New National Security Strategy Summary (and link to the new NSS)

Below is the summary of the NSS and full 68 page NSS can be downloaded at this link: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf

My favorite excerpt from page 14 is on resiliency.  Say what you want about POTUS, regardless of on which end of the political spectrum you reside, if we would all just take this paragraph and 106 words to heart our nation would be better off.

A democracy is only as resilient as its people. An informed and engaged citizenry is the fundamental requirement for a free and resilient nation. For generations, our society has protected free press, free speech, and free thought. Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data. The American public and private sectors must recognize this and work together to defend our way of life. No external threat can be allowed to shake our shared commitment to our values, undermine our system of government, or divide our Nation.

President Donald J. Trump Announces a National Security Strategy to Advance America's Interests | The White House

whitehouse.gov · by President Donald J. Trump

National Security Council

All News

Quote

Our government's first duty is to its people, to our citizens — to serve their needs, to ensure their safety, to preserve their rights, and to defend their values.

By:

A NEW NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY FOR A NEW ERA: Less than a year after taking office, President Donald J. Trump is unveiling a new National Security Strategy that sets a positive strategic direction for the United States that will restore America’s advantages in the world and build upon our country’s great strengths.

• The 2017 National Security Strategy (Strategy) builds on the 11 months of Presidential action to restore respect for the United States abroad and renew American confidence at home.
• Strategic confidence enables the United States to protect its vital national interests. The Strategy identifies four vital national interests, or “four pillars” as:
  I. Protect the homeland, the American people, and American way of life;
  II. Promote American prosperity;
  III. Preserve peace through strength;
  IV. Advance American influence.
• The Strategy addresses key challenges and trends that affect our standing in the world, including:
  o Revisionist powers, such as China and Russia, that use technology, propaganda, and coercion to shape a world antithetical to our interests and values;
  • Regional dictators that spread terror, threaten their neighbors, and pursue weapons of mass destruction;
  • Jihadist terrorists that foment hatred to incite violence against innocents in the name of a wicked ideology, and transnational criminal organizations that spill drugs and violence into our communities.
• The Strategy articulates and advances the President’s concept of principled realism.
  • It is realist because it acknowledges the central role of power in international politics, affirms that strong and sovereign states are the best hope for a peaceful world, and clearly defines our national interests.
  • It is principled because it is grounded in advancing American principles, which spreads peace and prosperity around the globe.

I. PROTECT THE HOMELAND: President Trump’s fundamental responsibility is to protect the American people, the homeland, and the American way of life.

• We will strengthen control of our borders and reform our immigration system to protect the homeland and restore our sovereignty.
• The greatest transnational threats to the homeland are:
  • Jihadist terrorists, using barbaric cruelty to commit murder, repression, and slavery, and virtual networks to exploit vulnerable populations and inspire and direct plots.
  • Transnational criminal organizations, tearing apart our communities with drugs and violence and weakening our allies and partners by corrupting democratic institutions.
• America will target threats at their source: we will confront threats before they ever reach our borders or cause harm to our people.
• We will redouble our efforts to protect our critical infrastructure and digital networks, because new technology and new adversaries create new vulnerabilities.
• We are deploying a layered missile defense system to defend America against missile attacks.

II. PROMOTE AMERICAN PROSPERITY: A strong economy protects the American people, supports our way of life, and sustains American power.

• We will rejuvenate the American economy for the benefit of American workers and companies, which is necessary to restore our national power.
• America will no longer tolerate chronic trade abuses and will pursue free, fair, and reciprocal economic relationships.
• To succeed in this 21st century geopolitical competition, America must lead in research, technology, and innovation. We will protect our national security innovation base from those who steal our intellectual property and unfairly exploit the innovation of free societies.
• America will use its energy dominance to ensure international markets remain open, and that the benefits of diversification and energy access promote economic and national security.

III. PRESERVE PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH: An America strengthened, renewed, and rejuvenated will ensure peace and deter hostility.

• We will rebuild America’s military strength to ensure it remains second to none.
• America will use all of the tools of statecraft in a new era of strategic competition—diplomatic, information, military, and economic—to protect our interests.
• America will strengthen its capabilities across numerous domains — including space and cyber — and revitalize capabilities that have been neglected.
• America’s allies and partners magnify our power and protect our shared interests. We expect them to take greater responsibility for addressing common threats.
• We will ensure the balance of power remains in America’s favor in key regions of the world: the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East.

IV. ADVANCE AMERICAN INFLUENCE: As a force for good throughout its history, America will use its influence to advance our interests and benefit humanity.

