Why Economic Sustainability is critical for National Security?

The most important determinant of a country’s national security is the health of its economy and
its society. That is a strong statement, but it is true. The Rise and Fall of Great Powers – the
main thesis of which is great power ascendancy and durability relies on economic success and its
sustainability. Kennedy wrote “The relative strengths of the leading nations in world affairs
never remain constant, principally because of the uneven rate of growth among different
societies and of the technological and organizational breakthroughs which bring a greater
advantage to one society than to another.” As such, it is appropriate, and even necessary, that
The Cipher Brief take on some of the key economic issues, and even perhaps the key social
issues, of the day – because they do not just affect our economic and domestic well being, they
affect our national security as well. 
Link between economics and national security and its measurement is even harder because a
strong and growing economy advances a nation’s security interests in a variety of ways. It gives
it the resources – tax revenues to spend on defense, intelligence, and diplomacy – necessary to
play a significant role in the world.  It gives it the technology to do so. It gives it the confidence
to do so. And it creates interdependencies among it and its trading partners that, while not
guaranteeing stability, certainly enhance it. Economies cannot grow unless we take care of the
environments that provide those resources, and the cultures that depend on those resources. 
Let’s just take an example of U.S defense spending. We can actually estimate the effect of trade
on that. As the United States spends roughly 3.5 percent of its GDP on defense, the expansion in
trade from 1950-2016 has added almost $75 billion to their defense budget today. That is
comparable to roughly three times what the Department of Defense lost in spending due to
sequestration. Again, it is a big number.
Importance of economic stability in national security can be taken from Somalia. It is a culture
that had been shattered after years of civil war. As a result of the war, the economy and the
country’s infrastructure were devastated. At one time, Somalia was a relatively stable nation with
a growing economy. Women were free and were highly educated. Somalia was a religiously
moderate nation, and Islamic fundamentalism was a foreign concept. Not so now. For many
years, education was not available to anyone and the beautiful capital of Mogadishu, along with
the rest of the country, was reduced to rubble. There was no food, clean drinking water, or
electricity. Somalia had gone from an African gem to a cesspool and it has not improved much.
Until the infrastructure was rebuilt, these people had a poor chance of having a good and decent
life. Once the country was destabilized, even basic needs became an elusive shadow, and radical
Islam and terrorist organizations moved in. Most people knew it was too late, and left their own
country for a future elsewhere as refugees. This is a repeated scenario around the world. Once a
country loses its own ability to sustain itself with the basics for whatever reason, the country
dissolves or turns into either a world-wide burden or a world-wide security threat. It is a great
idea of having a “Safe Planet” where children are free to grow up, be educated, and make the
world a better place. But without the basic essentials of food, clean drinking water, and available,
affordable, and reliable power, whether it be conventional or renewable, no society has a chance
to thrive with longevity.
Any community, regardless of scale from 3 people to 300 million, must manage the resources it
uses in perpetuity, or within the foreseeable future they will exhaust their limiting resources and
their economy will shrink. If the economy shrinks sufficiently, no level of consumption over
subsistence will become possible, and collapse will occur.
Prior to that occurring, they will attempt to acquire additional resources by any means available.
For large countries, this will likely mean acquisition of neighboring states (Crimea for example).
For small countries, it will likely mean a diasporas shipping goods to family members (Haiti for
example), or bail-outs from richer nations (Greece). At some point, none of these actions will be
sufficient, if the rate of resource exhaustion exceeds the rate of resource gain from other sources.
Sustainable Development, as a concept, will reduce the rate of resource exhaustion. As it is
practiced right now, there is no indication that the rate of resource exhaustion will be slowed to
or past zero (to resource recovery). It may be possible that the loss in quality of life that comes
from resource exhaustion can be overcome by a gain in quality of life through specific Human
Development initiatives - remove the barriers that prevent people from meeting their needs
effectively and you'll do far more than increasing resource extraction efficiency. This is
particularly true in first world countries, where a change in resource availability makes no
difference to the potential quality of life for the majority of the citizens, but the Human
Development does.