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The U.S. National Security Strategy: Policy, Process, Problems

Article  in  Public Administration Review · June 2007

DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6210.2007.00748.x

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 Nancy Roberts, Editor

Richard B. Doyle
Naval Postgraduate School

Public The U.S. National Security Strategy: Policy, Process, Problems

Documents

Richard B. Doyle is an associate
professor of public budgeting in the
Graduate School of Business and Public
Policy, Naval Postgraduate School,
Monterrey, California.
E-mail: rdoyle@nps.edu
Since 1986, presidents have been required to submit an
annual National Security Strategy (NSS). Recent years
have seen a proliferation of national strategies of other
kinds, linked in part to the NSS. The National Security
Council, led by the national security advisor and
employing its committee system and the interagency
process, develops the NSS. The integration of all the
necessary elements within the NSS involves an opaque
and irregular set of rolling negotiations among national
security principals. The 2006 NSS is best viewed in
comparison to the 2002 version, which was issued in
the immediate aftermath of 9/11. It stipulates that the
United States is at war with transnational terrorism
fueled by a perversion of Islam and proposes stable
democracy as the primary solution, supported by
aggressive efforts to control the proliferation of weapons
of mass destruction and the option of taking preemptive
military action. Criteria for assessing national security
strategies can be process oriented or results based.
ment. These are the “official” strategies published by
governments. Explicit strategy can be found in a
variety of public documents. Many countries refer to
their NSS as a “white paper” for defense. After experi-
menting with such titles as “A National Security
Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement” (1994–96)
and “A National Security Strategy for a New
Century” (1997–99), the United States has settled
(since 2002) on what sounds like a “neutral” title for
its formal national security strategy, “The National
Security Strategy of the United States of America.”
The most recent version of the NSS was released
in March 2006.
Should a country’s official, published strategy be
congruent with what experts say about the defense
policies and practices actually carried out by that
country? In other words, should the strategy in the-
ory be identical to the strategy as practiced? Most
would think so. However, as one expert observes,

A
national security strategy (NSS) purports to
represent a “nation’s plan for the coordinated
use of all the instruments of state power—
nonmilitary as well as military—to pursue objectives
that defend and advance its national interest.”1 All
countries have them, either implicitly or explicitly.
Implicit strategy is what we find by observing a coun-
try over time as it interacts with its security environ-
ment (i.e., with other countries and forces that might
threaten it or interfere with its objectives). The game
of describing a country’s implicit strategy is open to all
players. For example, scholars generally agree that
U.S. security strategy centered on deterrence during
the Cold War. Since the end of the Cold War,
however, there has been less consensus.
“As in most of life, the levels of theory and practice in
strategy are not always aligned” (Betts 2004, 7). The
NSS cannot be aligned with the views of all experts’
interpretations of national strategy, as those interpre-
tations themselves do not agree. Moreover, implicit
strategy is likely to be much more complex than
explicit strategy, as the day-to-day implementation
of security policy on a global scale defies the many
assumptions underlying declaratory policy. Finally,
there is the fact that explicit strategies incorporate
intentions as well as implementation. For the most
part, they tell the world what a government intends
to do, strategically. Whether it consistently acts on
these principles is another matter—a question of
implicit strategy.

