Age of Danger: Keeping America Safe in an Era of New Superpowers, New Weapons, and New Threats is a just-published book by Andrew Hoehn, senior vice president at the RAND Corporation and former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy during President George W. Bush’s administration, and Thom Shanker, director of the Project for Media and National Security at George Washington University and former New York Times defense correspondent. Shanker talked with Washington Examiner senior writer Jamie McIntyre about the book’s premise: that the U.S. national security establishment has been asleep at the wheel for the past two decades and is badly in need of a course correction.
The following interview was edited for length and clarity.
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Washington Examiner: The title of your book is Age of Danger. Isn’t the world always in an age of danger? How is it different now? Or is it?
Thom Shanker: We make the case that this is an age of danger, unlike anything we’ve seen before for several significant reasons. One is that never before in world history have there been two adversaries, in this case, Russia and China, who now have or who soon will have a nuclear arsenal sufficient to wipe us off the face of the Earth. We’ve had multiple adversaries before in World War II, but neither of them could pose a truly existential threat. That’s problem one. Problem two is that all of the risks out there are coming at us faster, at network speed with AI and cyber, and with the truly hypersonic speed with China’s hypersonic missiles for which there’s no defense right now. Then you add in globalization, the spread of disease, viruses, and all that. We truly think that the world is facing an age of danger unlike any before.
Washington Examiner: We have a lot of smart people in our government and other places thinking about these threats, and the country spends a lot of money on defense and national security. What are they missing?
Shanker: The annual amount that Andy Hoehn and I figured goes to national security, which includes the Defense Department, intelligence community, Homeland Security, and law enforcement, all that is $1.2 trillion a year. We are not advocating necessarily more or advocating it be spent in a wiser fashion. And one of the things is after 9/11, the threat of terrorism was mistakenly labeled an existential threat, which it wasn’t. It was a serious threat, but terrorism never threatened the existence of our country. The next 20 years were a focus on counterterrorism that allowed all these other threats to rise without us doing much about it. China caught up with us. So, we advocate a broader definition of what national security is, not just things that kill us or blow up, but a wider panoramic definition of national security to include food security, data security, climate security, all the things that put us at risk.
Washington Examiner: In your book, you reference the “warning machine” versus the “action machine.” Explain.
Shanker: The “warning machine” is part of our government that watches the world, collects information, and assesses it. And for sure, it’s the intelligence community, but it’s also every diplomat that’s out there, every businessman who has an interesting conversation with a foreign official and then may write about it or share it. And the warning machine works pretty well. But unfortunately, because of bureaucratic problems, it too often sounds warnings with an uncertain trumpet. They always have these caveats: “to be sure,” “maybe not,” and so problems are sometimes missed. Even if the warning machine issues a clear and powerful warning, sometimes the action machine doesn’t accept it.
The “action machine“ is the executive branch, all of those in government who can make the decisions. The president’s inbox is always overflowing. Presidents don’t always have time or attention to deal with every threat, or to consider them as threats, and they have to deal with what the military calls “the crocodile closest to the canoe.” But sometimes, the threat around the corner is the one that should be dealt with, and not just the immediate, the current. We make the case that the future has to have a seat at the table in national security decision-making.
Washington Examiner: Are you and your co-author trying to scare us into action?
Shanker: I make the joke that I want people to buy the book, but not necessarily read it if you want to sleep at night. But yes, we wrote this book for a general audience. This is not an inside-the-Beltway policy white paper. It’s full of people. We interviewed generals, Cabinet secretaries, and people out in the trenches looking at bio-threats. We tried to humanize the national security process so that a general readership, people all across America, can get involved in the discussion because these questions are too big to leave to our leadership in Washington. We really want to inspire a national debate.
Washington Examiner: Let’s talk about some of the threats. The one getting the most attention in Washington at the moment, despite the hot war in Ukraine, is the increasing cold war with China.
