With all that’s going on around the world today, it’s time to re-look at what’s worth fighting and dying for here in America. That means asking: What are America’s Vital National Security Interests? And what are we doing to protect them?

While our government has produced a National Security Strategy wherein you can dig out National Interests if you work at it, that strategy is like many government products. They are really just staff products where everybody gets a vote, and everyone has their itch scratched. Coherence and precision are sacrificed at the altar of “make all the bureaucrats happy.”

That is everyone except the American people. So, let’s take a look at what I think the American people should be interested in, and ready to fight for, and if necessary, die to preserve. Here we go.

Vital National Interest #1: Safeguard America’s Sovereignty; People, Territory, Borders, and Airspace. This must be government’s first priority. It’s worth fighting and dying for. It’s our government’s duty to keep us safe, keep our land mass safe, protect our borders, and guard our airspace and sea coasts. This is non-negotiable and our president, his cabinet, state governors, mayors, law enforcement agencies, military and intelligence services should all be laser focused on this.

How are we doing? Not so well from my foxhole. Many of our people firmly believe that rather than being protected by our government, they are actually being hunted by government and accused of being insurrectionists by group and identity, rather than by evidence. Many feel they are looked on by government as threats, while those same groups believe they are actually patriots. Regardless of how one sees this, we have a problem!

Our territory and our borders are being grotesquely violated with mass illegal immigration by literally millions of people, most of whom know nothing of our culture, laws, constitutional guarantees, or traditions. For them there is no identity check, no background check, no historical knowledge check, and no loyalty check. There is no oath to our Constitution. We appear to encourage them to “come on in” by the millions and we just hope for the best.

Further, terrorist watchlist individuals, criminals, and drugs are flowing unchecked across our borders and killing American citizens and our children at enormous rates. Over 100,000 Americans — that’s right, 100,000! — died of fentanyl overdoses last year, with basic ingredients made in China, shipped to Mexican cartels, then “muled” unobstructed into the United States by cartel runners. It’s a stunning invasion of people, potential terrorists, criminals, and drugs, unimpeded by our government. Indeed, it is seemingly encouraged!

Our airspace is increasingly porous. Almost daily Russian and Chinese airbreathing aircraft challenge our airspace, and we allow intelligence balloons to dance across our most sensitive national security sites. Foreign satellites peer at us from every angle, taking our pictures and listening to our communications — largely unhindered. Many of those satellites have the capability of attacking our most precious communications and electronics national infrastructure.

Our military is becoming smaller and smaller, largely because many of our own citizens no longer want to serve and will not join what has been, until now, an incredibly effective all-volunteer force since the Vietnam era. So while our potential enemies (China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, etc.) gain military strength in numbers and capabilities, our military continues to shrink. Does anyone really believe we could withstand coordinated attacks from the east and west, and potentially within, simultaneously?

I grade our ability to secure Vital National Interest #1 as being Red, on a green, amber and red scale. We are at great risk!

Vital National Interest #2: Deter a Major Power Threat to Our Security Treaty Allies (NATO with 30 countries, South Korea, Japan, Australia/New Zealand, and the Philippines); and to our traditional friends, Israel and Taiwan. Whether we like it or not, we are party to Senate-confirmed military security treaties with the noted nations and we have legal and moral obligations to honor these treaties. And we have long-standing historical ties with Taiwan and Israel, which place them in a “near-treaty status.” We are fully obligated to go to war on behalf of our treaty allies if they are militarily attacked. And we have declared that we are willing to go to war to assist Israel and Taiwan if their sovereignty is at significant risk.

Right now these treaties commit us to three strategic areas of the world simultaneously; Europe, East Asia/Pacific Rim, and the Middle East. Simply put, China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran pose major and already “warm” threats to many of our treaty partners. We could easily be at war in both Europe and East Asia/Pacific Rim simultaneously — tonight. And the Middle East is ablaze with an active Iran-supported war against Israel, with Iran threatening to directly enter the fray.

For the three front threats that America faces simultaneously, our military is exceedingly small. For example, do you remember President Ronald Reagan’s 600 ship Navy strategic plan? Toward this end, he actually built our Navy to 594 ships during the post-Vietnam era. Today, our Navy sits at 280 ships, a shadow of its former self. This in the face of our three potential war front commitments, one more than the two we faced during the Cold War.

Our Army is shrinking. Now predicted to be at 466,000 active-duty Soldiers at the end of this year, our active-duty Army stood at over 1.5 million troops during the Vietnam and Cold Wars. So, our active Army is now less than a third of what it was during the two-front Vietnam and Cold War days. The Air Force and Marines have suffered similar decreases. And, again, now we face a potential simultaneous three front overseas conflict environment!

I grade our ability to secure Vital National Interest #2 as being Amber. It’s only amber because we are not now actively at war in any of the three front areas of high-risk combat. But we are at significant risk of this changing quickly, and this Interest will automatically go red if we significantly engage in just one of the three. We will go to “black” if just two of the three break out.