Explicit strategy, our concern A Surfeit of Strategies

here, is something else. It refers
to a country’s public, authorita-
tive declarations about the man-
ner in which it intends to achieve
its security objectives within the
international security environ-
624 Public Administration Review • July | August 2007
We enjoy an embarrassment
of strategic riches, if measured
by the number of public
strategies currently available
to decision makers.
We enjoy an embarrassment of
strategic riches, if measured by
the number of public strategies
that are currently available to
decision makers. The NSS sits
astride a growing pile of strategic
 documents released by one federal agency or another
over the past half decade, 13 of which are listed in
table 1, along with their office of origin.
What are we to make of this burst of public strategiz-
ing? Much of it has resulted from the terrorist attacks
of September 11, 2001, and the agonizing reappraisals
that ensued within the federal government. These are
new efforts, although some, such as the National
Strategy for Combating Terrorism, are already in their
second edition. The National Strategy for Victory in
Iraq is undergoing a hard scrub. Others on the list,
such as the National Military and Defense Strategies,
have been around longer, and thus are more
institutionalized.
Within this “strategy stew,” there is a hierarchy of
sorts. As the most comprehensive security document,
the NSS is, ostensibly, the strategic touchstone. The
other documents are, or should be, logically related
to if not derived from it. For example, the National
Military Strategy is intended to support the two
strategies above it—that is, the National Defense
Strategy and the NSS—in terms of priority and
scope. The National Defense Strategy is said to sup-
port the NSS. Because these strategies are all products
of the George W. Bush administration, the assump-
tion is that they reflect a common strategic template.
Given the scope of the problems they address, the
processes used to produce them, and the agencies
involved in the production, that may be a heroic
assumption.
The Impetus for the National Security
Strategy
There is scant information on the precise manner in
which the federal government produces the NSS.
That said, we do know why it is produced and where.
The “why” issue is straightforward. Since the
mid-1980s, Congress has required the president to
produce a national security strategy. The contents of
the NSS are stipulated by the law that requires it,
the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense
Reorganization Act of 1986 (Public Law 102-496,
Stat. 3190, U.S.C. 50). The strategy is to address
the following:
• The worldwide interests, goals, and objectives of the
United States that are vital to the national security of
the United States
• The foreign policy, worldwide commitments, and
national defense capabilities that are necessary to
deter aggression and implement the national security
strategy of the United States
• The proposed short-term and long-term uses
of the political, economic, military, and other
elements of the United States’ national power to
protect or promote the interests and achieve
the goals and objectives referred to in the first
paragraph
• The adequacy of the nation’s capabilities to carry
out the national security strategy of the United States,
including an evaluation of the balance among the ca-
pabilities of all elements of national power to support
the implementation of the national security strategy of
the United States

Table 1 Current U.S. National Strategies

Document Date of Issuance Office of Origin

National Money Laundering Strategy July 2002 Secretary of the Treasury, U.S.
Attorney General
National Strategy for Homeland Security July 2002 White House Office of
Homeland Security
National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace February 2003 White House
National Strategy for the Physical February 2003 White House
Protection of Critical Infrastructure
and Key Assets
National Military Strategy February 2004 Joint Chiefs of Staff
National Defense Strategy March 2005 Office of the Secretary
of Defense
National Intelligence Strategy October 2005 Office of the Director of
National Intelligence
National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza November 2005 Homeland Security Council
National Strategy for Victory in Iraq November 2005 National Security Council
National Military Strategy to Combat February 2006 Chairman of the Joint
Weapons of Mass Destruction Chiefs of Staff
National Military Strategic Plan February 2006 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
for the War on Terrorism of Staff
National Strategy for Combating Terrorism September 2006 National Security Council
National Counterintelligence Strategy March 2007 Office of the Director of
National Intelligence