• We must continue to enhance our influence overseas to protect the American people and promote our prosperity.
• America’s diplomatic and development efforts will compete to achieve better outcomes in all arenas—bilateral, multilateral, and in the information realm—to protect our interests, find new economic opportunities for Americans, and challenge our competitors.
• America will seek partnerships with like-minded states to promote free market economies, private sector growth, political stability, and peace.
• We champion our values – including the rule of law and individual rights – that promote strong, stable, prosperous, and sovereign states.
• Our America First foreign policy celebrates America’s influence in the world as a positive force that can help set the conditions for peace, prosperity, and the development of successful societies.

whitehouse.gov · by President Donald J. Trump

Tuesday Evening Readings

If they have enough time.  They might consider what preparations they can begin making now and not wait for two or three years to begin a cold start toward unification (though I know they are not really waiting)

But I will again ask the question to US policy makers.  What is the US doing in terms of developing a plan to support the ROK in achieving unification because unification is the only way to both end the north's nuclear program and stop the horrific suffering of the Korean people living in the north who are subjected to some of the worst human rights abuses in modern history at the hands of the mafia-like crime family cult of the Kim Family Regime.

Panel pushes to finish unification preparation in 3 yrs

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/northkorea/2015/03/03/28/0401000000AEN20150303005600315F.html

Video at the link.  Can't tell if this is real or trick photography.  I am sure that if it is real that no American taught them to do something like this (or at least I hope not).

Afghan Special Forces demonstrate scary sharpshooting (Video)

AUTHOR: ARTURO | MARCH 2, 2015 | IN: ENDURING FREEDOM

HTTP://THEBRIGADE.COM/2015/03/02/AFGHAN-SPECIAL-FORCES-DEMONSTRATE-SCARY-SHARPSHOOTING-VIDEO/

Source

CATEGORY: ENDURING FREEDOM

N. Korea ready to fire medium-range Nodong missiles: military source

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2015/03/03/24/0301000000AEN20150303004800315F.html

MARSOC SHARES GLIMPSE INTO ASSESSMENT, SELECTION

By Sgt. Donovan Lee, Defense Media Activity

http://www.marines.mil/News/NewsDisplay/tabid/3258/Article/571247/marsoc-shares-glimpse-into-assessment-selection.aspx?utm_content=buffer3041c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Excerpt:

But beyond the knee-jerk criticism, the president’s National Security Strategy is not just a bowl of rice pudding. Although readers won’t find a strategy aimed at a unitary threat with clear ends, ways, and means, there is a pretty coherent philosophy at work. This strategy is the second and last of Obama’s presidency, and it rightly describes a world beset by challenges and in dire need of American leadership (“lead,” “leader,” and “leadership” appear 94 times in the context of the United States’ role in the world). It is not “leading from behind,” as the president’s restless and war-ready critics love to claim. Nor is it hard-charging unilateralism.

Instead, the world of President Obama’s National Security Strategy is one in which the United States’ economic and military might serve as the bedrock of strong, participatory, and rules-based global institutions. It’s smart multilateralism—working within the international system while also being willing to bear the burden of defending it, although not always with military power. This is likely as close as we’ll get to an “Obama Doctrine.” As the president told West Point graduates in a major foreign policy address last year:

Here’s my bottom line: America must always lead on the world stage. If we don’t, no one else will. The military that you have joined is and always will be the backbone of that leadership. But U.S. military action cannot be the only—or even primary—component of our leadership in every instance. Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail. And because the costs associated with military action are so high, you should expect every civilian leader—and especially your Commander-in-Chief—to be clear about how that awesome power should be used.

A lot of good words.  The problem in my mind is that a strong leader does not telegraph his strategy or publicly remove any options, e.g., a superpower can never remove military force as an option and in fact by leaving military force on the table and demonstrating not only the capability but the will to use it, can actually result in better diplomacy and in fact allows a leader to always be able to lead with diplomacy and refrain from using military force.  But stating self-restraint in public (in the vain hope that it will generate good will for the US) can lead to self defeat in statecraft.

Obama's Last National Security Strategy

The President and the Philosopher

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/143207/janine-davidson/obamas-last-national-security-strategy#cid=soc-twitter-at-snapshot-obama_s_last_national_security-000000

Excerpt::

This strategy, however, is not designed to provide answers to complex foreign policy questions. That task has nearly become impossible amid an almost implausible number of foreign tragedies and threats. In 2014 alone, an al-Qaida network the U.S. believed it had defeated in Iraq found new life in Syria and still controls massive swaths of that region now as the Islamic State group. Russia, considered an ally in 2013, invaded the sovereignty of Ukraine early last year and annexed the Crimean peninsula. Ebola swept through West Africa, and international cyberattacks became a reality for the American public. Throughout, China continues its mysterious march to superpower status with claims it will sail nuclear submarines to key points around the globe.

