THE NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY:

DOCUMENTING STRATEGIC VISION

Second Edition

Don M. Snider

March 15, 1995
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FOREWORD

The Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act requires

the President to submit an annual report on the National Security

Strategy. In theory, a formal presentation of grand strategy was

intended to lend coherence to the budgeting process; a clear

statement of interests, objectives, and concepts for achieving

them gave Congress a clear idea of the resources required to

support the President's strategy. The problem with such

documents is that they often create the false impression that

strategy formulation is a rational and systemic process. In

fact, strategy formulation both within the executive branch and

between the executive branch and Congress is an intensely

political process from which national strategy emerges after

protracted bargaining and compromise. Key personalities do what

they can agree to do.

Don Snider, as an Army colonel, participated in this process

at the National Security Council, and prepared the 1988 Report on

National Security Strategy. This study is his account of the

strategy formulation process as viewed from the White House.

The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to publish this

study as part of its ongoing efforts to disseminate the substance

and process of national strategy and supporting military

strategy.

EARL H. TILFORD

Director of Research

Strategic Studies Institute
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

DON M. SNIDER is Director, Political-Military Studies, at the

Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He joined

the Center in March 1990 after retirement from active duty with

the U.S. Army. Since 1980 he had specialized in assignments

related to military strategy and defense policy, serving

consecutively as Chief of Plans for the Theater Army in Europe;

Joint Planner for the Army Chief of Staff; Deputy Director of

Strategy, Plans and Policy on the Army General Staff; and Federal

Executive Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He then joined

the staff of the National Security Council in the White House in

1987 as Director, Defense Policy, serving in both the Reagan and

Bush Administrations. Within the Center, he specializes in

national security strategy, defense policy and programs, military

strategy, and European security issues. Dr. Snider holds Master

of Arts degrees in Economics and Public Policy Administration

from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a Doctor of

Philosophy degree in Public Policy from the University of

Maryland. He has held faculty positions at West Point and at the

National Defense University.
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SUMMARY

The Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization

Act of 1986 requires the President annually to submit an

articulation of national grand strategy. There have been six

such reports published, two during the second Reagan

administration (1987 and 1988), three by the Bush administration

(1990, 1991 and 1993), and one by the Clinton administration in

July 1994.

Several conclusions about the formulation of American

national security strategy can be drawn from the way in which

these reports were developed. Perhaps most importantly is the

notion that today there is no consensus as to an appropriate

grand strategy for the United States. Second, the executive

branch traditionally does not conduct long-range planning in a

substantive or systematic manner. Third, what the executive

branch does do is episodic planning for particular events as they

rise to prominence.

The issue addressed in the following paper is whether it is

wise in the future to attempt anything more than broad and

episodic planning as a part of the formulation of strategy at

this level. The art of devising and articulating strategy is

that of combining the various elements of power and relating them

to the desired end. But in the final analysis, people of

goodwill and intelligence will have to place national interests

above political, personal, or even organizational concerns if the

United States is to be served well by a coherent and appropriate

strategy.


THE NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY:

DOCUMENTING STRATEGIC VISION

Introduction.

SEC. 603. ANNUAL REPORT ON NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY

. . . Sec. 104. (a)(1) The President shall transmit to

Congress each year a comprehensive report on the national

security strategy of the United States . . .

(2) The national security strategy report for any year shall

be transmitted on the date on which the President submits to

Congress the budget for the next fiscal year under section

1105 of Title 31, United States Code.

(b) Each national security strategy report shall set forth

the national security strategy of the United States and

shall include a comprehensive description and discussion of

the following:

(1) The worldwide interests, goals, and objectives of the

United States that are vital to the national security of the

United States.

(2) The foreign policy, worldwide commitments, and national

defense capabilities of the United States necessary to deter

aggression and to implement the national security strategy

of the United States.

(3) The proposed short-term and long-term uses of the

political, economic, military, and other elements of

national power of the United States to protect or promote

the interests and achieve the goals and objectives referred

to in paragraph (1).

(4) The adequacy of the capabilities of the United States to

carry out the national security strategy of the United

States, including an evaluation of the balance among the

capabilities of all elements of national power of the United

States to support the implementation of the national

security strategy.


