US National Security Policy Research Articles

The Meaning of ‘Strategic’ in US National-security Policy

How is the term ‘strategic’ used today within the US Department of Defense? To address this question, the article explores the evolution of the term ‘strategic’ from the interwar period to the end of the Cold War era, when Strategic Air Command was responsible for anything deemed strategic. The contemporary use of the term is a manifestation of a growing need to integrate the activities of various commands, capabilities and operations across the Defense Department that can produce significant military or political effects. Several problems could emerge due to a lack of clarity, integration and synchronisation across the US defence establishment. The Pentagon should and could establish greater clarity in defining strategic threats, operations, systems, command relationships and deterrence.

Post-9/11 US thinking and approaches to nuclear deterrence: the Bush Doctrine and the role of nuclear weapons in US deterrence strategy

Charting a course through US administrations from the late 1990s to the present day, this article considers the George W. Bush administration’s thinking on nuclear deterrence in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11: What was distinctive about the Bush administration’s thinking and approach to nuclear deterrence? To what extent, and to what effect have the Bush administration’s approaches proved enduring? The article considers the prima facie contradictory nature of the administration’s deterrence objectives against the backdrop of a shifting security environment, characterised by the proliferation of WMDs to ‘rogue states’ and non-state actors, nuclear multipolarity, disruptive emerging technologies, and long-held US commitments to its global allies and partners—ensuring the centrality of nuclear weapons in US national security policy, despite sustained efforts to reduce this reliance.

Taliban 2.0 and US National Security Policy in Afghanistan

This article examines from the point of view of the US national security policy, the causes and contexts for the US exit from Afghanistan and the factors that will influence the US policy in Afghanistan in the coming decade. It reviews the logic behind post-9/11 US ‘grand strategy’ and the evolution of the US national security policy in this period, which included the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. It examines the evolution of the US deployment and factors which complicated the US strategic objectives in Afghanistan, including the persistent tension in the US national security objectives between counter-terrorism and nation-building objectives. It argues that the US faces limited palatable options regarding its post-withdrawal Afghanistan policy and that moving forward, policy will be constrained by a mix of situational and structural variables. These include US domestic politics, the Taliban regime itself (and its relationship with ISIS-K) and the region’s geopolitical winds, notably the strategic positions of Iran, Pakistan, China and to a lesser extent Russia.

An unfinished battle: George C. Marshall and intelligence in the early Cold War

This article deals with the influence of Gen. George C. Marshall on the foundation of the US intelligence community after the Second World War. It argues that his uneven achievements demonstrate how the ceaseless wrangling within the Truman administration undermined the crafting of a coherent intelligence policy. Despite his bureaucratic skills and prominent positions, Marshall struggled to achieve his ends on matters like signals intelligence, covert action, or relations between the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency. Yet he crafted an enduring vision of how intelligence should supplement US national security policy that remained potent throughout the Cold War and beyond.

Rethinking Nuclear Arms Control

Where is nuclear arms control—negotiated restraints on the deadliest weapons of mass destruction—headed? This 50-year tool of US national security policy is currently under attack. The New Strategi...

