For five decades, the United States has led the world in space exploration and use and has developed a solid civil, commercial, and national security space foundation. Space activities have improved life in the United States and around the world, enhancing security, protecting lives and the environment, speeding information flow, serving as an engine for economic growth, and revolutionizing the way people view their place in the world and the cosmos. Space has become a place that is increasingly used by a host of nations, consortia, businesses, and entrepreneurs.

In today’s dynamic strategic environment, political changes can become challenges very quickly. Yet, the gravity of major undertakings such as Operation IRAQI FREEDOM can cause us to overlook other significant events or developments. Any list of key strategic issues must, therefore, include the broadest array of regional and functional concerns. The Key Strategic Issues List (KSIL), published annually by the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) at the U.S. Army War College, is just such a list; it is a catalogue of significant issues, arranged as potential research topics, of concern to U.S. policymakers. As such, the KSIL is a ready source of topics that members of the defense community and academia can use to focus their research efforts.

We live in remarkable times – and in working at the White House, one of the striking things is the sheer pace of events. Given the advent of talk radio, cable news and the Internet – good things all -- I suspect it at least feels as though the pace of events has accelerated compared to just a few decades ago.

Neoconservatives hope that a democratic Iraq and Afghanistan can usher in a new age of Middle Eastern consensual government that will cool down a century-old cauldron of hatred.

As a new Congress gathers, all of us in the elected branches of government share a great privilege: We've been placed in office by the votes of the people we serve. And tonight that is a privilege we share with newly-elected leaders of Afghanistan, the Palestinian Territories, Ukraine, and a free and sovereign Iraq.