(5) Such other measures as may be helpful to inform Congress

on matters relating to the national security strategy of the

United States.

(c) Each national security strategy report shall be

transmitted in both a classified and an unclassified form.1

By the above language, a small section of a much larger

reform package known as the Goldwater-Nichols Department of

Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, the Congress amended the

National Security Act of 1947 to require annually a written

articulation of grand strategy from each succeeding President. In

so doing, Congress was attempting to legislate a solution to what

it, and many observers, believed to be a legitimate and

significant problem of long-standing in our governmental

processes--an inability within the executive branch to formulate,

in an coherent and integrated manner, judiciously using resources

drawn from all elements of national power, the mid- and long-term

strategy necessary to defend and further those interests vital to

the nation's security.

Few in the Congress at that time doubted that there existed

a grand strategy. The nation had been following "containment" in

one form or another for over 40 years. What they doubted, or

disagreed with, was its focus in terms of values, interests and

objectives; its coherence in terms of relating means to ends; its

integration in terms of the elements of power; and its time

horizon. In theory, at least to the reformers, a clearly written

strategy would serve to inform the Congress better on the needs

for resources to execute the strategy, thus facilitating the

annual authorization and appropriation processes, particularly

for the Department of Defense.

There have now been six such reports published, two during

the second Reagan administration (1987 and 1988), three by the

Bush administration (1990, 1991 and 1993), and most recently, the

first report by the Clinton administration (July 1994).

This paper, written by the individual responsible for the

preparation of the 1988 report and in cooperation with the

officials responsible for drafting the 1990, 1991, 1993, and 1994

reports,2

 draws on their experiences to provide insights into the


process as well as the individual products.

The Political Context.

Before discussing the individual reports, we must understand

the larger context in which these reports are produced, beyond

that in the National Security Council and its staff where they

are initially drafted and ultimately approved. First, it should

be understood that the requirement for the report did not

originate solely, or even mainly, from within the Congress. In

fact, the Congress was, at the time of the Goldwater-Nichols

legislation, much more interested in reforming the Department of

Defense; what was reformed _east of the Potomac was of much less

interest.3

Like most pieces of legislation, the idea for a Presidential

statement of grand strategy had been percolating for several

years in many locations--in think tanks, from public-minded

citizens, from former government officials, from professional

associations, from the academic literature, and from specific

interest groups formed for the express purpose of fostering the

requirement for such a report. As expected from an open,

pluralistic process, each proponent had its own purposes for

desiring such a statement, resulting in differing expectations of

what the structure, content and use of the final report would be.

In retrospect, it is clear that inclusion of the requirement for

such a report in the final Goldwater-Nichols bill followed one of

the better known maxims of the policy community--"if we can agree

on what we want, let's not try to agree on why we want it."

Secondly, in this particular topic there is always the issue

of imprecise language. Just what is national security strategy,

as opposed to grand strategy, or defense strategy, or even

national military strategy? And what are the distinguishable

elements of power of the United States, and the boundaries

between them? How can national security strategy subsume foreign

policy as the Act seems to imply by its language? Obviously,

there was, and is, no real consensus on this language either in

academia, where the public servants in Washington earlier took

their training, or in Washington where they practice their arts.

But, as we all know, language does make a difference,

particularly within the executive branch where authorities and


responsibilities represent power. Even more so, within the

interagency arena, where responsibilities for the preparation for

this particular report are viewed as direct access to the

President's overall agenda, and thus highly desirable, there

initially exists little consensus as to the components of a

national security strategy and what represents coherence. This

imprecision in the language of the strategic art compounds the

problem even among those who want a quality product.

The flip side of this positive, "I want to be part of the

process," view is the recognition within the executive branch

that this is not the only, or the principal, or even the most

desirable means for the President to articulate publicly his

strategic vision. What President in a fast-paced, media-oriented

world wants to articulate once a year, in a static, written

report a detailed statement of his forward-looking strategic

vision? If ever there is a surefire means of insuring that one's

boss would be "hoisted on his own petard," this is it to many of

the President's closest political advisors. To influence public

opinion and resource allocations it is considered far better to

depend on current, personal testimonies by administration

officials before the Congress, supported by Presidential and

cabinet-level speeches, to create a coherent and wide-spread

campaign of public diplomacy to the electorate of America. This

view relegates the NSSR to a report of mushy "globaloney" before

Congress.