The U.S. National Security Strategy 625

 Congress requires this document to be submitted (in
classified and unclassified versions) every year, and
early in the year (i.e., in January). Presidents have
attempted to comply, but they have not always
succeeded. Through 2006, presidents had failed to
produce an NSS six times.
The Role of the National Security Council
and the Interagency Process
National security strategies, according to one expert,
need “an institutional guardian. The prime candidate
to perform this function is the national security
advisor and the NSC staff” (Lord 1992, 144). The
guardian of the NSS is the National Security Council
(NSC), whose staff, called the Executive Secretariat
and currently numbering 225, works for the
president’s national security advisor. Together, the
Executive Secretariat and the national security advisor
play the most important role in managing this task
of the NSC.
National security strategy requires “thinking from the
top down rather than from the bottom up, for a sound
national security strategy cannot be crafted merely by
stapling together a set of subordinate strategies in the
hope of achieving coherence” (Kugler 2006, 85). The
NSS obviously implicates multiple agencies of the
federal government, particularly the Departments of
Defense, State, and Homeland Security. The difficul-
ties involved in reconciling the interests, outlooks, and
capabilities of the agencies of the U.S. government
involved in foreign and security policy are legion.
The NSC uses the interagency process to address these
problems (Whittaker, Smith, and McKune 2005, 10).
There are, however, no rules telling the NSC exactly
how this is to be done. Moreover, the interagency
process involves “human beings and complex organi-
zations with different cultures, different outlooks on
what is good for the national interest and the best
policy to pursue, all driven by the compulsion to
defend and expand turf ” (Marcella 2006, 269). Each
administration decides for itself how to employ the
NSC to produce an NSS depending on the preferences
of presidents and their national security advisors.
Another factor affecting how the NSS will be pro-
duced is timing. A January deadline brings it into
conflict with the State of the Union address, which in
most ways is a superior means of communicating a
president’s national security policy. Newly elected
presidents may intend to make broad changes in
security policy, using the NSS to create consensus
within the executive branch and to signal changes to
Congress and foreign leaders ( Jablonsky 1995, 25).
Such major shifts sometimes require significant invest-
ments of time and political energy, and as a result, the
deadline for submitting the NSS may be missed.
Finally, outgoing presidents may use the NSS less to
626 Public Administration Review • July | August 2007
prescribe new policy than to consolidate their gains
and establish a strategic record.
Using guidance provided by the president’s national
security advisor, the NSC employs a set of committees
to produce the drafts of the NSS that will ultimately
become policy. These committees are displayed in
figure 1. The Policy Coordination Committees (some
of which are organized by geographic region, others
by policy function, such as arms control or global
environment) are interagency working groups. Their
membership varies but always consists of senior of-
ficials and substantive experts. They assist the NSC
in generating consensus, as well as suggesting the
outlines for portions of the NSS.
The Deputies Committee is “the senior sub-Cabinet
interagency forum” (Whittaker, Smith, and McKune
1995, 12). The members of this committee (deputies
or undersecretaries) direct interagency working groups
to ensure that issues of importance are adequately
reviewed before drafts are presented to the next level
up in a sequence of decision-making events.
Finally, the Principals Committee is available to pro-
vide a final and authoritative review. This body is the
most senior of the committees involved in this pro-
cess. Its members are the secretaries of state, defense,
and treasury; the head of the National Security
Agency; the director of national intelligence (a post
established by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism
Prevention Act of 2004), and the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The 2006 National Security Strategy: War
and More
What is the current U.S. national security strategy?
The 2006 NSS is best viewed as an update of the
2002 NSS, released on September 17, in the immedi-
ate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Both of
these strategies are premised on a critically important
Figure 1 Bush Administration Interagency
Process
Source: Marcella, Gabriel, National Security and the Interagency
Process, in Guide to National Security Policy and Strategy, 2nd Edition,
edited by J. Boone Bartholomees, Jr. U.S Army War College, June 2006.
assumption about the international security environ- ments of national power to kill or capture the terror-
ment and the role of the United States within it. ists, deny them safe haven or control of any nation;
That assumption is stated directly in the first sentence prevent them from gaining access to WMD; and cut
of the letter from President Bush introducing the off their sources of support” (White House 2006, 9).
2006 NSS: “America is at war. This is a wartime That said, the NSS concludes that in the long run,
national security strategy” (White House 2006). That “winning the war on terror means winning the battle
language is not found in any version of the NSS of ideas” (9).
issued before 2002.2
Weapons of mass destruction are singled out in the
With whom—or what—is the United States at war? NSS as presenting a special, indeed a new kind of
The answer, according to the 2006 NSS, is “terrorism threat to U.S. security. “The security environment
fueled by an aggressive ideology of hatred and confronting the United States today,” it says, “is radi-
murder.” The United States, the strategy argues, “is in cally different from what we have faced before” (White
the early years of a long struggle, similar to what our House 2006, 18). Although WMD have been part of
country faced in the early years of the Cold War.” A key the international security environment for decades, the
difference between this new conflict and the Cold War new dimension of the threat they pose to the United
concerns the nature of the ideology driving the enemy. States is the possibility that terrorists will gain access to
This new ideology, though totalitarian, is not based on a them. According to the NSS, “there are few greater
secular philosophy such as Marxism-Leninism. Rather, threats than a terrorist attack with WMD” (18).
its roots lie “in the perversion of a proud religion.”
“[T]ransnational terrorists . . . exploit the proud The NSS argues that deterrence, as it was practiced
religion of Islam to serve a violent political vision: during the Cold War, will not work against the new
