Decoding the US National Security Strategy

By Emily Dunn and Luke Bencie

Countries and organizations often prepare security strategies that outline their major security concerns and how they plan to address them. What is important to remember is that strategy - in its simplest form - is a framework of “why” we do something, rather than the more easily understood tactical steps of “how” we do it. To this end, a national strategy is intended to drive the decision-making process of its leadership, instead of offering a step-by-step response plan of dealing with issues.

In the United States, the executive branch periodically produces a National Security Strategy (NSS) and the Biden-Harris administration released their first official NSS in October 2022. This latest version describes the beginning of a “decisive decade” for America and the need to rise to the joint challenges of major power competition and cooperation on shared global issues. The United States is no stranger to geopolitical competition. For decades the country was at odds with the Soviet Union in an ideological struggle against communism. Now, the nature of compe- tition has changed. The risk of conflict grows as major powers, both democracies and autocracies, compete to shape the international order with their system of governance. The U.S., as a democracy, must work to deter autocratic threats such as wars of aggression, undermining of democratic political processes, leveraging technology and supply chains for coercion and repression, and exporti...