Vital National Interest #3: Maintain Access to Foreign Trade and Resources Through Open Sea and Air Lines of Movement. For better or for worse, we are enslaved to a global economy. Most of our manufactured consumer goods come from overseas sources. We are highly dependent on goods and services supplied from foreign governments and businesses.

During the COVID pandemic, we saw what a disruption to our connecting sea and air lines of movement (supply chain disruption) produced — economic depravity and stagnation. If one of our adversaries decides to shut down a major sea or air lane to one of our foreign centers of manufacturing, it will mean the strangulation of a significant portion of our economy.

As long as we are dependent on foreign manufacturing for a huge chunk of our consumer goods, we must protect long and vulnerable sea and air corridors. This means we must have a deployed Navy and Air Force with substantial capability to guarantee freedom of the seas and air.

Right now I grade Vital National Interest #3 as Green. I do this reluctantly, but we do have a deployed Navy and Air Force that focus on this mission. So far, so good. And neither China nor Russia could easily choose to match us in the air or sea alone right now. But the threats are significant, and a determined enemy could quickly and decisively negatively impact this vital interest.

Vital National Interest #4: Gain and Maintain Access to Vital Energy and Technology Resources, and Develop a Rare Earth Metal “Mine to Magnet” Supply Chain. To maintain and grow our economy, America must have two things which are vital — oil and rare earth metals. Oil drives our economy and will for the next 20 to 30 years at a minimum — perhaps forever. Fortunately, we have sufficient oil reserves in the ground to enable us to be fully independent from the global oil market and its potential disruptions. As such, it’s in our vital interest to produce our own oil at home, and it must become a top priority for government. This is crucial and imminently doable. Yet right now as much as 35% of our oil needs are imported from foreign producers. Why? There is no good reason. Nonetheless, while unimaginable, it’s true.

Second, we are already being held hostage to vital rare earth metals by China. The Chinese control over 80% of the world’s supply. Why do we care? We care because all advanced electronics depend upon very small magnetic components and conductors that can only work using these types of elements. In other words, our advanced electronic world (military and civilian) will not work without products from refined rare earth metals.

Stunningly, we have plenty of these type minerals in the ground across America. However, we have so restricted their mining and processing due to “environmental concerns” that we are now fully dependent on China to provide us with the stuff we need to prepare our military to confront, yes, China. Go figure! It is essential, indeed crucial, that America mine, produce, and process at home the rare earth metals necessary to “fuel” our electronic component production.

Right now I grade Vital National Interest #4 as fully Red. We are being held hostage to world oil supplies and rare earth metal overseas production. This must change for America to even dream of a secure future.

Vital National Interest #5: Affirm American Democratic Culture and Constitutional Precepts as Based on Judeo/Christian Spiritual Values. What? Many would argue that this is not a Vital National Security Interest area to be ready to fight for. I disagree. Yet I have never listed this area as a Vital National Interest because it has always been a secure assumption for our nation. America, our Constitution, our laws and our cultural values have always been assumed as emanating culturally from Judeo/Christian spiritual values. Judeo/Christian spiritual values have been how we, as a people, know what right looks like. While our ethnicities have always been diverse, our culture has always been a melting pot based on Judeo/Christian values.

However, this is all now changing and at a rapid rate. No longer are we considered diverse yet culturally united. Our society is shifting to pockets of cultural islands, each of which believes higher values are derived from government, not derived at all, or derived from spiritual values other than Judeo/Christian. America’s traditional model of culture and government is dying. As such, I believe our constitutional form of democracy is at risk of dying also.

No country can survive without a common value system shared by a significant majority of its population.

So, for the first time in over a century and a half (since our Civil War) it is not uncommon for news platforms (print and social) to nudge up against and talk about the potential for true armed insurrection here at home (not the falsely labeled “insurrection” of January 6, 2021). One hears it discussed on the streets, around water coolers at work, and in our homes. These are dangerous times internally for America and for our Constitution because too many politicians thrive on division.

While I grade Vital National Interest #5 to be Green right now, my sense is that we are perilously close to slipping into the Amber range, with going Red being a possibility. And, it is hard — very hard — to believe that this is possible. Nonetheless, it is clear that America is culturally cracking. It is crucial that a significant majority of Americans collectively return to our traditional Judea/Christian value system as the basis for government, and reaffirm government based on that system. A significant majority of us must agree on what right looks like. Otherwise, the slope to armed insurrection might be more slippery than almost anyone can imagine.

So, there we have it. Five Vital National Security Interests rated as Red, Amber, Green, Red, and Green (trending Amber). It’s government’s most crucial and solemn responsibility to work to ensure all five of these are solid — solid — green. We’re headed in the wrong direction. If you are concerned, you should be. I sure am.

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B.B. Bell, General, U.S. Army (Ret.), is a member of The Patriot Post’s National Advisory Committee. He served in uniform for almost four decades, including extended deployments overseas in both peace and war.