The establishment, by terrorism and subversion, of primary threat to American security. During the Cold
a totalitarian empire that denies all political and War, the adversary was “a generally status quo, risk-
religious freedom.” averse adversary” (White House 2002, 15), which
meant that deterrence, however
How does the NSS propose to imperfect, was relevant. Today,
fight this war? The answer to this The NSS argues that deterrence, however, “our enemies see weap-
question has several levels. The as it was practiced during the ons of mass destruction as weap-
first level, or the most general Cold War, will not work against ons of choice” (15). This means
answer to the question of what the new primary threat to that “traditional concepts of
can be done about global terror- American security. deterrence will not work against
ism, is to “create a world of dem- a terrorist enemy whose avowed
ocratic, well-governed states” tactics are wanton destruction
(White House 2006, 1). According to the NSS, “the and the targeting of innocents” (15).
fundamental character of regimes matters as much as
the distribution of power among them” (1). Because That prospect is the rationale for the “preemption
democracy is the best antidote to terrorism, “promot- doctrine,” which may be the most controversial part of
ing democracy is the most effective long-term measure the NSS of 2006. First introduced in the post-9/11
for strengthening international stability; reducing NSS issued in 2002, this doctrine is retained in the
regional conflicts; countering terrorism and terror- 2006 NSS. Referring to the possibility of a terrorist
supporting extremism; and extending peace and attack using WMD, it states, “[U]nder long-standing
prosperity” (3). Other layers of the war on terrorism principles of self-defense, we do not rule out the use of
include such goals as strengthening alliances, prevent- force before attacks occur, even if uncertainty remains
ing the spread of weapons of mass destruction as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack. When
(WMD), promoting economic development, and the consequences of an attack with WMD are poten-
transforming U.S. national security institutions. tially so devastating, we cannot afford to stand idly by
as grave dangers materialize. This is the principle and
The NSS presumes a link between political and eco- logic of preemption” (White House 2006, 23).
nomic freedom abroad and their continued availabil-
ity to U.S. citizens. “[T]he survival of liberty at The NSS has more to say and do about WMD than
home,” it states, “increasingly depends on the success preemption. It calls for “proactive counterproliferation
of liberty abroad” (White House 2006, 3). This im- efforts” and “improved protection” against the conse-
plies a moralistic and ambitious strategic agenda for quences of WMD use, for example (White House
the United States. 2006, 18). Controlling fissile material is central to the
nuclear proliferation problem. Deterrence remains a
The “war on terror” involves conflict of several kinds part of the NSS, though “tailored” to meet “both state
on many fronts. There is a distinctly military dimension, and non-state threats” (43) and supported by a “new
involving the use of “military force and other instru- Triad” of nuclear and conventional defensive systems,
The U.S. National Security Strategy 627
 active and passive defense, and “a responsive infra- ing priorities. A model of this process is displayed in
structure” (22). The NSS addresses many other spe- figure 2. The stage in the process called “declaratory
cific elements of national security from globalization policy” indicates the point at which the final NSS is
to global warming, and in many instances, it singles released. Before the NSC can produce such a policy, it
out specific countries for special comment (e.g., Iran must receive, “process,” and retain a tremendous
and North Korea). amount of information pertinent to national security.
In the best of policy-making worlds, the NSC would
The NSS also offers a perspective on American secu- accomplish these complex tasks in an orderly and
rity and the international security environment. The logical sequence and on time. In reality, of course, the
NSS reflects what has been called “liberal realism,” process is not nearly as neat and clean as this. The
“national security liberalism,” “democratic realism,” or challenge for the NSC is to
“muscular liberalism” (Layne prevent the NSS from becoming
2006, 9). These terms suggest what one expert refers to as
that U.S. policy makers take a If the administration does not “a Christmas tree on which
very activist approach to the request the resources necessary every interest group hangs its
security environment, rejecting to realize the strategy it foreign policy concerns” (Betts
the possibility that if the United 2004, 8).
States keeps a low profile in the
proposes, success is unlikely.
world, Americans will be safe. Though the NSS rarely Conclusion: Assessing
There is, as well, an unabashedly addresses affordability in direct National Security
moralistic view of world politics terms, budgets are certainly in Strategies
behind these policies. the rooms and on the tables How do we know whether the
during the interagency process; administration has put together
For example, the president’s the “right” national security
cover letter says that “our ap-
which parties bring them strategy? After all, if it fails at this
proach is idealistic about our there, in what fashion, and to task, it may put its citizens at
national goals” and that the what immediate effect is grave risk. There is no simple
pillars of our NSS include “pro- not known. answer to this important ques-
moting freedom, justice, and tion. There are, however, partial
human dignity” (White House answers, the first of which con-
2006). The NSS has as its “ultimate goal” nothing cerns process. If the process for producing the NSS is
short of “ending tyranny in our world.” The United flawed—for example, if it does not include the effec-
States, it declares, “must defend liberty and justice tive participation of all the necessary players—it is
because these principles are right and true for all peo- likely that the NSS will also be flawed. Given the lack
ple everywhere” (2). An essential part of the NSS of transparency involved in formulating the NSS, it is
involves free and fair trade because “greater economic difficult to judge this or any other national security
freedom is ultimately inseparable from political lib- strategy on this criterion. The interagency process used
erty” (2), and “[e]conomic freedom is a moral impera- to produce the NSS
tive” (27). The NSS concludes, “The times require an may best be viewed as an opaque and irregular set
ambitious national security strategy. . . . America of rolling negotiations among national security
cannot know peace, security, and prosperity by re- principals led by the national security advisor and
treating from the world” (49). the NSC.

