Update on National Security by Gen. Barry McCaffrey

•US-Russia relations will grow more hostile –Prime Minister Putin has re-established authoritarian control of the state and its mechanisms.

•Political and economic relations with China will continue to remain strong even as the PRC emerges as a major Pacific naval and air force military power.

•The crisis in Iraq will stabilize and US forces will largely withdraw in the coming 36 months. (35,000 US killed and wounded —$687 billion total).

•The next five years in Afghanistan will be complex. The political and economic situation may improve with massive new US resources. ($184 billion expended). Our Allies will not step up to the military challenge. The country is in misery.

•North Korea will come apart. We must facilitate a soft landing for this dangerous regional nuclear power.

•The situation in Pakistan is unstable. Our position in Afghanistan would be untenable without Pakistani support. Democracy is at peril.

•Iran will go nuclear and create instability in the Persian Gulf. The Sunni Arabs will create a nuclear-military coalition.

•Mexico in desperate need of serious US political and economic support to confront violent criminal drug cartels. US must act in deference to Mexican sovereignty.

•The death of Castro —meltdown of repression –250,000 refugees within 36 months.

•Confrontation with Chavez —instability and oil. We have no US Latin-America regional strategy.

•Terrorists will strike at America during the next Administration’s first term.

Heck of a to-do list for Obama. Is he going to whine how he inherited all this too?