For open discussion: what defines an "American vital interest" and what are they? We often hear the term but few elected officials, media figures, or those in the public use it with a consistent, precise definition. As a result, it creates wildly different concepts in different people when discussing international affairs.

I think it's often co-mingled and used interchangeably with the "national interest", which imo is generally assumed to be of lesser order importance than "vital" given how it deals with America and the world, not what's going on just for us. Interested in what people in the forum across the political spectrum believe.

A sovereign threat or a natural resource worth taking (oil, water, mineral, land).

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