Problems in Developing National Security

Strategies
Administrations face a series of problems in deciding
what to include in an official security strategy. There is,
as noted, the problem of bureaucracy (i.e., achieving
consensus on a subject as complex and vital as national
security to produce an NSS on a timely basis). The
1994 NSS may have gone through as many as 21 drafts
before it was released (Snyder 1995, 11). One solution
to this problem is the lowest common denominator
approach, that is, an NSS that offends none of the
important participants by saying little of significance.
Figure 2 Ideal Security Policy process
When the NSC undertakes to produce a meaningful Source: Marcella, Gabriel, National Security and the Interagency
NSS, one that does not avoid difficult issues, it must Process, in Guide to National Security Policy and Strategy, 2nd Edition,
integrate a number of critical and sometimes conflict- edited by J. Boone Bartholomees, Jr. U.S Army War College, June 2006.

628 Public Administration Review • July | August 2007

Getting the process right is necessary, though not
sufficient. It is also critical to judge a security strategy
in light of the financial resources that are needed to
make it work. If the administration does not request
the resources necessary to realize the strategy it pro-
poses, success is unlikely. Though the NSS rarely
addresses affordability in direct terms, budgets are
certainly in the rooms and on the tables during the
interagency process; which parties bring them there,
in what fashion, and to what immediate effect is not
known. The student of strategy must parse the NSS
by placing the president’s budget submission beside it.
Attempting to crosswalk the strategic objectives found
in the NSS with the budget functions and programs,
projects, and activities in the president’s annual bud-
get submission is the beginning of wisdom in this
dimension of the problem.
Finally, there is the litmus test: Do the written words
succeed on the global stage? There is a need for a
record, for some time to allow agencies to implement
the programs and budgets that operationalize the
national security strategy. If the NSS is stable over a
period of years, which is common, it is possible to see
whether it is effective. A minimum of 5–10 years is
suggested for this purpose. We can then review our
national security strategy to see whether it has been
doing what it has been saying.
Notes
1. The definition may be found under the heading
“national security strategy” in the International
Military and Defense Encyclopedia (Dupuy 1993).
2. By contrast, the head of foreign policy for the
European Union, Javier Solana, stated in 2004 that
“Europe is not at war” (Regan 2004).
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