Rural gathering focuses on — what else? — national security

Several hundred people from around the country gathered in St. Paul Tuesday evening to start a three-day assembly on issues facing rural Americans.

So, oddly enough, the kickoff keynote address for the National Rural Assembly was delivered by two military men with long service in defense.

Sound strange? It might, but one point made by Navy Capt. Wayne Porter and Marine Col. Mark Mykleby, advisors to the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon, is that the United States should make strong local communities a security priority.

For an entertaining hour, the two, standing in full military uniform before an audience of community activists, local officials and others, tagteamed the notion of why the United States needs to shift its approach to the rest of the world. The dialogue ran from Newtonian physics to the Peace of Westphalia to terrorist attacks.

Why bring this show to a conference on rural America?

"You epitomize what it means to be American citizens," Porter told the crowd.

Earlier this year, the two men published, at the request of Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a framework for a national strategy that would replace the national security approach the nation has taken since the end of World War 2. That appeared in the publication of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

They argue that the United States should no longer base its approach to national security on a strategy of controlling risks and bringing power to bear on problems around the world. Instead it should adapt to a world of uncertainties and build strengths internally in order to compete. The country needs, in their words, to go from a strategy of containment to one of sustainability.

"It's not about controlling the system," Mykleby said. "It's about evolving within the system."

Mykelby said he was stationed in Mali in 2007 when the Pentagon created a new military command structure Africa. He was stunned, he said, to learn the reaction among citizens of Mali was to ask him, "Who are you going to invade now?"

"That hit me between the running lights," he said, to think that might be a prevailing view of U.S. policy.

People in this country have the wrong idea of what national security is, the two said.

"You go to the Mall of America and ask someone what's national security and they'll say that's what the military is for," Mykleby said. "That's a bunch of s---."

The country's security lies in things like a new-energy economy and new approaches to agriculture.

"We've become competition averse," Porter said. "We've lost confidence in ourselves."

Where to start? Education.

"That is the tool for innovation," Mykleby said. "We have got to get to that place where we get our swagger back and that means invest in our kids."

The most arresting facet of the evening, of course, was to get this message from two military men. Porter and Mykleby made clear their views didn't necessarily reflect those of the Pentagon or Mullen, although Mykleby couldn't help saying that they should.

They also tried to steer clear of specific political issues, insisting they were simply trying to establish a new narrative for the nation.

In the end, Porter said simply, "Over to you. The military can't do it."

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