Brittle Power- PARTS 1-3 (+Notes) - Natural Capitalism Solutions

xForewordrather to persuade us not to resist what the free market and millions of citizensand local governments are already doing in their own self-interest.Efforts to stereotype the authors’ approach in terms of the traditionalnational security debate will prove to be a difficult exercise. In their critique ofthe false sense of certainty about the predictability of failure and the other dangersthat accompany excessive centralization of authority and excessivereliance on highly quantified analysis, the authors have much in common withthe military officers, Members of Congress, and others who have led the criticismof the reigning theology of systems analysis in the Pentagon. TheLovinses face honestly the devastation that could be caused by the use ofnuclear weapons and what our society could do to reduce the damage to itselfif such a horror should ever occur. In this their thinking has certain commonthreads with those who take civil defense seriously. (Consequently we fullyexpect that some member of the pure strain of the assured destruction schoolof strategic analysis, ever vigilant in defense of doctrine, will angrily argue thatthey risk making nuclear war more likely by trying to mitigate any damagethat might occur from it.) Those who identify national security with the currentway we do our energy business will wax wroth. Those who believe thateverything necessary has been accomplished if we can just avoid reliance onPersian Gulf oil will find cold comfort. The managers of the government’shuge energy programs will grind their teeth.In the meantime, the people, local governments, and a growing share of thebusiness community go on quietly insulating their houses, installing theirwoodburning stoves, building passive solar buildings, using the wind andbuilding small dams to generate electricity, and lowering the cost of photovoltaics.If we get out of their way, they will soon make America progressivelyless and less a fragile power.As Carl Sandburg once said of us, “This old anvil laughs at many brokenhammers.”—ADMIRAL THOMAS H. MOORER (USN RET)—R. JAMES WOOLSEYAdmiral Thomas H. Moorer, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Chief of Naval Operations, is SeniorAssociate at the Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies.R. James Woolsey, former Under Secretary of the Navy and former General Counsel to the Senate Armed Services Committee,practices law in Washington, D.C.