“It’s not a political document, it’s a strategic document that reflects a broader strategy of smart people within the U.S. government and how they see world issues,” says Johan Bergenas, deputy director of the Stimson Center's Managing Across Boundaries Initiative. “It’s really a reflection of a broader group of people who are in charge of U.S. policy.”

But the question is - Is it really a strategy?  (In defense of the Administration I do not think any administration has really produced a strategy for execution in any of the NSS's since 1987).

I do think that it is worth comparing the NSS with Reagan's NSDD 32 US National Security Strategy from 1982: 

http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdd/nsdd-32.pdf

This is also an interesting document:  NSDD 277 National Policy and Strategy for Low Intensity Conflict at this link: http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdd/nsdd-277.pdf

In defense the above documents were formerly classified documents but they were much more succinct with clear objectives and priorities and seem to be executable.  This is unlike every NSS since 1987 that has been more aspirational than strategy.  But I think the NSDD 277 has more application to today's world that one might think despite the use of the term Low Intensity Conflict.  It is too bad that the portions on support to resistance are redacted though I think what was not redacted is very instructive (we could certainly apply this to resistance movements we are trying to support or considering supporting around the world)

The New NSS: Any Shift in U.S. National Security?

New strategy offers much-needed perspective currently absent in Washington, says National Security Adviser Susan Rice.

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/02/06/obama-tries-to-clarify-national-security-policies-amid-isis-russia-china-dangers

White House National Security Adviser Susan Rice discusses the U.S. National Security Strategy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., on Friday.

By Paul D. ShinkmanFeb. 6, 2015 | 4:00 p.m. EST+ More

Anyone looking for specific direction on what the U.S. government hopes to achieve abroad, and how it plans to achieve it, likely won't receive any more clarity as of Friday.

The administration released its National Security Strategy, a document that outlines the president's priorities but focuses more on broad and lofty goals for America's place in the world than on a specific plan for resolving today's crises.

The strategy, while reiterating oft-repeated themes from President Barack Obama's two terms in office, was issued amid widespread criticisms that White House foreign policies are, at best, vague.

During testimony last week before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, some of America's most influential military commanders of the last decade echoed the concern that the U.S. needs a “refreshed national security strategy.”

“We’ve disappointed a lot of friends out there, from Abu Dhabi to Riyadh, from Tel Aviv to Cairo,” said Marine Corps Gen. Jim Mattis, a former chief of U.S. Central Command, .

Obama was elected twice on a mandate of bringing American forces home from protracted Middle East wars and focusing instead on the Asia Pacific region. That narrative was the crux of his last National Security Strategy released in May 2010, just over a year after he first assumed office.

[READ: ISIS, Ukraine Wars Confront Defense Nominee Ashton Carter]

The commander-in-chief’s latest version, released Friday doesn’t stray much from those priorities: “Advance Our Rebalance to Asia and the Pacific” remains the top point under the key “International Order” section of the document. Strengthening alliances with Europe is the second, followed by security and stability in the Middle East and North Africa.

This strategy, however, is not designed to provide answers to complex foreign policy questions. That task has nearly become impossible amid an almost implausible number of foreign tragedies and threats. In 2014 alone, an al-Qaida network the U.S. believed it had defeated in Iraq found new life in Syria and still controls massive swaths of that region now as the Islamic State group. Russia, considered an ally in 2013, invaded the sovereignty of Ukraine early last year and annexed the Crimean peninsula. Ebola swept through West Africa, and international cyberattacks became a reality for the American public. Throughout, China continues its mysterious march to superpower status with claims it will sail nuclear submarines to key points around the globe.

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/02/06/obama-tries-to-clarify-national-security-policies-amid-isis-russia-china-dangers

