Which is a Security Risk – Too Fat or Too Few People?

When visiting a military base, America’s First Lady called obesity a threat to the nation’s security. But there’s a more pressing issue that — so far — has given the U.S. an advantage over other major powers.

Susan Yoshihara writes in the Philadelphia Inquirer on how the US. may squander this advantage. She notes, “Obesity will not become an immediate threat to national security because American parents continue to have more children on average than the rest of the developed world. That has allowed the number of recruitable youths – and the quality – to increase over the last half century.”

Other countries aren’t doing so well.

“The fertility rates and size of the childbearing cohort in some countries will be so small by 2070, a top U.N. statistician told me, that if things don’t improve drastically some societies will virtually disappear.”

But U.S. politicians may blow this advantage:

“The real threat to national security is not a lack of capable youth, but a loss of strategic direction and the prospect of $1 trillion in defense cuts. Much of the looming cuts are not because of strategic priorities but are an irresponsible substitute for hard choices about Social Security and skyrocketing medical-care costs.”

“While the first lady rightly tells the troops to eat their vegetables, President Obama should be telling Congress to trim the fat on bloated entitlements before their misguided defense cuts truly jeopardize America’s national security.”

Read more at Defense cuts are poised to squander America’s demographic advantage.

 

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