The Players

Who makes US national security strategy?The short answer is the National Security Council (NSC).This small organization is part of the White House, and is the single most important player in the process of formulating the National Security Strategy of the US. The NSC was established by a law called the National Security Act of 1947. ²⁹  The current NSS of the US can be found on the website of the NSC (http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/).

The membership of the NSC is determined in part by that law (the statutory members) and in part by practice (the non-statutory members). The statutory membersare the president, the vice-president and the Secretaries of State and Defense.The non-statutory membersare the Secretary of the Treasury and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA).By law, advisors to the NSC are the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS). Depending upon the security issue being considered, other members of the government such as the Director of the Department of Homeland Security are invited to provide input to the NSC.

It was not until 1986 that Congress required the president to produce a security strategy, a job that was then given to the NSC. The president´s National Security Advisor plays the most important role in directing this task of the NSC.

Analysis #2

You now understand where the US National Security Strategy is produced within the US government. Can you figure out where your country´s NSS is produced, that is, which agencies, ministries or departments play the key roles, and what those roles are?

Back to top

Developed by the Office of Continuous Learning and Professor Richard Doyle at the Naval Postgraduate School