The Products

The contents of the NSS for the US are determined by the law that requires it. That law—the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 ³⁵ —indicated that the US NSS must include the following:

1. "The worldwide interests, goals, and objectives of the United States that are vital to the national security of the United States.
2. The foreign policy, worldwide commitments, and national defense capabilities of the United States necessary to deter aggression and to implement the national security strategy of the United States.
3. The proposed short-term and long-term uses of the political, economic, military, and other elements of national power of the United States to protect or promote the interests and achieve the goals and objectives referred to in paragraph (1).
4. The adequacy of the capabilities of the United States to carry out the national security strategy of the United States, including an evaluation of the balance among the capabilities of all elements of national power of the United States to support the implementation of the national security strategy of the United States."

As you can see, this is a rather challenging requirement. Not only that, but Congress requires this document (in classified and unclassified versions) every year. Presidents have attempted to meet this requirement, but they have not always succeeded. Between 1986, when this law was passed, and 2006, presidents have failed to produce a NSS six times.

Strategy soup

The President of the US must decide what strategic information to make public as part of an unclassified NSS. For some countries, there is no single document summarizing their national security strategy. Rather, they publish several documents, or even a bookshelf of them. And in fact, the US government has published more than one document that looks like a NSS. The US has what might be called a "strategy soup."

The page shown on the right, taken from the "reports" section on the website of the US Department of Defense (http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/index.html) gives you a "taste" of this stew. Notice the documents highlighted in yellow, all of which seem to be about strategy for the US.

However, some of these strategies are more important than others. As you have learned here, the most comprehensive and authoritative security strategy issued by the US government is the National Security Strategy of the United States. The other "strategy-like" documents listed here are all, in some way, related to the NSS.

You can see the relationship between the NSS (shown below in the blue box, center left) and subordinate strategies and related documents used in the US to convert that strategy into specific defense budgets in the chart below. The process shown here looks complicated—because it is.

A similar set of priorities can be found in the strategies (or "sub-strategies") addressing a critical area within national security, i.e., terrorism. The US has a National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, produced by the White House in February 2003. That strategy is said to complement the NSS, as well as other related strategies such as the National Strategy for Homeland Security, the National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction, the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, etc. Subordinate to the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism is a document produced by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called the National Military Strategic Plan for the War on Terrorism.

Analysis #4

The NSS for the US is available on the website of the National Security Council. How can citizens, scholars and students of defense policy access the National Security Strategy of the country you have chosen?

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