The Threat

“America is safer, more prosperous today, with more opportunity for more of its people, than ever before in our history.

“But we cannot remain at peace while a third of the world — disadvantaged, famine-stricken, largely illiterate — is a breeding ground for war.

We must extend the helping hand of America to those peoples who have been left out of our century’s progress toward development and democracy. Nations and regions unable to cope with drought, disease, famine, civil war — the Four Horsemen of the oncoming Apocalypse. I call it Plan 21—America’s plan for the twenty-first century.”

Dan felt a prickle run up his spine. De Bari was flinging the words past his murmuring audience, into the cameras.

“There are two types of states in the developing world. One, though not wealthy yet by our standards, is on the road to democracy and development. These nations act responsibly in the world community. The others lag behind, cursed by capricious dictatorships, lack of human rights, but above all, by poverty and ecological stress. These are the havens for terror. They will be the source of war and unrest in the century to come. For strangely enough, it is when human beings have nothing … that they act as if they have nothing to lose.

“We can react to crisis after crisis, piecemeal and without making real progress — or we can take a giant stride.

“We must work with other nations to forgive the debt that asphyxiates development in so much of the Third World.

“We must strengthen the capacity of local governments to provide basic social, medical, and economic infrastructure, and build a robust international effort to address such growing risks as drug-resistant malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV.

“We must address the impending disaster of global warming, with its concomitants of drought, rising sea levels, and weather disturbances. This gradually accelerating catastrophe will first destroy those peoples already on the brink. But make no mistake: Unaddressed, it will reduce us all to a desperate struggle for shrinking resources. Till our children’s children, heirs to all our greed, wander starving under a burning sun, and curse us for what we took from them forever.”

Now Dan saw the puzzlement on the faces before him turning to something else. In some, to delight; in far more, to open anger. But De Bari kept on.

“As part of Plan 21, we must also resolve that dispute that has for a long time now been the most dangerous reality in the Mideast: the conflict between Israeli and Palestinian over the land both claim, both with justice, as their birthright.

“The time has come to permanently settle the problem. To this end, I have acceded to requests from both sides to post American troops as a peacekeeping force between Israel and the new Palestinian state. This will be followed by a level of aid aimed at bringing the Palestinian people to a standard of education and living fully equal to their Israeli neighbors.”

The buzz climbed, then fell away. Dan had never seen a group of human beings so breathlessly attentive. Though he could not tell yet what they thought of what they heard.

“I have prepared a comprehensive message recommending the legislative measures necessary to meet the requirements of Plan 21. I urge that this be made the first priority of this Congress.”

Dan could not believe it. De Bari was proposing a massive aid program. To Palestinians, Sudanese, central Africans, Bangladeshis. And some unspecified but also no doubt massive program to combat greenhouse warming. But where would the money come from? The speechwriters, of course, had anticipated that very question.

“Plan 21 will be funded by further reductions in military, space, and intelligence establishments still bloated by cold war — era requirements. It may be said this will leave us unready in a dangerous world. I believe it will not. The world’s peace, as well as our own, depends on our remaining strong. But neither can we depend on military strength alone.”

Dan couldn’t help glancing at the Chiefs, in the front row. Stahl and the others listened in somber concentration.

“It may be said that this task is too big for us,” De Bari said. “That it’s too idealistic. Or just too hard.

“But as we look back, those years that stand out in our history are those in which the administration and Congress, working together, had the foresight to seize those initiatives for which the nation was ready — and in which they acted.

“This is such a moment. Perhaps the last moment in which we can realize the age-old dream of a world without widespread and recurrent famine. War. And ecological degradation.”

The murmur that rose reflected Dan’s own questions. Was it too much? Could such a self-indulgent and complacent country as theirs had become still rally to sacrifice and resolve?

De Bari’s voice rose. “A great American once said, of the generation that made our Revolution: ‘We have it in our power to begin the world again.’