Our nation's security is our most fundamental need. Therefore, isolationism from, or involvement with the rest of the world has been our most continually vexing issue for 200 years. If you think debate is sharp about current issues, it pales compared to the frenzy over whether the US would remain isolationist. It was a major issue for Washington, Jefferson and Monroe. By the 1930's it completely dominated our foreign policy, and from the Cold War to Vietnam to Afghanistan, it still seems a central question.

But technology has made the question moot. As a powerful nation with a little geographic distance from potential threats, the key elements of our security are the sophisticated hardware defense systems we have in place, increasingly experienced and capable homeland security, and the best possible communications and intelligence network. If we keep these in place we can stop or minimize the effects of any attack. With those nations which pose the greatest threats, including nuclear capability, we must continue to negotiate and try to work together to stay away from the brink of conflict, as we have done successfully for the last half-century. But our attackers no longer wear the uniforms of a nation. Our response to them must be individualized targeting. Effective intelligence, drone attacks and small ground operations have almost entirely replaced territorial invasions as a means to stop attackers. We have finally adopted what the Israelis have been forced to do for decades, and we keep learning that it works.

It is never 'good' to take a life. The moral question becomes more controversial and emotional if there are lives lost collaterally. There is a current thread here decrying the death of the boy in Yemen, the result of a drone attack. It has become the constantly repeated but short-sighted argument used to criticize the nation and the President. Our enemies unceasingly protest and some of us are moved by their grief. I do not discount that grief. But that does not make our President a 'cold-blooded killer'. Nor does it make these tactics immoral.

Let us compare this new situation to the decisions to invade Iraq or Afghanistan. As in any large scale air and ground attack, there was certain knowledge that many people, ours and 'theirs' would lose their lives. There was no question in my mind that choosing to invade was 'bad' rather than to employ targeted small assaults. And especially with Afghanistan, I cannot imagine military leaders agreed that an invasion rather than targeted attacks would in the end be more likely to succeed.

For the simplest reason those were 'bad' choices, compared, for example, to what we think was Truman's 'good' decision to use the atom bomb; because there would be less loss of American lives. If we are only considering American lives for a moment, then the same logic certainly applies to drone and assault warfare. But in fact, our newest methods have resulted in far less death and destruction than any of our large scale ground or air attacks ever employed anywhere.

But there is a better reason. While we must protect ourselves, conventional warfare is now obsolete. It's very much like the British army, uniformed and lined up in front of Cornwallis. Yes, we must keep strong well trained armed forces to operate our security systems and protect against the possibility of invasion, but we must respond to terrorist attacks with anti-terrorist methods.

We've seen it repeatedly in our lifetimes. It's time to think differently, revise our defense expenditures and preparations, and get used to the fact that the use of conventional warfare is tragic, counter-productive, and avoidable.