Pakistan who has been fueling Taliban insurgency since 2001 while milking Uncle Sam in the process by pretending to be America's ally.

With an ally like Pakistan U. S. does NOT need another enemy.

You put all these right-wing nuts next to the likes of Mike Mullen and Leon Panetta? The media needs to stop putting these sorts of irresponsible voices side by side with sensible people as though there's some sort of equivalence between them.

preaching fear because it should further their political and career ambitions. Tell you what. These people need to think outside the box a little bit, because whatever the thing we really need to fear isn't on that list, because we haven't thought of it yet.

That's what always gets us.

I suggest the author read both Mark Steyn's "After America" and Pat Buchanan's "Suicide of a Superpower."

We have met the enemy... and he is us!

As usual, Gingrich has it essentially correct and - does a horrible job of expressing it. I mean really - what kind of intelligent discussion is one going to have with the "radical secular socialist machine?"
We could certainly talk about the people who believe that the world; the government; their mommies; or whomever - owes them the basic necessities of Life and, how this is basically "the root of all evil." I believe that would fit Mr. Gingrich's "radical secular socialist machine," as a large portion of this do nothing population is actually running various governments and influential non-governmental groups.

And, Radical fascist Islamist Jihaddi Death Cultists are the barbarian side of the "radical secular socialist machine," in that they feel that G-d Owes them the basic necessities of Life and that anyone who doesn't believe that should die.
(Which, in their case, means mostly other Muslims and Arabs.)

The "greatest threat" to America is, what appears to be a very large segment of the world's population saying "Give me MINE now! And screw you or die!"
Everyone from the OWie'S to the Arab/Muslim Death Cultists to the Greek socialists to the millionaire hedge fund traders - ALL want THEIR'S and, apparently, don't give a damn who gets hurt in order for their free lunch to keep on showing up.
TANSTAAFL.

Narcotic Prohibition, Radical religious fundamentalism and the repeal of the Glass Steagall act of 1933.

Imagine a forest with a very large contingent of firefighters. Many years have gone by where the firefighters have put out every fire. Now the forest is starting to get old. Dead wood and bushes have built up. Gaps in the forest have filled. In effect, the forest is now positioned for a major forest fire that will wipe out everything.

What is the greatest threat to this forest?

Should you worry about someone who wants to cut down a few trees? Should you worry about beavers creating a dam?

No, you worry about the whole dam forest burning down.

Here you are worrying about the beaver when the everything is about to go to hell. The overall conditions for a major war are present just like they were right before World War I. We are now looking at a replay of the Great Depression plus World War II.

The 'greatest threat'? I'd say that's an obvious one. The existence of nuclear weapons. So long as they exist, it's entirely possible for a relatively weak state to cause damage well above its level to the U.S and it's possible for a strong state to wipe the U.S out of existence. Something that could destroy the U.S as both a state and a country easily outweighs any other threat. Of course the correct question would be 'what is the greatest current threat to the U.S that is likely to occur'? Despite our fears of nuclear weapons, nuclear war is not likely to occur in the near future.

Feminism and the decline of man. Besides the obvious drop in fertility there is the replacement of opportunism with prevention as the motive philosophy of society. Feminism's looking glass orientation filters all information into affinity or threat according to it's internal precepts and this distortion prevents effective responses to the environment.

Feminism is a Marxist movement based upon a gender dialectic. It's success is measured directly to destruction of it's class enemy.

Our new Puritanical Matriarchal Socialist society will not compete well with more effective structures.

People keep invoking single-issue, single outcome solutions based on national, economic, ethnic, ideological, etc. power blocks and their antagonism. “The block I belong to is better (more humane, more Godly, more correct, more efficient: take your pick) than that other one over there!” While these blocks and their conflicts may be real and marginally troublesome, they do not constitute the primary source of our problems.

96% of the world population operates by-and-large according to the dictates of conscience and empathy for others. They may fail, from time to time, but their failures are exceptional, paid for dearly with regret and guilt, and often subject to repentance and restitution. They obey the golden rule more or less faithfully because that is how their brain works best. The rest are under no such constraint.

