Gen. Clark: US risks include cyberattacks, climate change, AI

The U.S. faces a number of risks: nations hostile to western democracy and the U.S., a cyberattack on the electrical grid, disease, and artificial intelligence to name a few, according to former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Wesley Clark.

Clark listed what those risks could mean to the country during the recent American Academy of Actuaries 2024 annual meeting, telling the group that although “there are a lot of good things going on” in the U.S. currently, the country faces its most dangerous period since the late 1930s.

The U.S. is the world’s superpower, he said, dominating everything in the world. Yet four nations – Russia, China, Iran and North Korea – are deliberately working against the U.S. and want to influence the upcoming election.

“These nations are working in concert to overcome the world order, the rule of law, the United Nations, the way disputes are settled, the banking conventions and maybe even the general accounting practices. We don't know how far it would go, but we don't want to try it,” he said.

External challenges are not the only risk to US

But this external challenge is not the only risk facing the U.S., and maybe not even the primary risk, Clark said.

He pointed to climate change driving hurricanes and wildfires, DNA manipulation that could create novel diseases and the risks posted by artificial intelligence as other threats to the country. But a cyberattack on the nation’s electrical grid could create the most destruction to the U.S.

“The electricity grid is the most complicated human machine ever put on the planet,” he said. “The Department of Homeland Security published a study that said if anything happened to knock out the electricity grid, 80% of Americans would die in six months. That’s the single greatest risk to the American people.

“A single nuclear weapon detonated at the right place in orbit would overwhelm the electricity grid with electromagnetic pulse. It would burn out the transistors and the chips and so forth that are essential, and there's no backup. There’s nothing you can do.”

Politics is the solution to these risks

Politics is the solution to these risks, Clark said. He pointed out that the U.S. has experienced various 30- to 50-year political and economic cycles in its history.

The end of the Civil War led to the Gilded Age, which led to the Progressive Era, the Great Depression and World War II. The post-war years ended with the election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980. The Reagan Era, Clark said, brought the belief of lowering taxes, that government should get out of the way of business and that private enterprise had the answers.

We are at the end of the Reagan Era, Clark said. “You can see it in President Biden, who wants to build the economy from the bottom up and the middle out.”

The “yellow press” of the late 1800s, radio and TV all changed the way the American public perceived politics, he said. But the rise of social media has also changed public perception of politics. “Now everyone’s opinion is out there, including a lot of Russian and Chinese bots.”

Clark called for Americans to bring a new consensus to government.

“We won’t agree on everything but we have to have a government that works. You can’t threaten to shut down the government if you don’t get your way.”

Clark said the U.S. must rebuild its military, fund research and development that will ultimately benefit the private sector, and “preserve the government’s ability to provide legislation and implement regulation to govern the complexity of society.”

With the 2024 election less than a month away, Clark declined to predict who will win, but he did predict one thing.

"We will move past the era of Reagan – either in this election or 2028 election – or we will move into some other form of govt beyond the Constitution, because the problems that face us, the risks that we face in this era, are that substantial. This is not business as usual and you are on the front lines.”

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Susan Rupe is editor in chief, magazine, for InsuranceNewsNet. She formerly served as communications director for an insurance agents' association and was an award-winning newspaper reporter and editor. Contact her at [email protected].