[March 19, 2015] It has always been of interest for leaders to discover those profound issues of the day by asking the question “what keeps leaders up at night?” – figuratively speaking. Our focus here at theLeaderMaker.com has always been to uncover what makes leaders tick and sometimes what frightens our most senior leaders.
Our nation’s leaders in several government agencies1 have been tasked with the safeguarding of our national security have a number of real concerns they are often very frank in admitting. Some of their thoughts can be found in testimony before various Congressional committees. Those conversations deserve a hearing because of the tremendous value to the nation. Some good subjects are in books and magazine articles. Of course, their names cannot be told here as I promised not to reveal their names at their request, irrespective if the information is public.
What concerns me most was how each of these leaders framed our nation’s security. It quickly become clear that those leaders, more than 20 of them, considered their gravest concern was the inability of the U.S. Congress to act in the best interests of its citizens. Whether it was, in their view, a lack of political will, an adversity to risk, ideological blindness, or persistent inaction, it was nevertheless harmful.
One senior leader put his concern this way when speaking of our political discussions over the past decade … “We can expect near-term uncertain stormy seas.” Many express similar sentiments and personal frustration at the political inability to discuss important security matters without emotion biasing their thinking and acrimony toward others.
Only a few things keep our nation’s protectors “up at night.” Space limits the list in this blog, but there is a trend that can be discerned. These are listed in no particular order because they were not presented as such:
- Fear of our friends and allies that we will give up on them and abandon them in their time of need.
- The changing nature of the threats that face us, as well as our self-imposed obstacles to adapt to those challenges.
- Increasing radicalization of Islam’s extremism, its terrorist connections, our nation’s obliviousness to the danger, our lack of a grand strategy to deal with it, and a failure of anyone to take a clear stand against it.
- A complex mix of technological advances that has the potential to create unprecedented destruction and death: WMD proliferation, cyber and space domain threats, new and more dangerous illegal and addicting drugs, large-scale financial theft, and high-level political and economic corruption.
The sentiments of our most trusted leaders – those who have dedicated their lives to national security – should not be too surprising. A number of them have retired and written a book or two recently about their experiences. Some of these books are on my recommended reading list.
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[1] U.S. Government agencies here specifically refers to the following: Department of Defense, State Department, Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Defense Intelligence Agency, Justice Department, and all 10 Unified Combatant Commands. There are also a number of subordinate organizations led also by senior leaders who also gave input.