Where You Can Learn About the (True) State of the Union on National Security

“Mama” may well be the first word out of a newborn politician’s mouth. But the first full sentence is likely to be “It is time to put politics aside.”

What comes after that is, inevitably, pure politics.

The State of the Union address has long since ceased being about the state of the union. The prebuttals, the speech itself and the responses—all are but a gabfest of talking points meant to score political points.

As for a serious analysis and sober assessment of the threats and opportunities awaiting our nation … forget about finding it in the address.

All this makes “predicting” what President Obama will say so easy—like performing a card trick with the cards facing up.

The president will declare that the state of America is just fine, thank you. He’ll state that his policies are all working well, and that they will get better still if Congress will just do what he tells them.

From Iran to Cuba to “Je suis Charlie,” we will be assured that Obama has all right answers.

Given all that predictability, it’s tempting to write about what the president should say on Tuesday. But that would be just as useless an exercise as matchmaking for Taylor Swift. Nothing is going to change.

If the president were interested in contrarian voices on foreign and defense policies, he wouldn’t be the president we have.

But if you want an accurate description of the state of our nation’s security, there is an information source that is remarkably free of political or ideological bias: the National Defense Panel (NDP).

This was a fully bipartisan commission, its members picked by the congressional leaders of both parties, in partnership with the administration. The panel, chaired by former Defense Secretary Bill Perry and retired combatant commander Gen. John Abizaid, was given a most serious assignment: review the Pentagon’s defense planning and provide Congress with an independent assessment of national security needs.

The NDP issued its report a few months ago. It may not be perfect. Some of its findings may be debatable. But page for page, there’s no better document out there grading the state of our national security.

The White House has never had much to say about the report’s findings. That’s understandable. The NDP dished out some more-than-inconvenient truths. Its report identified growing threats and a long list of concerns about slipping military readiness and declining capabilities.

Still, the Oval Office can’t claim the critics in the report (whose members included a former Obama administration defense official) are just playing politics. This report is as objective an assessment of the state of national security as this town is capable of cranking out.

It can be used as a touchstone for grading the grade Obama gives national security in the State of the Union.