Shanker: In the 20 years the U.S. was circling the strategic cul-de-sac of the Middle East, China used those 20 years to catch up with us in almost every capability — military, space, and, to be sure, economic. We were just too busy chasing terrorists around the world. I’m not saying that that was not a valid mission, but it should not have so preoccupied all parts of our national security. And as we know, the Chinese leadership has declared it wants to have the capability to retake Taiwan by force by 2027, and it’s the American goal to beef up Taiwan’s defenses and think of new styles of deterrent so that we always make Chinese leadership wonder, “Will it work? Will it not?” That’s the essence of deterrence, just injecting doubt into Chinese decision-makers about whether they should actually move by force to retake Taiwan.
Washington Examiner: In the book, you cite a long list of growing threats, including pandemics, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, climate change, the rise of drones. Is there any way to rank them, or are they all equally dangerous?
Shanker: The one that weighs most on me right now is the fact that climate security is national security, that, truly, climate change is an existential threat. I mean, we’ve seen what heat has done across our country, in Europe, and around the world just this summer.
People aren’t even talking enough about the expected climate-related migration. Hundreds of millions, a billion people might be on the move over the next couple of decades seeking water, food, a better place to live. The world’s just not ready to deal with that. And even here at home, the National Guard, which has been an important part of American overseas security, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, is going to be so busy year-round fighting wildfires and dealing with increased hurricanes, they simply will not be able to deploy as part of the national security force that they have been since their inception.
Washington Examiner: What do you say to the large segment of Americans who don’t believe climate change is an existential threat, who don’t believe the pandemic we just went through was all that serious, and that efforts to label those problems national security threats distract from the military’s primary mission of defending the nation and deterring wars?
Shanker: The American military is the most lethal fighting force in the world today. The U.S. spends more on defense than I think the next 10 countries combined, and more than half of them are allies anyway. That doesn’t mean that we can let down our guard, especially against a pacing China and an aggressive Russia. But just think, on 9/11, 3,000 people died. Every death over zero is a tragedy, but we went on a war footing for 20 years and launched two wars. So far, under COVID, a million Americans have died and rising, and we never went on a war footing. So, people who say disease is not a problem, and climate is not a problem equal to other national security threats, I simply disagree with them. They’re wrong. And this country can do more than one thing in national security. For $1.2 trillion a year, we can do more.
Washington Examiner: World War I French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau famously said, “War is too important to be left to the generals.” What kind of fundamental changes are needed to redirect the national security machine and point it in the right direction?
Shanker: For example, on climate change, the Pentagon is the world’s largest consumer of fossil fuels. Even though the Pentagon has a climate action plan, it’s not putting sufficient money to actually mitigate all of the greenhouse gases that the Pentagon emits. And a plan without a budget is a fantasy. So, the American public can demand accountability on climate all across the government, not just from the Pentagon, but from every aspect of government.
Coming out of COVID, the American public can demand of its Congress, of its elected representatives, that it set up task forces to get us ready for the next pandemic. The public should have a voice in how national security is made, especially when it moves away from classified high-value targets like terrorists. Issues of climate change, food security, data security, and health security are things every citizen can understand, and they need to make their voices heard.
Washington Examiner: Washington is known for appointing blue ribbon commissions to examine serious problems, politely thanking them for their work, and then ignoring their recommendations. Why do you think your book might make a difference?
Shanker: I guess I’m hopelessly optimistic. We’re at a point where there is a resonance for our book. Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, gave a speech a couple of months ago making the case that we’re in a new age of danger. The CIA director, William Burns, gave a public speech in the U.K. in recent weeks, and many of the things he spoke about, his view, and the agency’s view of the world are reflected in our book as well. We have to expand the definition of national security. We have to be ready for threats that come at us not as bombs and bullets but as digits and as disease. So, I think this might just be a ripe moment for people to open their eyes and open the aperture on what it means to keep our country safe.
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Washington Examiner: You joked that people who read the book might not be able to sleep at night, but tell me why this book would appeal to someone who, unlike you or me, is not a national security nerd.
Shanker: National security really is too important just to leave in the hands of officials in Washington. I mean, we are a democracy. The American people have to have a voice in how we keep our country safe and what constitutes a risk. So, we hope our book is a readable, engaging tutorial on the issue so the public will join in the conversation. Do you know what? It’s their security, too, and it’s their kids’ security, and it’s their grandkids’ security. And if we don’t change the way we do business in national security policy and the execution of national security, we are giving away the future.