The writer must also provide, for context, a feel for the

political atmosphere within which the 1987 and 1988 reports were

prepared. My tenure on the staff of the National Security

Council began just after the Iran-Contra fiasco and during the

implementation of the Tower Commission recommendations.4

 To say

that White House/congressional relations were at absolute

gridlock would be true, but would also vastly understate the

passion, hostile intensity, and hyper-legalistic approach being

taken by both sides on most every item of the mutual agenda.

Whether it be war powers, strategic modernization, strategic

defenses, or regional foreign and defense policies, there was a

pervasive modus vivendi of little quarter being asked, and only

rarely any given.

During the Bush administration the atmosphere improved

significantly for the first two years, but thereafter "gridlock"


prevailed. Similarly, after the first year of the Clinton

administration relations between the Executive and Congress

deteriorated appreciably, particularly on matters of foreign

policy. Thus in every case, the operating atmosphere in which

each strategy report was prepared was one of intense, adversarial

politics. It was clear from the beginning of each cycle that

this report was not to be a neutral planning document, as many

academics and even some in uniform think it to be. Rather it

was, and still is in my judgement, intended to serve five primary

purposes.

First, the central, external purpose of the report beyond

the executive branch is to communicate strategic vision to

Congress, and thus legitimize a rationale for resources. The

stated intent of the Goldwater-Nichols legislation is broadly

accepted as valid for effective political discourse on issues

affecting the nation's security--the Congress and the Executive

need a common understanding of the strategic environment and the

administration's intent as a starting point for future dialogue.

That said, however, it is understood that in the adversarial

environment that prevails, this report can only provide a

beginning point for the dialogue necessary to reach such a

"common" understanding.

The second purpose is to communicate the same vision to a

number of other quite different constituencies. Many of these

are foreign, and extensive distributions through the United

States Information Agency have proven most effective at

communicating changing U.S. intentions to the governments of many

nations not on our summit agendas.

The third purpose is to communicate to selected domestic

audiences, often political supporters of the President who want

to see their particular issue prominently displayed under

Presidential signature. Others, less political and more publicminded, want to see coherence and farsightedness in the security

policies of their government: a strategy they could, as citizens,

fully support.

Fourth, there is the internal constituency of those in the

executive branch to whom the process of creating the document is

recognized to be of immense substantive value. This is so

because the process of creating the report also creates internal


consensus on foreign and defense policies. This point cannot be

overemphasized. Every new administration faces this challenge as

it transitions from campaign to governance, particularly if

foreign policy has not been a major issue in the campaign. The

fact is, it is simply impossible to document a strategy where

none exists! Few things educate new political appointees faster

as to their own strategic sensings, or to the qualities and

competencies of the "permanent" government they lead within

executive bureaucracies, than to have to commit in writing to the

President their plans for the future and how they can be

integrated, coordinated and otherwise shared with other agencies

and departments. The ability to forge consensus among these

competing views on direction, priorities and pace, and getting

"on board" important players three political levels down from the

president is recognized as an invaluable, if not totally

daunting, opportunity for a new administration.5

And lastly, any Presidential document, regardless of

originating requirement, always must be viewed in the context of

how it contributes, both in terms of substance and presentation,

to the overall agenda of the President. Unfortunately, Congress

unwittingly insured that the document would usually be submitted

in a low-profile manner since it is required early in January

with the budget submission--just before one of the President's

premier communication events of the year, the State of the Union

address. Well coordinated, the two activities can be mutually

supportive, but more normal to date is, appropriately, the

dominance of the State of the Union address.

Thus, with these five purposes in mind, all legitimate and

necessary but understood to require difficult trade-offs in their

completion, one sets out in the name of the President to task the

Cabinet officials and their strategy-minded lieutenants to

articulate the preferred national security strategy for the

United States. What follows is an iterative, interagency process

of some months (or years in the case of the Clinton

administration), culminating in multiple drafts and several high

level meetings, including the NSC, to resolve differences and

ultimately approve the final document.