The craft of government is to marginalize its (unavoidable minority of) sociopaths into positions of minimal harm at minimal expense, while leaving positions of authority to tribal leaders hand-picked since childhood for charisma, intelligence and self-sacrifice, and carefully screened to exclude those with sociopathic tendencies of vicious self-indulgence. The tragedy of government is that sociopaths will eventually take over everywhere and destroy everything, more or less out of sheer boredom.

The endless calculus of love and empathy is not carried out in sociopaths’ brains; therefore, they are beset by a staggering sense of boredom only assuaged by vainglory and vicious assaults on others. When asked why they committed horrendous savagery against their victims, sociopaths will tend to respond with trivial reasons of spite or one-upmanship, including that the victims “deserved” this fate at their hands. It is NEVER the sociopath’s fault. Sociopaths see themselves as besieged by mirror images of themselves who only "fake" empathy to take advantage of them.

Things only get really dicey once these sociopaths manage to promote themselves to a majority of positions of power and responsibility. They may do so under rigid, paternalistic and authoritarian regimes where there is no appeal from their abuse; or in a loose, situational and laissez-faire regime where there are few constraints against their self-promotion; or in a succession of both. They may base their power over others on wealth (capitalism) or on bureaucratic power (socialism). None of these social safeguards will screen them from positions of authority and responsibility indefinitely. In addition, once they’ve boot-strapped themselves into an elite and promoted like-minded peers to subordinate levels, they will enshrine malignant narcissism and self-aggrandizement as cultural imperatives.

The conscience-driven are either excluded from positions of authority (by disgusted choice or by insult, blackmail and persecution at the hands of a sociopathic elite) or compelled to disobey their conscience so as to remain employed. Those who insist on appeals to conscience are branded “bleeding hearts” “hopelessly unrealistic” “effete idealists” or some other sociopath’s insult, and cast to the wayside. Injustice becomes law, sadism "realistic."

Ultimately, sociopaths take over neutral institutions and creeds previously run by conscience-driven humanists. The short-term profit or powerbase of sociopaths takes precedence over everything up to and including the survival of the human race and the terrestrial ecology. The “rugged individual” indifferent to the common good becomes the hero of sociopathic folklore, even though human history is one long tale of social survival through mutual sacrifice for the common good.

Eventually, dehumanized and abused masses of the conscience-driven rebel against the growing tyranny of massed sociopaths in positions of power. This anarchic revolution is a hothouse for sociopaths who worsen it, run it on both sides, and thrive in it until mass casualty exhaustion (along with the extermination of sociopathic elites) sets in and conscience-driven survivors slowly rebuild a viable polity.

Thus any model of block antagonism (“us versus them”) will leave half your friends on the opposite side (among its share of the conscience-driven) and half your worst enemies on your own side (your side’s share of sociopaths). Provided, of course, you are not a sociopath yourself, inflaming artificial antagonisms in order to bask in the heat of their conflict.

As a result, every attempt to come to conclusive terms based on block antagonism has failed despite repeated successes at genocide or social suppression against one side or the other or both. Meanwhile, resurgent sociopaths have raised more and more bipartisan havoc (anonymously) behind this block-antagonism smoke screen.

Wake up.

Should you think I am being overly Irish and hyperbolic:

European elites are literally replacing the Golden Rule:

"Do unto others as your would have them do unto you," in case you'd forgotten,

With this new one in the media:

"Do unto others as Capital would dictacte."

Satan awakes! I don't think they would dare get away with this sacrilege in the United States, which says much to our benefit.

The craft of government is to marginalize its (unavoidable minority of) sociopaths into positions of minimal harm at minimal expense, while leaving positions of authority to tribal leaders hand-picked since childhood for charisma, intelligence and self-sacrifice, and carefully screened beth jones to exclude those with sociopathic tendencies of vicious self-indulgence. The tragedy of government is that sociopaths will eventually take over everywhere and destroy everything, more or less out of sheer boredom.