Bad Idea: National Security Strategy Documents
Bad Ideas in National Security Series
April 11, 2023 — Benjamin H. Friedman
Creating a national security strategy is not a bad idea. Governments inevitably guide spending and coordinate relevant agencies according to some overarching theory of how they will achieve security. The resulting security strategy can be good or bad, effective or weak, but it is immutable.
The directive contained in the 1986 Goldwater Nichols Act mandating the U.S. executive branch produce a national security strategy document was also not a bad idea. The aim to “set forth” a strategy to guide the defense budget, articulate the nation’s interests and commitments, and evaluate its capabilities to meet them was a sensible part of a bill meant to harmonize the sprawling national security apparatus.
What is a bad idea is mandating regular national security strategy documents (including the National Security Strategy (NSS), National Defense Strategy (NDS) and Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR)) when they have so manifestly failed. Not only have strategy documents failed to meaningfully coordinate policy within the bureaucracy, the doctrines and theories they put forth do not meet the modern definition of security strategy: put simply, the alignment of military means to ends and, hence, the prioritization of scarce resources. Moreover, the documents tend to inflate threats to the country in order to justify various operations and missions they promote. While the national security apparatus should continue to craft strategy to align objectives and resources, strategy documents are, in short, a ponderous waste of time for readers and especially authors that should be put to a merciful end.
https://defense360.csis.org/bad-idea-national-security-strategy-documents/