The 1987 and 1988 National Security Strategy Reports.

Since the Goldwater-Nichols legislation was approved late in


1986, the 1987 report was prepared in a very limited period of

time and reflected the intent to document only current strategic

thinking. In its two major sections, one each on foreign policy

and defense policy, the document reflected the Reagan

administration's strong orientation toward Cabinet government,

and a strong emphasis on military instruments of power, almost to

the exclusion of the others. Taken as a whole, of course the

document portrayed a comprehensive strategic approach toward the

Soviet Union. The section on integrating elements of power

referred to the "NSC system" as the integrator, rather than

documenting current strategies toward regions or subregions. The

NSC system in the Reagan administrations had produced by then

over 250 classified national security decision directives (NSDD7.

It was believed that these represented at any point a set of

substrategies "effective in promoting the integrated employment

of the broad and diverse range of tools available for achieving

our national security objectives."6

Two major changes from the 1987 strategy were introduced in

the 1988 report. With twin deficits prominent on the political

agenda (federal budget and balance of trade, the first change was

to emphasize all the elements of national power in an integrated

strategy, particularly the economic element which scarcely had

been discussed in the previous report. This logically led to the

second adjustment, which was to present separate strategies for

each region with an integration of the various instruments of

power. Both efforts probably rate an "A" for idea and effort,

and no more than a "C" for results as seen on the printed page or

implemented by the administration. Behind the printed page,

however, I am confident that those who participated in this

interagency process were subsequently much more inclined to

appreciate and to seek an approach of integrated policy

instruments toward the resolution of U.S. security challenges in

a region or subregion.

The 1990 National Security Strategy Report.

The 1990 report was prepared in a vortex of global change. 

The Bush Administration began with a detailed interagency review

of security strategy in the spring of 1989. This effort--and the

natural turbulence of a new administration shaking out its

personnel and procedures, notably the Tower nomination--had

pushed the preparation of the 1989 report into the early fall.


Then, events in Eastern Europe made sections of the report, as

well as the underlying policy, obsolete. The original GoldwaterNichols legislation had implicitly assumed a fairly steady state

in the international environment, with the annual report

articulating incremental changes to both perceptions of and

responses to that environment. The pace of change throughout the

last half of 1989 pushed the publication of the next report into

March 1990.

In content the 1990 report attempted to embrace fully the

reality of change in the Soviet Union and, especially, in Eastern

Europe. The response to that change as discussed in the report,

however, was admittedly cautious. At least one critic described

the document as schizophrenic, with the reading of the

environment in the front at significant variance with the

prescribed response in the back. This demonstrates once again

how much easier it is in a rather open, pluralistic process to

gain consensus on what is being observed, as opposed to how the

nation should respond to that observed change. The process in

1989-90 did show, however, the potential of the statutory

requirement for a documented strategy to force public assessments

of events and developments that might otherwise have been

avoided, either because of their difficulty or their political

sensitivity.

The 1991 National Security Strategy Report.

The quickening pace of world change--and a deepening crisis

and, ultimately, war in the Middle East--served again to delay

the 1991 report. Key decision makers focused on multiple,

demanding developments. After August 2, at least, the foreground

of their view was filled with Iraq's invasion of Kuwait,

coalition building and military actions. In the background, and

occasionally intruding to the fore, were fundamental changes in

the U.S.-Soviet relationship, major treaties on strategic and

conventional weaponry, and the final dissolution of the Warsaw

Pact. There was little room in anyone's focus, particularly

within the NSC staff, to develop, coordinate and publish a

comprehensive and definitive Presidential statement of strategy.

Although its major elements had been drafted by February, the

1991 report was not published until August.