Conceptual Approaches in the Process of US National Security Policy Making

Conceptual Approaches in the Process of US National Security Policy Making

No Use: Nuclear Weapons and U.S. National Security Policy, by Thomas M. Nichols

Thomas M. Nichols No Use: Nuclear Weapons and U.S. National Security Policy Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014. 232 pp., $39.95 (cloth) ISBN: 978-0-8122-4566-0Based on data for late 2013, United States' nuclear arsenal includes an estimated 7400 warheads; of these, 4650 ready for use, with an additional 2700 awaiting destruction.1 What utility do these weapons have? This question lies at centre of No Use, as Thomas Nichols of US Naval War College considers what role nuclear force can and should play in US national security strategy. Nichols advances a compelling argument that challenges prevailing assumptions about nuclear force and its role in US national security policy. The United States, Nichols argues, should abandon its Cold War outlook completely in favour of its existing unspoken nuclear toward Russia and China of minimum deterrence (173). No Use makes an important contribution to our understanding of past and present US nuclear strategy, as well as offering well-reasoned recommendations regarding future role of nuclear weapons in US national security policy.At core of Nichols' argument lies a paradox: although decades have passed since collapse of Soviet Union, US nuclear policy continues to be dominated by Cold War thinking. To demonstrate ongoing predominance of Cold War interpretations, Nichols briefly explores history of US nuclear strategy, illustrating predominant assumption that nuclear weapons were (and continue to be) a successful deterrent. While post-Cold War administrations have undertaken nuclear posture reviews (NPRs), these reviews have not precipitated any concrete change in US strategy. Instead, policymakers have retained an approach of favouring the devil we know rather than overhauling policy (81-82). In absence of significant change resulting from NPRs, US post-Cold War nuclear doctrine retains Cold War thinking, continuing to be a diluted version of Mutually Assured Destruction. As a result, United States is more prepared to respond to a nuclear threat from Russia or China-the easy scenarios to plan for, according to Nichols-than to a more probable, but less predictable, threat posed by a nuclear-armed smaller state or non-state actor (55-56).The challenges confronting United States and its allies today, however, not same as those posed by Soviet Union in past. While this seems obvious, No Use makes it clear that US nuclear thinking today draws no such distinction. Instead of reconsidering role of nuclear weapons, policymakers continue to recycle old assumptions, hoping that deterrence will work again (if indeed it did in first place). Existing US policy assumes that small states are subject to same supposedly iron laws of deterrence that constrain large powers (132). This poses a number of questions. Can a small state be deterred by threat of nuclear retaliation? Is United States willing to retaliate, and if so, how? Nichols addresses a lengthy list of issues that would face US government, including co-location of civilian and nuclear targets and potential damage to neigh- bouring allies. …

President Obama's Offshore Drilling Policy and Energy Security: A Game-Theoretic Policy Analysis

ABSTRACT In the post-9/11 era, security has become a primary collective concern for governments, communities, industry, policy analysts, NGOs, and decision-makers. A powerful confluence of ideas from the fields of sustainable development, environmental justice, ecological engineering, political ecology, and energy security is transforming US national security policy. It is shown that the decision whether or not to expand offshore drilling in the US involves complex multi-criteria negotiation processes, many decision-makers (with conflicting priorities and dynamic preferences), high decision stakes, limited technical information (both in terms of quality and quantity), and difficult tradeoffs. Specifically, this paper applies advances in game-theoretic decision-making to President Obama's March 2010 decision to open new coastal areas of the US to drilling for offshore oil and gas. Our findings can be applied to environmental, political, energy, and socio-economic decision-making at strategic, operational, and tactical levels.

Africa and the US National Security Policy in a Changing Global Order

Developments in US policy towards Africa since 9/11, as shown by the establishment of the Africa Command, has been described as marked departures from what existed in the immediate post-Cold War era when Africa was ‘neglected’. Africa has been dc-marginalized in the US strategic and national security policy because it has become critical to the strategic interest of the US. This paper provides an alternative interpretation of the US national security policy as translated into activities in Africa in the post 9/1 1 period. It argues that Africa has never been marginalized nor neglected by the US in its foreign or security policy after the Cold War, although there has been a change in strategy. This becomes obvious when security is not separated from the economy in the analysis of the US national security policy agency towards Africa.

The Virtual Absence of Malice: Cyber Security and Threat Politics

Cyber-Security and Threat Politics: US Efforts to Secure the Information Age. By Myriam Dunn Cavelty. New York: Routledge, 2007. 182 pp., $150.00 hardcover (ISBN-10: 0-415-42981-1). Myriam Dunn Cavelty's new book, Cyber-Security and Threat Politics: US Efforts to Secure the Information Age , provides a theoretically informed analysis of the social construction of cyber-security threats in the context of US national security policy. As Cavelty notes, the topic of cyber-security has gone through many ebbs and flows over the years. During the 1990s, prior to 9/11, the concept was ranked extraordinarily high, with haunting prognostications of an electronic Pearl Harbor. Similar fears arose leading up to the year 2000, with the so-called Y2K crisis. Both threats reflected the growing recognition of our dependence on technological systems and the possibility of systems crash. After 9/11, cyber-security fears receded relative to more physical ones, like biological terrorism, although the issue has continued to morph and evolve. Cavelty's starting point is the so-called Copenhagen School of securitization (Buzan, Waever, and de Wilde 1997), which is within the social constructivist family of IR theorizing. According to this school, threats to national security are not defined in accordance with rational calculations, but are socially constructed from discourses that arise from and are shaped and promoted by policy communities. Socially constructed threats define the “object” of security (that which is to be protected), the agency or source of the threat, and the policy responses that flow from it, none of which is a priori self-evident. Cavelty adds some helpful conceptual elements to the Copenhagen School, such as threat frames and policy windows, which provide some additional theoretical depth, before embarking on her analysis of the US cyber-security threat frame. The theoretical parts of the book are very clearly written, easy to understand, and refreshingly self-conscious. It is clear that Cavelty aims not to proselytize her approach but rather assess it pragmatically as a tool. For that reason alone, the book is a …

