Since 1993, TRICARE has been a major United States Department of Defense healthcare plan. Along with AHLTA, its worldwide deployment companion program, TRICARE was folded under the newly established Defense Health Agency of the U.S in 2013.3 Comparisons, positive and negative could be made with the most iconic healthcare program in the Anglosphere, the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS).4
The same mission first rationale, independent of being imperial or hegemonic in the current world system5 could be applied globally if we as eight billion interdependent humans decide to become an informally and nimbly integrated multiglobal species where the individual as part of society is stressed though in the context of each. In 1873, President Ulysses S. Grant (1869-77), having been elected due in part as the winning general in the U.S. Civil War (1862-65), said:
As commerce, education and the rapid transition of thought and matter, by telegraph and steam have changed everything, I rather believe that the great Maker is preparing the world to become one nation, speaking one language, a consummation which will render armies and navies no longer necessary.6
A similar ethos for concurrent generations and cultures on Earth during the current time period of existential ordeal may or may not be at hand. Arguments for nihilism are compelling. However, by definition, history/”ourstory”/chronology is a series of new and usually unforeseen events. One such new event could be to intentionally individualize healthcare based on recent advances in genomics in a way that nullifies privacy concerns and discrepancies in longevity, vitality, intelligence and physical abilities among individuals and “classes” or groupings/subsets of humans on the all human team.7
Whenever we decide to stop dominating each other like kids on a playground and start responsibly mass mobilizing as a homeplanet8 to explore Mars, the moons of Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune9 and even hollowed out large asteroids per Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin’s efficient solar system cycler mechanics,10 we will not have to limit ourselves to complex organizational model weaving or choosing the best healthcare model based on objective standards to replicate at scale. We can refine new principles for our time and that of our children and implement accordingly. One set of beginning principles is placed here for consideration going forward in time as opposed to attempting in vain to return to or maintain a past that was always beneficial to a rotating few throughout ourhistory:
- Pharmaceutical corporations serve human/public health, not vice versa
- Individual human lifetimes are sacred and needed, including those of medical professionals
- Patients’ input into their care is the prime directive, utilizing all available encrypted databases
The late U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, an often-vilified leader of the Vietnam War era, reflected that his generation became the first generation of humans that could conceivably destroy global civilization quickly and completely.11 What we need to preserve human existence on Earth and beyond is multilateral extrapolation of the overtures made between U.S. President Richard M. Nixon, then U.S. National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger and Soviet Chairman, Aleksey Kosygin, resulting in the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission. In this mission, Soviet cosmonauts and U.S. astronauts shook hands as their capsules docked with each other in space at the height of the Cold War.12 It is believed that the Apollo-Soyuz mission served to de-escalate tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, at least at the strategic/nuclear level.13
The International Space Station project (1998-present) or ISS14 can be seen as a follow-on project to Apollo-Soyuz when the nuclear stakes were not as high as well as a missed diplomatic opportunity15 by and condemnation of the nation-state system for not finding a way to include half of the human population as represented by China and India on the ISS, future ISSs or associated missions. In regard to the present relationships between China, Iran, Russia and the United States, similarly conceived projects/missions in the spirit of Apollo-Soyuz could yield breakthroughs on tough issues, such as independence for Taiwan and Tibet and religious and political liberties across China. Throughout history, mobilization on grand scales has yielded new economic dynamism and revitalization of civilizations. Both China and “The West” and the “Global South [and North]” could benefit from a large dose of moral revitalization whether rooted in Taoism or Stoicism which are more alike than different. Only by co-exploring the unforgiving hazards beyond Earth, we will find our best within.
REFERENCES
1. “Fort Mackinac History,” Mackinac State Historic Parks, webpage. https://www.mackinacparks.com/explore/history/fort-mackinac-history/. See also, “Fort Mackinac,” Wikipedia, webpage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Mackinac. Both retrieved June 30, 2025.
2. “Cold War,” Wikipedia, webpage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War. Retrieved June 24, 2025.
3. “Defense Health Agency: Improving Health and Building Readiness,” Health.mil (Military Health System), webpage. https://health.mil/About-MHS/Military-Medical-History/Historical-Timelines/History-of-the-DHA. See also “About the Military Health System,” webpage. https://health.mil/About-MHS. Both retrieved June 21, 2025.
4. Lawrence V. Fulton and Matthew S. Brooks, “An Evaluation of Alternatives for Providing Care to Veterans” Healthcare 6, no. 3: 92 (2018). https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare6030092. Retrieved June 24, 2025.
5. “World-systems theory,” Wikipedia, webpage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World-systems_theory. See also, “World-systems theory,” Britannica, webpage. https://www.britannica.com/topic/world-systems-theory and Immanuel Wallerstein (1930-2019), World-Systems Analysis (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2004). https://www.dukeupress.edu/world-systems-analysis. All retrieved June 24, 2025.
6. E.J. Hobsbawm, “The World Unified.” In Frank Lechner and John Boli, editors, The Globalization Reader (Malden, Massachussetts: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2000), 52. See also, “Ulysses S. Grant,” Wikipedia, webpage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_S._Grant. Retrieved June 25, 2025.
7. Juengst, Eric and Daniel Moseley, “Human Enhancement,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2025 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), webpage (overview and literature review). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2025/entries/enhancement/. Retrieved June 25, 2025.
8. Martin A. Schwab, Homeplanet Defense: Strategic Thought for a World in Crisis (West Conshoshocken, Pennsylvania: Infinity Publishing, 2005). http://www.buybooksontheweb.com/product.aspx?ISBN=0-7414-2597-1. See also, Martin A. Schwab, Homeplanet Defense: Synergizing the Global Populace to Subdue a Brutal Universe, Second Edition (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: FriesenPress, 2014). https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22267791-homeplanet-defense. Both retrieved June 25, 2025.
9. Rebecca Boyle and Juan Velasco, “The six moons most likely to host life in our solar system,” Scientific American, May 1, 2023. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-six-moons-most-likely-to-host-life-in-our-solar-system. Retrieved June 30, 2025.
10. Buzz Aldrin and Leonard David, Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Books, 2013). https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15823458-mission-to-mars. Retrieved June 25, 2025.
11. Robert S. McNamara and James G. Blight, Wilson’s Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing and Catastrophe in the 21st Century (New York: PublicAffairs, 2001), 224.
12. Eric Betz, “Apollo-Soyuz mission: When the space race ended,” Astronomy, July 21, 2020, updated May 18, 2023. https://www.astronomy.com/space-exploration/apollo-soyuz-mission-when-the-space-race-ended/. Retrieved June 30, 2025.
13. Anatoly Antonov, “With the Apollo-Soyuz handshake in space, the Cold War thawed a little: Russia’s Ambassador to the United States recalls an iconic example of space détente, 45 years ago this week,” Smithsonian Magazine/Air & Space Magazine, July 15, 2020. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/apollo-soyuz-cold-war-thawed-little-180975321/. Retrieved June 30, 2025.
14. “International Space Station,” Wikipedia, webpage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station. Retrieved June 30, 2025.
15. “Gore–Chernomyrdin Commission,” Wikipedia, webpage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gore%E2%80%93Chernomyrdin_Commission. Retrieved June 30, 2025.
3x3 GLOBAL DRILLS 