National Character vs. National Security: Conflict in the Making?

Abstract

Abstract : From the very early years of the American Revolution, the Founding Fathers knew that the struggle to define and hold true to a national character would set the course of the future of the United States. Indeed, laid bare in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the conceiving documents of the Nation, are the seeds of conflict between the ideals of national character and national security. As a result, in pursuit of an ever-broadening definition of national security, the United States has steadily lost focus on its national character over the past 60 years in the pursuit of physical and economic security. The thesis of this paper is that the United States should determine national security interests as a function of the national character vice the current policy of promoting values as just one of the national interests. In response, four specific areas of national security are addressed nuclear weapon posturing, exporting of democracy, forward military presence and geographic combatant commands as a way ahead for current and future Administrations to consider as they establish future national security strategies.