Threats & Challenges

About the Book

Wildfires are only one of the major threats and challenges that the nation addresses very inadequately. America had been a Beacon of Freedom to many, yet today it fails to live up to its credo, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It is wracked with turmoil ranging from an out-of-control pandemic to racial and political unrest that has resulted in violence even in the sacred halls of its Capitol. Its economic system concentrates wealth at the top levels of society, while millions struggle for a living wage and governments at all levels have inadequate resources. Since the overwhelming Soviet threat of nuclear devastation receded into the background, the nation faces a wide range of diffuse threats including Islamic radicalism, autocratic governments, global refugee flows, cyber intrusions, and global warming. A National Strategy is badly needed to balance the allocation of resources to best address the totality of threats and challenges facing the nation. That is the focus of this book.

About the Author

Edward A. Corcoran is a retired US army officer who serves as a Senior fellow on national security issues at GlobalSecurity.org. Ed ended his military career as a Strategic Analyst at the US Army War College where he chaired studies for the Office of the Deputy Chief of Operations. Prior to that, as a Soviet affairs specialist, he served on intelligence staffs and spent two years as a Liaison Office to the Commander-in-Chief, Group of Soviet Forces, Germany. In his primary military specialty as a Nuclear Weapons Officer, he served on overseas assignments with deport units. After his military career, Ed provided extensive support to Department of Energy activities on Operations Security and technology transfer issues, as well as serving as a core member of the Secretary's Safeguards and Security Task Force which evaluated security throughout the DOE complex. During this time, he also served as the Rappoteur of the Defense of Europe Working Group of the Common Security Programme based in Oxford, England and had extensive discussions with European specialists on NATO defense issues. More recently, he has been involved with support for Afghanistan, posting articles on both Huffington Post and the GlobalSecurity.org Sitrep and working with the Afghan-American Chamber of Commerce and the rebuild Afghanistan Summit. Ed has authored numerous professional writings and presentations on military and security issues. He is a member of the National Advisory Board for the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues.