Tony Yarusso's Blog

Today more than ever before the people of the United States agree that national security is of great concern, and with the prospect and opportunity of electing a new president looming, many are looking very closely at how the candidates compare on that particular issue. With that in mind, here are five key reasons why Barack Obama is the strongest candidate in the race when it comes to protecting our national security.

1. Given that the president is in charge of one of the largest militaries in the world and will the the person to make the main decisions about its actions, we need to have a president who has demonstrated the ability to make sound, rational judgements. We know that the current one doesn't fit this description, so it is especially important to change that with the next administration. Other candidates supported going to war in Iraq, with some still suggesting that we should stay there essentially permanently, whereas Obama had the foresight to realize how much of a disaster it would be, spoke out against the war from the beginning, and continues to consistently do so (while still providing the necessary support to the personnel on the ground to keep them relatively safe until they are allowed to come home). Other candidates like to claim he lacks experience, but this stark difference makes clear that the only kind he lacks is experience making faulty analyses, failing to read security reports, and sticking with an obviously disasterous occupation.

2. In addition to making sound judgements from available information, we need a president who is able to critically think through issues in order to find all of the factors for consideration. While other candidates are quick to make bizarre logical leaps and twist around the order of cause and effect, Obama has consistently shown that he is able to work through the entire issue and see a larger picture, rather than some small snippet that happens to be convenient for the day. One recent example in the area of national security to look to is his acknowledgement that there was no such thing as al-Qaeda in Iraq until we lured them there by invading, and continue to foster a breeding ground for them with our continued unwelcome presence. Additionally, a read of the security section of his platform shows quite plainly that he is thinking about more than just the obvious issues, and has clear action points for addressing them, whereas other candidates stay on-point with just a few of the possible vectors.

3. Most people have heard the phrase "keep your friends close, and your enemies closer". Even if not, it is easy to realize that we can not possibly be safe if we continue to ignore people whom we regard as a threat, precisely because we regard them as a threat. From this, it is easy to see that if the country is going to be safe, it is absolutely critical that we return to practicing diplomacy and open dialog with other countries, including and especially those that are not easy to talk to. Sure, it is far more convenient to lay out "preconditions" that can later be used as excuses for why those meetings never happened, but we simply can not afford to base our national security on convenience any longer. Obama is the only candidate who recognizes that it is important to have open conversations with all world leaders, even if those conversations are somewhat limited, rather than just turning a cold shoulder and blind eye on those we don't get along with very well, and would otherwise thus be able to grow to be a much larger threat without ever being noticed or any chance to stop that.

4. One other thing that makes the difference between a so-so president and a highly effective one is the ability to identify and make use of available resources. The president must acknowledge that it takes the input of many people and methods to do his or her job well. Obama has already announced his intention to, if elected, invite people from both parties (or even potentially outside of the main two parties) to serve on his cabinet, drawing on the best talents availabe for each job, rather than just the best person who happens to be in his own party, or his own personal circle. As an added bonus, he is by far the candidate with the most awareness of emerging technologies and both their usefulnesses and threats. With events highlighting the issue such as the announcement in the last week that the FBI will now be adding virtual worlds to the realms they will be watching for possible terrorist activity and the pending lawsuit in California over the Fifth Amendment and digital encryption, it can be seen how increasingly important it will be to have a president who understands social networking, online communication, data encryption, digital privacy, and the myriad of other emerging technological issues in order to effectively apply that knowledge to matters of national security while still considering individual privacy.

5. On a similar note to the judgement mentioned earlier, it is also important for the president to be able to keep his or her cool in a crisis situation, and be able to fulfill their leadership role in a commanding, in-control manner. Unfortunately, none of the candidates has been in the kind of executive crisis situation that would give us a clear idea of how they would perform in a completely real situation, so instead we must look to other areas where they have been in a direct leadership role that faced time-sensitive trouble. The easiest way to do this, since it's an aspect common to all candidates, is their campaigns. Other candidates have responded to trouble along the campaign trail with sudden, drastic shifts in style, emotion, and composure, changing how they act, what they say, and who stays on their staff and in what position, sometimes lashing out in ways that voters found appalling to the point of being stunned into silence. Obama on the other hand has been able to calmly take things in stride, formulating a well-considered response that is consistent with his earlier positions, and done it with an amount of staff turnover that analysts have described as astonishly small for a presidential campaign. From this we can see that he is able to pick out the right people for the right job right from the beginning, prepare for possible problems well enough that they aren't an enormous upset, and stay collected enough to address them and move on without letting things be completely disrupted. This is what we need in a leader of a country even more so than in a campaign, and as the wisdom goes, "the one who can be trusted with the small things can be trusted with the big things".