National security danger close to home

Daryl Finizio’s op-ed, “Will the trillions spent on weapons leave U.S. unprepared for next war?” (Feb. 19) on the historical lunacy of empires crumbling because they waged wars employing yesteryear’s weapons and methods was informative and timely, particularly in a region anticipating prosperity via local submarine production.

However, our former mayor instinctively avoided articulating enemy terroristic efforts potentially inflicting disaster upon us, such candid prognosis invariably proving fatal in the politico profession. The Russians have surrounded us in cyberspace and toyed with our 2016 election as a cat would a captured mouse. It is an esoteric fact that two Ohio Republicans did prison time for tipping that state’s Electoral College ballots and concomitantly, the presidency for George W. Bush over John Kerry in 2004, never mind the infamous 2000 Florida fiasco giving Bush the nod over Al Gore. Our foreign foes have expropriated our own game.

Never mind the glaring vulnerabilities of our health system (think flu) and metropolitan transportation network (think massive massacres) or destruction of our power grid that would instantaneously catapult us to 19th century technology.

Hopefully, the public will during this precarious 2018 election season heed the wise voices of folks who view our hazardous world through pragmatic eyes rather than ingenuous hearts or fat wallets. Martin Crane New London