An Ever-Expanding War: Legal Aspects of Online Strategic Communication

Nearly eight years after 9/11, senior US leadership is redefining the war on terrorism as a global counterinsurgency effort, one that requires both kinetic force and indirect, smart power collaboration by civilian agencies. Department of Defense has taken on many of these burdens that might have been assumed by civilian agencies in the past, said Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Forced by circumstances, our brave men and women in uniform have stepped up to the task, with field artillerymen and tankers building schools and mentoring city councils--usually in a language they don't speak.... But it is no replacement for the real thing, civilian involvement and expertise. (1) Although the requirement for interagency cooperation is a neartruism of US national security policy today, finding the appropriate role for the Department of Defense (DOD) remains a key challenge. This article examines one aspect of activities that potentially overlap with other government departments, DOD's growing involvement in the battle of ideas. (2) Much consternation exists in the foreign policy community regarding DOD's expansion into missions traditionally performed by civilian agencies. (3) A small but critical example of this growth involves DOD's efforts to use the Internet to craft a positive perception abroad, while attacking the ideological underpinnings of terrorism. (4) In mid 2007, the Department of Defense issued policies authorizing commanders to engage foreign audiences via online interactive methods, such as texting, blogging, e-mail, and regionally focused Web sites. (5) The guidance was in direct response to long-standing complaints from the ten regional and functional Combatant Commanders that a terrorist could post videos of a beheading or other form of extremist propaganda, unhindered by policy considerations, whereas US commanders had to navigate hurdles to get psychological operations (PSYOP) videos and themes approved. (6) A key issue is whether these online activities, while critical to overall American strategic communication efforts, are properly characterized as that make use of DOD funding. DOD's communication activities are increasingly separated in time and space from a kinetic mission; are directed at broad, cross-regional audiences; and, on their face, appear more like a public diplomacy campaign than a military program. (7) It would be unfair to fault DOD for its involvement in such hybrid activities. The Department is arguably filling a need where resource-strapped civilian agencies might be falling short. PSYOP are a key aspect of counterinsurgency efforts. As former participants in and now observers of DOD's expanding communication portfolio, the authors are particularly aware of the argument that the US government needs to respond in real time to extremist propaganda in order to thwart violent extremism and lessen the need for military intervention. Yet DOD's expansion into the field of interactive communication is troubling on two counts. First, once the Department no longer labels its communication measures as PSYOR it potentially subverts its own statutory authorities to conduct such programs. The Department has limited authorities to engage foreign audiences, and PSYOP are the principal authorized mechanism to do so. In legal terms, in order to justify the use of appropriated funds, DOD activities are required to support a DOD-specific and not conflict with the responsibility of another agency. (8) Once DOD stops calling interactive communication activities PSYOP and undertakes functions similar to those of another department, the mission becomes less defined. Second, DOD may be encroaching upon the Department of State's to engage foreign audiences. The two departments' missions, while overlapping, are distinct. DOD's is one of influence; the State Department's is one of relationship-building and dialogue. …

