Today, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter is in Japan.  Yesterday, he was at the Arizona State University campus in Tempe, Arizona, where he spoke to the McCain Institute for International Leadership.  It was a speech about a lot of things, and it has been widely quoted - understandably so - for its strong statements in support of Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, TPP.  The comparison to an aircraft carrier is memorable.  It came in this paragraph near the end of the speech:

We don't think Secretary Carter overstated the importance of TPP.  And we think it important that he push for it now.  But the issue of America's engagement in, and importance to, the Asia-Pacific region is a still larger topic.  It is for that reason that we have given the pride of place today, not to the aircraft carrier line, but to a comment about America's irreplaceable role in the region's numerous economic miracles over the course of the last half century. As Secretary Carter put it, "America's policy of building stability and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific has succeeded over the years because it's been a strong bipartisan priority through both Democratic and Republican administrations."

We are not going to try to reprise the whole speech here.  We couldn't do it justice.  You should read it for yourself.  There are two disparate elements, though, that we will share just because we admired them. 

One was this statement on the nature of security: "...Joe Nye, has said, security is like oxygen.  When you have enough of it, you pay no attention to it. But when you don't have enough, you can think of nothing else."

The other was the fact that he spoke directly to the students throughout his speech, as in this passage:

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Back to TPP, it would be nice if Secretary Carter had been extolling the praises of a completed, published agreement.  He wasn't.  The President still needs Trade Promotion Authority and the negotiators still need to tackle the hardest issues, the ones that only get resolved just after the last fudged deadline.  And America for one needs a robust public TPP debate that is informed by the text of an agreement.    The swirl of current activity - including Secretary Carter's visits this week to Japan and Korea - suggests that this time, this year, all these things will happen.
 
We hope so.  Eventually they will, whatever happens this year, but the cost for waiting much longer could be painfully high.