The Department of Management, Marketing and Political Science and the Center for Global and International Studies recently sponsored an appearance of Tennessee’s 8th District U.S. Representative John Tanner.

The congressman spoke on topics including the international relationships, the war in Iraq and the national debt.

Dr. Richard Chesteen, professor of political science, introduced Tanner, noting his accomplishments as a ranking officer in both the U.S. Navy and National Guard, member of the Ways and Means Committee and member of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of fiscally conservative Democrats. Chesteen said that Tanner played instrumental parts in getting the Port Authority to Lake County and getting funding for I-69.

The focus of Tanner’s speech was on national security and international relationships. “When I went to Washington in January 1989, the world was bi-polar. It was East vs. West, and everything revolved around that axis,” he said. “The collapse of the USSR changed this rivalry. It became every man for himself.”

He said that he felt that international opinions are more important in today’s world than in the East vs. West world. “Accurate, timely intelligence is our best defense, and to learn the ‘who, what, when and where,’ we need to maximize our friends to be our eyes and ears throughout the world.”

Tanner, who is a past vice president of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, said that NATO is transforming from an inward-looking defense of Western Europe to a global security network. He noted that six eastern countries are all now part of NATO.

He said that the United Nations serves a useful purpose in molding world opinion and that it was an important component needed to muster the international good will necessary to fight terrorism.

Tanner compared the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said that a key difference is that two-thirds of Afghanistan is now being monitored by U.N. forces. He said that this not only relieves U.S. troops but also saves the U.S. money. This is not the case in Iraq.

He has visited Iraq three times since the beginning of the war. “I am proud of our troops for doing everything we have asked them to do, namely give Iraqis back their country.” He said that after the Dec. 15 election, the U.S. needs to sit down with the newly-elected leaders and ask two questions: “What do you expect from us?” and “What do you expect from yourselves?” “It’s their future. We can help, but we can’t do it all,” he said.

He also spoke on the growing $8 trillion national debt.

“If you stack up one-thousand dollar bills, $1 trillion would be about a foot high, “ Tanner said. “$1 billion would be about the size of the Empire State Building. $1 trillion would be 1,000 Empire State Buildings.”

“The federal government has added since 2001 about $50 billion each year in additional interest payments on the federal debt,” Tanner said. “That is $50 billion more of your tax money each year that we are forced to use for interest payments instead of human capital investments like homeland security, infrastructure, health care and education. There has never been a country in the history of the world that is strong and free with an unhealthy, uneducated work force and a dilapidated infrastructure. That is the path we’re going with this administration.”