Stability Operations in Strategic Perspective: A Skeptical View

Because this article is friendly to much of the content of the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review Report (QDR), it will pull no punches in offering constructive criticism. (1) The subject of stability (and reconstruction) operations will be discussed explicitly, but it should be understood that this subject has to be regarded as a highly dependent variable. Stability operations, the demand for them and the provision of new capabilities to perform them well, are the downstream product of larger decisions on foreign policy and strategy. We can pick one of two rival judgments on the QDR and its novel endorsement of the need for competence in irregular warfare and postwar stability operations. On the one hand, we can choose to see the QDR's thrust toward countering irregular and asymmetric foes, and in favor of developing the skills to enhance social and political stability, as an overdue course correction in American policy and strategy. On the other hand, we may prefer to be less generous and instead suggest that the vision in the QDR amounts to a gross overreaction to the problems most characteristic of the present day. This is the sin of presentism. The Defense Department has peered out through the fog of the future to 2025 and has seen--guess what?--a future that is very much like today. We are warned to expect surprises and we are told repeatedly that ours is an era of uncertainty, but nonetheless no reader could possibly miss the report's central message on threats. The perils of the near- to medium-term future will be largely irregular. We dare to ask, Is this likely to be true? and, even if it is true, should it imply for US national security policy? I suggest that a QDR composed at the current juncture of events in Iraq and Afghanistan is not entirely to be trusted as a source of balanced guidance for the future. But, to be fair, no analysis can escape influence by the major preoccupation of its drafters. That granted, the QDR does suffer from a heavy, indeed an unduly heavy, burden of presentism. That is to say, it is seeing the future with terms of reference that derive excessively from today. What is more, I am concerned about the number and significance of truly major political and strategic assumptions that are simply passed over in silence. The Argument This article comprises an eight-point argument that presents both a strategic perspective and, as promised in the subtitle, a skeptical view of some of the more vital assumptions that appear to be shaping policy and strategy today. As an aid to comprehension, as well as an encouragement to economy in explanation and justification, the article will proceed from an itemization and brief explanation of the elements of the argument to their discussion in greater detail. The eight points are these: * The United States is the global hegemon at present, by default we must add. (2) This hegemony is real, but it is nonetheless only partial, it is context-specific, and it is certain to be challenged. * As the hegemonic, world-ordering power, America's competence, strengths, and reputation or prestige are of vital importance for global stability. International order cannot afford its principal guardian to make major errors in statecraft or strategy. * America's national ideology, which is an integral part of its culture, does not travel as well as many Americans believe. The issue is not the merit in the ideology, but rather the power of that ideology to misguide national security policy. * The American of war reflects American society, while the American armed forces reflect American foreign policy demands, actual, anticipated, and plausibly possible. It remains to be demonstrated whether or not the United States can transform its armed forces so that they will excel in the conduct of irregular warfare. A malign combination of poor foreign policy choices, a public culture or ideology that is inherently contestable abroad rather than revealed universal truth, and a deeply ingrained traditional way of war, must raise serious questions as to feasibility. …

The Global Threat of New and Reemerging Infectious Diseases: Reconciling US National Security and Public Health Policy * Jennifer Brower and Peter Chalk. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2003. $20. 140pp.

The Global Threat of New and Reemerging Infectious Diseases: Reconciling US National Security and Public Health Policy * Jennifer Brower and Peter Chalk. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2003. $20. 140pp.

The Global Threat of New and Reemerging Infectious Diseases: Reconciling US National Security and Public Health Policy Jennifer Brower and Peter Chalk. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2003. $20. 140pp.

The Global Threat of New and Reemerging Infectious Diseases: Reconciling US National Security and Public Health Policy Jennifer Brower and Peter Chalk. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2003. $20. 140pp.

The Global Threat of New and Reemerging Infectious Diseases: Reconciling US National Security and Public Health Policy Jennifer Brower and Peter Chalk. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2003. $20. 140pp.

The Global Threat of New and Reemerging Infectious Diseases: Reconciling US National Security and Public Health Policy Jennifer Brower and Peter Chalk. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2003. $20. 140pp.

US national security decision-making

US President George W. Bush came to office with a clear sense of how to structure the process by which major decisions on national security policy would be reached. He would appoint strong advisers, encourage them to discuss and to disagree on a particular issue, reach a decision, and then expect everyone to fall into line. When the president is decisive (as after the attacks of 11 September, and as may now be the case over Iraq) the policy process works as intended. It is when the president dithers - when he faces divided counsel and is himself unclear over what course to follow - that the system breaks down. The future coherence of US national security policy will depend to a very large degree on the ability of Bush to act decisively in the face of differences among the officials on whom he depends for advice and guidance.

