Why aren’t the candidates talking about the next security crisis?

[Valin]

Washington Post:

Marc A. Thiessen

October 17 2016

 

As we prepare for the final presidential debate of 2016, with its inevitable clashes over Donald Trump’s alleged groping of women and the latest WikiLeaks revelations involving Hillary Clinton, let’s pretend for a moment that we are in an alternate universe where the American people are choosing a commander in chief who may have to lead our nation through an unprecedented — and unanticipated — national-security crisis.

 

It has happened before. In 1988, no one asked either Michael Dukakis or George H.W. Bush about Iraq during the presidential debates — yet soon the United States was called on to repel Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Similarly, in 2000 no one asked George W. Bush or Al Gore about the threat from al-Qaeda during the presidential debates — yet less than a year later, al-Qaeda had attacked the U.S. homeland and the war on terrorism dominated Bush’s presidency.

 

Knowing this history, I asked a number of leading national-security experts what question they would ask the candidates — a question that no one is asking today but that could come to dominate the next president’s term in office. Their answers are fascinating — and terrifying.

 

(Snip)