According to the report of a conference of great strategic brains during October 2022, the world will look pretty ugly in 2035 - in national security terms, let alone across societal evolution. Between Chinese exceptionalism, what-remains-of-Russia’s military and Moscow's unbridled imperialist ambition, a North Korea with strategic reach, a meddling and strategically important Iran, and the extraordinary climate change effects across Africa and South Asia, military forces are likely to broken by the sheer scale of commitments they face - certainly in their predicted forms. Between now and then, there might be just enough time to make some critical corrections and place democracies in a state where they can at least face the tasks yet - as Professor Julian Lindley French explains – an absence of political leadership, ambition, strategy and vision will be our undoing. In having to decide between health security, economic security, and national security far too few political leaders across Europe, America and like-minded democracies seem to ready to make the difficult decisions.