National Security Strategy or lack thereof...

The National Security Strategy as mandated by the Nichols-Goldwater Act of 1986 is primarily a means of the legislative branch ensuring the executive branch displays the nation’s strategic goals. It came about as a process to present how the executive branch was spending federal funding. In order to ensure that the executive branch was not spending recklessly the NSS defined what the national strategic objectives were and how they would achieve them within the realms of diplomatic, economic and military means. The NSS can be purposefully broad and undefined or make specific aims.

As a matter of stating the strategic goals of the country the NSS also lays out the coordination between national resources and agencies and departments. A clear strategy will assign what agency and the resource needed to the specific goal in the plan. Although not necessary it can produce debate and consensus, which is another specific aim of the NSS. Many politicians, military specialists and everyday citizens treat the NSS with soft hands or utter disregard. It was not created to be either, and should produce contention and discussion about what our goals are and should be, as well as how we should or should not obtain them.

Another use of the NSS is an overt promise of support to allies or threat to our enemies. The NSS has named enemy nation-states and non-state actors and the means to which will target them. This may aid our enemies in identifying their strategic goals, but with a bureaucracy as large as ours it is a necessary evil. The NSS can also be used to demonstrate which nations we see as important allies and to what degree we are willing to support them. In certain circumstances such as the Israel-Arab conundrum, the Korean Peninsula labyrinth and the Balkans nightmare laying these strategic roads create a doctrine to work around.

The National Security Strategy can define a presidency. It can also be a great source of historical importance, solidifying a president’s aims and means to those goals. The difference between the stated goal and the outcome can be telling of the competency or fallacies of the administration. Politically it is important to have goals that are obtainable and a good plan of action. Unobtainable targets or a poor strategy to obtain a goal can waste time, resources and lives.