The Myth of Flexible Response: United States Strategy in Europe during the 1960s

up any book on post-war United States foreign relations and you will almost certainly be told that US national security policy changed dramatically on 20 January 1961, when the incoming John F. Kennedy administration began to replace Dwight D. Eisenhower's 'massive retaliation' with a new military strategy of 'flexible response'. The strategy, which focused largely on the Soviet threat to Western Europe, was, and is, seen as a radical change which supposedly enhanced deterrence by providing the president with flexible nuclear options and increased conventional capabilities to deal with a variety of military crises. This view of flexible response is widely held among both strategists and historians.1 However, the operational changes in US strategy in Europe during the 1960s have been exaggerated. Recently declassified documents and transcribed recordings reveal that senior officials, including the president and secretary of defence, were not persuaded by the core strategic assumptions underlaying the doctrine of flexible response as they applied to the role of the United States in Europe. Like Eisenhower before them, they were not convinced that 'controlled' nuclear war was possible, entertained the possibility of assisting independent European nuclear

US–Russian cooperation in human spaceflight: assessing the impacts

How far the broad security, political and economic goals behind the USA's invitation to Russia to participate in the International Space Station have been achieved is assessed in this synthesis of the views of a range of experts in Russian affairs and US foreign and national security policy. The article covers the impacts of cooperation on the Russian aerospace industrial base, on nonproliferation issues and on overall US–Russian relations. Various themes are identified—such as Russian ambivalence over embracing Western norms—and while the experts agreed on certain subjects, there was no overall unanimity.

Building Democracies with Southern Command's Legal Engagement Strategy

America has conducted itself in the post-Cold War era with the understanding that fostering democracies and encouraging military establishments subject to the of are vital to US national security interests. [1] In this regard, the warfighting unified commands mirror the overall US national security policy of peacetime engagement not only by maintaining close contacts with allies and friendly governments for the purpose of imparting values and ideals associated with democratic principles, but by focusing this commitment through detailed engagement plans. For example, in document entitled Strategy of Cooperative Regional Peacetime Engagement, General Charles E. Wilhelm, Commander in Chief of US Southern Command from 1997 to 2000 (now retired), set out his vision for Latin America and the Caribbean as a community of democratic, stable, and prosperous nations...served by professional, modernized, interoperable security forces that embrace democratic principles, demonstrate respect for human rights, are subordinate to civil authority, and are capable and supportive of multilateral responses to challenges. [2] In addition, recognizing that there is legal dimension to almost every aspect of the US Southern Command engagement plan, the Office of the Staff Judge Advocate developed and published first-ever legal engagement strategy in 1998. [3] The intent of the legal engagement strategy is to promote the concept of professional law-based militaries that operate in accordance with the of law, respect internationally recognized human rights, [4] and are subordinate to and controlled by democratically elected civilian governments. In short, the US Southern Command legal engagement strategy is blueprint for democracy-building in the context of the of law. In the quest for war avoidance, this legal engagement plan is unique force multiplier and contributes to the shaping dimension of the National Military Strategy. The Importance of the Rule of Law in War Avoidance In his groundbreaking book about warfare in the 21st century, Race to the Swift, Richard Simpkin argues that democracies must find politico-legal devices to confront the enemies that threaten today's societies, and that the armed forces of democracy must carry out their duties in conformity with the of law. Simpkin states, Democratic governments rest on the of law, and must so rest. [5] The term rule of law was initially coined to refer to the common system of jurisprudence with particular emphasis on equality before the courts. The more modern common meaning, however, encompasses those rules and legal standards of behavior recognized and practiced between states in the context of the community of nations, and connotes consistency in the application of democratically passed and impartially implemented and enforced national laws and regulations. In the words of University of Virginia professor John Norton Moore, the importance of the of is central to international relations: Law... is vitally important. Even in the short run, the [rule of] serves as standard of appraisal for national actions and as means of communicating intentions to both friend and foe, and perceptions about lawfulness can profoundly influence both national and international support for particular actions. [6] In tandem with Professor Moore's admonishment, the Clinton Administration's Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, said that of all the problems facing the Southern Hemisphere, none is more important than improving adherence to the of law. Where justice is absent, Albright writes, peace and stability of nation and its neighbors come under threat; where justice is partial, citizens who do not have access to equal treatment lose faith in their government, and the forces of extremism grow strong; and where justice is unprofessional, crime flourishes, corruption grows, and economies suffer. …

Kissinger and Brzezinski: the NSC and the struggle for control of US national security policy

Kissinger and Brzezinski: the NSC and the struggle for control of US national security policy