Since when did everything become a matter of national security? “From climate change to ransomware to personal protective equipment to critical minerals to artificial intelligence, everything is national security now,” writes the political scientist Daniel Drezner in the upcoming issue of Foreign Affairs.
But while it is true that the number of unconventional threats to the United States has grown, the accumulation of paramount concerns has made the concept of national security “increasingly meaningless.” If “everything is defined as national security,” Drezner warns, “nothing is a national security priority.” And if U.S. policymakers don’t start thinking more carefully about what constitutes a valid national security concern, they “risk falling into a pattern of trying to do everything, ensuring that they will do nothing well.”