experiment, the country, we the new world people. The rest of the world’s people pouring towards the USA says our National Interest is important to them. We have something worth preserving, and that is the National Interest.

None of the preceding suggests either an offensive or defensive implementation of policies in support of our National Interest. To me it is as simple as an old historical term…don’t tread on me.