Sometime around my 60^th birthday it dawned on me that I’m not an economist (though I play one as a citizen in a democracy!). Yes, I’ve read books and articles by Nobel laureates and other prominent economists. I know the standard arguments on the right and left for, say, raising or lowering taxes. But is there any doubt that the liberal economist Paul Krugman or the conservative Eugene Fama, both Nobel Laureates, could demolish any of my arguments in the blink of an eye? How could I have been so foolish all these years? I know what expertise entails in the field in which I was a scholar for 30 some years; it should have been obvious to me that I’m not an expert in economics. Or foreign policy, although I subscribe to Foreign Affairs and read a lot. Or military science, although I worked as a civilian researcher…