The U.S. Army War College's Current Affairs Panel visited UNM Wednesday to discuss a number of issues including the shifting focus of national security in the United States and the country's role in the globalization of the world.
Joe Manous, lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, said education is the solution for the growth of dangerous worldwide factors that result in conflict, including uncontrolled population growth, water storage depletion, hunger and disease.
"We can't force other nations to act the way we think they should," Manous said. "The compounding of these problems within developing countries and the competition that ensues for the diminishing resources increases the aggravation amongst the people of the world, resulting in conflict and endangering the safety of the world."
Manous, a professor of engineering at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, whose research focuses on environmental security, said that the problem of environmental dangers is not limited to developing nations. He added that the air pollution in many of the major U.S. cities has gotten so bad that the populations health is in danger.
"Due to the unhealthy conditions of the air in our country, nearly half of the young children in New York now have asthma," Manous said. "If that epidemic, and many more like them, go unchecked, our future looks bleak."
The Army War College was created after the Spanish-American War, after disappointing performances by the U.S. military. It sought to improve professional preparation of general staff officers in the War Department. Each class, consisting of 16 students, goes through the 10-month master's program with careful attention to achieving a representative mix of branches, armed services, government agencies and foreign services and is educated in a number of areas including international relations, national security strategy and history.
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The Current Affairs Panel, which sponsored three panel discussions throughout Wednesday, was established in 1969 as an academic outreach program. It is meant to encourage dialogue on national security and other policy issues between each branch of the military and the public.
Philip Bennett, lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves and Desert Storm veteran, said that due to globalization and the rapid growth of technology, the definition of military dominance is changing.
"The Internet has single-handedly spread information to the far corners of the earth, forcing people to interact like never before," Bennett said. "The problem lies in maintaining our technological advantage after this globalization, which allows any group that can afford this technology to do with it what they choose."
Bennett said the key to maintaining the United States' military dominance is not allowing competitors to channel these capabilities to impact U.S. security, both at home and abroad.
"If left unchecked, the proliferation of technology could drastically threaten our military dominance and ultimately put us at risk of being attacked by any nation whose motives are rooted in hatred of America," Bennett said.
John Chiu, lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, said now that the majority of military operations are over in Iraq, military planners have shifted their focus to the North Korean nuclear crisis.
Chiu said many similarities exist between Iraq and North Korea, but the fact that North Korea's military is so prolific, 1.2 million strong with the largest special operations force in the world, most of which are already imbedded in neighboring South Korea, is forcing the U.S. to peacefully resolve the situation.
"North Korea has not crossed the prophetic red line from which military action is the only resort," Chiu said. "There is little chance of an armed conflict with North Korea because of the economic, political and collateral damage to both sides."
