Economics As Enemy Of War

Fort Leavenworth, Kan. – The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff brought a message to military students at Fort Leavenworth they would not likely have heard less than a generation ago: that improving the global economy is a stratagem to stave off wars.

Admiral Mike Mullen told the Command and General Staff College one of his largest concerns is how to get economic engines moving so parents in both the U. S. and around the world can raise their children to a higher standard of living.

Ultimately, says the nation's top military officer, it will prevent conflicts--"It is a universal desire on the part of parents, globally, to do that. And as economics and fiscal status are going in the other direction in so many places, what does that mean? Because the better that is, the less likely we will need to be employed."

Mullen says he never was trained as a young officer to deal with economics and job creation in countries where we are at war. But that it has to be be done in today's world.

As many as 25 hundred student officers from the armed services and allied countries heard his message at Fort Leavenworth.