(Cliff Notes) Fact Sheet: The 2015 National Security Strategy

The entire NSS can be downloaded here:  http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2015_national_security_strategy.pdf Note that since Strategic Patience and Persistence is not used in these Cliff Notes it must not be a key pillar of the strategy (or at least not a key phrase in the White House's strategic communications strategy).  And this is too bad because there is a possible book proposal that I received from a friend: A bestselling book will be written of the pendulum devolvement and journey from Engagement and Enlargement to Patience and Persistence.  But on a serious note this list below is something to work with.  The question for me is will every agency in the US government take these principles and priorities and use them in all their planning and decision making. What is the plan for strategic execution using this strategy?  Theoretically if the NSS was institutionalized in the interagency process and made the foundation of department and agency planning and execution we should see the government conducting a well synchronized foreign policy and military strategy. Will department and agency heads be held accountable if they do not follow this strategy? The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release February 06, 2015 Fact Sheet: The 2015 National Security Strategy Fact Sheet:  The 2015 National Security Strategy http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/02/06/fact-sheet-2015-national-security-strategy Today, the United States is stronger and better positioned to seize the opportunities of a still new century and safeguard our interests against the risks of an insecure world.  The President's new National Security Strategy provides a vision and strategy for advancing the nation's interests, universal values, and a rules-based international order through strong and sustainable American leadership.  The strategy sets out the principles and priorities that describe how America will lead the world toward greater peace and a new prosperity.       We will lead with purpose, guided by our enduring national interests and values and committed to advancing a balanced portfolio of priorities worthy of a great power. We will lead with strength, harnessing a resurgent economy, increased energy security, an unrivaled military, and the talent and diversity of the American people. We will lead by example, upholding our values at home and our obligations abroad.  We will lead with capable partners, mobilizing collective action and building partner capacity to address global challenges. We will lead with all instruments of U.S. power, leveraging our strategic advantages in diplomacy, development, defense, intelligence, science and technology, and more. We will lead with a long-term perspective, influencing the trajectory of major shifts in the security landscape today in order to secure our national interests in the future. We will advance the security of the United States, its citizens, and U.S. allies and partners by: Maintaining a national defense that is the best trained, equipped, and led force in the world while honoring our promises to service members, veterans, and their families. Working with Congress to end the draconian cuts imposed by sequestration that threaten the effectiveness of our military and other instruments of power. Reinforcing our homeland security to keep the American people safe from terrorist attacks and natural hazards while strengthening our national resilience. Transitioning to a sustainable global security posture that combines our decisive capabilities with local partners and keeps pressure on al-Qa'ida, ISIL, and their affiliates. Striving for a world without nuclear weapons and ensuring nuclear materials do not fall into the hands of irresponsible states and violent non-state actors. Developing a global capacity to prevent, detect, and rapidly respond to biological threats like Ebola through the Global Health Security Agenda. Confronting the urgent crisis of climate change, including through national emissions reductions, international diplomacy, and our commitment to the Green Climate Fund. We will advance a strong, innovative, and growing U.S. economy in an open international economic system that promotes opportunity and prosperity by: Strengthening American energy security and increasing global access to reliable and affordable energy to bolster economic growth and development worldwide. Opening markets for U.S. goods, services, and investment and leveling the playing field for American workers and businesses to boost our economic competitiveness. Advancing a trade agenda - including the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership - that creates good American jobs and shared prosperity.   Leading efforts to reduce extreme poverty, food insecurity, and preventable deaths with initiatives such as Feed the Future and the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Proving new sustainable development models like the President's Power Africa Initiative. We will advance respect for universal values at home and around the world by: Holding ourselves to the highest possible standard by living our values at home even as we do what is necessary to keep our people safe and our allies secure. Promoting and defending democracy, human rights, and equality while supporting countries such as Tunisia and Burma that are transitioning from authoritarianism. Empowering future leaders of government, business, and civil society around the world, including through the President's young leaders initiatives. Leading the way in confronting the corruption by promoting adherence to standards of accountable and transparent governance. Leading the international community to prevent and respond to human rights abuses and mass atrocities as well as gender-based violence and discrimination against LGBT persons. We will advance an international order that promotes peace, security, and opportunity through stronger cooperation to meet global challenges by: Working with partners to reinforce and update the rules of the road, norms, and institutions that are foundational to peace, prosperity, and human dignity in the 21st century.  Strengthening and growing our global alliances and partnerships, forging diverse coalitions, and leading at the United Nations and other multilateral organizations. Rebalancing to Asia and the Pacific through increased diplomacy, stronger alliances and partnerships, expanded trade and investment, and a diverse security posture. Strengthening our enduring commitment to a free and peaceful Europe by countering aggression and modernizing the NATO alliance to meet emerging threats. Pursuing a stable Middle East and North Africa by countering terrorism, preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and reducing the underlying sources of conflict. Building upon the success of the U.S.-Africa Leaders' Summit by investing in Africa's economic, agricultural, health, governance, and security capacity. Promoting a prosperous, secure, and democratic Western Hemisphere by expanding integration and leveraging a new opening to Cuba to expand our engagement.

The National Security Strategy of the United States 2015

The New NSS can be downloaded here: https://db.tt/4PAmJLYH

Strategic Patience and Persistence is the new phrase.  Strategic Patience used to belong only to our policy in Korea but now it seem we are going to apply it globally.

The challenges we face require strategic patience and persistence. They require us to take our responsibilities seriously and make the smart investments in the foundations of our national power. Therefore, I will continue to pursue a comprehensive agenda that draws on all elements of our national strength, that is attuned to the strategic risks and opportunities we face, and that is guided by the principles and priorities set out in this strategy. Moreover, I will continue to insist on budgets that safeguard our strength and work with the Congress to end sequestration, which undercuts our national security.  (page 4)