Dr. Larry Korb

From the Book of Keenan, "On the seventh day we rested."  We really didn't do anything on Sunday, other than clean the apartment which was well over due.  Kristin made a family dinner for Pete, Keenan, and myself that included noodles, chicken, and bread that Pete put way too much butter on.  Pete and I were supposed to go get our haircut this morning, but he botched that one.  We had a guest speaker come to the RAF today, Dr. Larry Korb.  He is a current Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, and a Senior Adviser to the Center for Defense Information.  He has also served in many other capacities, including; being a Professor at Georgetown, a Senior Fellow on the Council on Foreign Relations, Assistant Secretary of Defense to Reagan, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute, and Vice President of the Raytheon Company.  I think he literally may have done everything.  I am pretty sure I heard him say he was in Iran merely a week ago, discussing American-Iranian relations on a national broadcast.  Unreal.  He talked to us about what he sees as the leading threats to America's position as the world's leading power.  The number one threat is the economy and the debt.  Number 2 - Not terrorism, which is merely a tactic, but specific extremist groups that are targeting American interests.  Number 3 - Failed states and rogue regimes which can be havens for extremists groups, and can cause disruptions in relations with countries and regions.  And number 4 - Rising powers like China and Brazil.  He talked about how we can't solve everything militarily, and embraced several tenets of the foreign policy I have supported since I started to pay attention in 2007.  How terrorism is a tactic, not a targeted enemy, and declaring war on it is like declaring war on...nothing or anything.  That the malice aimed towards America, right or wrong, is not based upon our freedoms but rather felt through our activities overseas.  And that we can't solve all of the problems in the world through the barrel of a gun.  If a Senior Fellow to the Council on Foreign Relations and former VP of Raytheon can agree with me on those points, there has to be some truth to them.  I really enjoyed his presentation, and attempted to get a question answered afterwards but we ran out of time.  I was going to ask him what his thoughts about cyber warfare are, and why he hadn't touched on it in his introduction.  I'll just have to ask him next time.