I think this is an excellent reference. It synthesizes everything I learned at the National War College both as a student and a faculty member. It is only 84 pages but it really captures the essence of everything you need for a foundation to "do strategy." This is a very important reference. I did not know Steven Heffington (though he has a great reputation with tremendous experience) but David Tretler was a fantastic professor and I knew Adam Oler as a student and I am pleased that he has returned to teach at NWC and help produce this excellent reference.
Note also the contributions of the late Colonel John Collins, AKA The Warlord, one of our foremost strategic thinkers over the years, are acknowledged.
EDITED BY
STEVEN HEFFINGTON, ADAM OLER, AND DAVID TRETLER
Purpose
A National Security Strategy Primer provides National War College
(NWC) students with a common point of departure for consideration of
national security strategy and is designed as a principal tool for understanding
and achieving core course learning objectives. The primer
specifically addresses key concepts of national security strategy and outlines
a broad approach for strategy development. Additionally, the primer
serves to set a common national strategy language for use within the
college. To accomplish this task, the primer draws substantially from current
joint and Service-specific doctrine as well as extant Department of
Defense procedures and policy guidance. However, as national strategy is
an inherently multi-instrument, multi-institution endeavor, the primer
draws from interagency language and policy as well as significant literature
on national security strategy found in the doctrine of partner/allied
states, academia, the business sector, and elsewhere. While the primer is
geared toward the NWC core curriculum, it may also serve as a useful
tool for interagency practitioners charged with discussing, designing, or
assessing national security strategies.
Scope
This primer details the elements of strategic logic taught at NWC and
focuses on national security strategy development. For the purposes
of this document, national security strategy is generally considered to
encompass any strategic issue that would fall within the scope of the
National Security Council. While strategic logic is relevant and applicable
to strategy-making in general, the focus herein is not specifically
single-instrument or single-agency strategies but the broader concept of
multi-instrument national security strategy.
Application
The guidance in this primer should help inform and guide a student’s
course of study at the National War College. It should not be taken as
the NWC perspective on the one right answer or the only viable way to
approach strategy. Developing coherent and effective strategy is difficult
due to the complexity and uncertainty inherent in any strategic challenge.
1 Unraveling the complexity and managing the uncertainty requires
an ability to think strategically about the problem at hand. Thinking
strategically entails applying some version of strategic logic. A National
Security Strategy Primer is a restatement of the principal aspects of strategic
logic. Students should be mindful that other useful approaches to
strategy-making at the national security level exist. Some are covered
elsewhere in the NWC curriculum, and others are employed in various
departments and agencies of the executive branch. Yet, as with any discipline,
the study of national security strategy must start somewhere. For
NWC, A National Security Strategy Primer provides the common foundation
from which to build.
Note
This primer is neither official policy nor doctrine. It is the product of a
collaborative effort by members of the NWC faculty, staff, and student
body.2 The primer is one tool among many designed to assist students in
mastering the NWC curriculum.