Like its predecessors, events forced the focus of the 1991


report to the U.S.-Soviet relationship as the departure point for

any discussion of future American strategy. More than preceding

reports, however, this one attempted to broaden the definition of

national security. In purely military terms, it proclaimed

regional conflict as the organizing focus for American military

capabilities, and suggested that new terms of reference for

nuclear deterrence would shortly be needed. Politically, it

attempted to turn the compass on arms control from east-west to

north-south for a much expanded discussion of policy to retard

proliferation. Even more than the previous reports, the document

attempted to communicate the idea that American economic well-

-being was included in the definition of national security, even

though discussions of specific programs to improve

competitiveness or to combat trade and budget deficits were

generally lacking.

The 1993 National Security Strategy Report.

The last of the three strategy reports of the Bush

administration was published in January 1993, just before the

inauguration of president-elect Bill Clinton. A draft had been

prepared in early 1992, but several summits and the press of the

1992 campaign precluded its completion. Another contributing

factor was the content of that campaign, which focussed almost

exclusively on the domestic economy, obviating the political

usefulness of a new statement of security strategy.

Unlike the previous reports in both the Reagan and Bush

administrations, this one was intended quite clearly to document

the accomplishments of the past rather than to point to the way

ahead. The Republicans were leaving the White House after twelve

years of stewardship of the nation's foreign and defense

policies, including in their minds a remarkably successful

conclusion to, and transition out of, the Cold War. As the

titles of two of the report's sections attest--"Security through

Strength: Legacy and Mandate," and "The World as It Can Be, If

We Lead and Attempt to Shape It as Only America Can"--they wanted

to document their accomplishments in strategic terms, as well as

to put down markers by which the Clinton administration's foreign

policy could be judged.

In terms of strategic content, however, there was little

change between this report and the 1991 version. Both emphasize


a steady, deliberate transition from a grand strategy of

containment to one of "collective engagement" on a regional

basis. Militarily, both contain the same defense strategy of

four pillars as developed earlier by the Cheney-Powell team.7

What differences there are, are found in the 1993 report's heavy

emphasis on a broad goal of "democratic peace" and the absolute

necessity of American leadership in attaining it, even to a

limited degree, in a world of increasing interdependencies.

The Clinton Administration.

In June 1994, the Clinton administration published their

first National Security Strategy Report (NSSR) containing their

strategy of "engagement and enlargement." A number of reasons

have been offered as to why it was a year and a half into their

term before a comprehensive statement of strategy was finished:

the President was elected to focus on, and is focussing on,

difficult and time-consuming issues of domestic policy; it has

taken longer than anticipated to recruit political appointees

such that the government "reflects America;" we have announced

our strategy through a series of speeches, and will get to the

Congressional report later; etc.

In fact, this lack of a published strategy reflects the lack

of consensus initially found within the administration, and the

difficulty that caused in formulating a new grand strategy. This

is not to imply that the administration, or at least parts of it,

had not given much thought and discussion to various aspects of

an overall security strategy--the report of the Department of

Defense's Bottom-Up Review documenting one such effort.8

 But, by

one official's count, the NSSR went through 21 drafts between

early 1993 and publication in July 1994. The odyssey of the

drafts portrays a lack of guidance and attention, shifting

priorities among too many goals, a series of bureaucratic battles

between the principle protagonists--the departments of Defense

and State, several restarts, and after the first six months,

constant intrusions from the realities of foreign affairs beyond

the anticipation of the administration.

This portrayal is, however, superficial in my judgement.

There are more fundamental reasons for the lengthy and arduous

process through which the Clinton administration persevered to

produce their view of the world and America's role in it. First,


it took a long time for the administration to settle on a set of

principles from which to design and implement a consistent

foreign policy. Second, it remains to be seen how strongly the

President believes in, and how consistently he will act on, those

principles outlined in his new report. The President has, in

fact, already acted on a number of the principles as documented

in the report.

The Clinton administration has created a national security

structure within the Executive branch that allows each major

point of view on national security an institutional power base

just short of the President, and with no other office capable of

integrating them. The important points of view, particularly

relevant to crisis management, but also applicable to formulating

strategy for a NSSR, and their organizational bases are: the

military options for security and stability in the Department of

Defense; bilateral relations and transnational issues with a

regional focus, in the Department of State and on the White House

staff; considerations of economic security, particularly as they

influence the domestic economy, in the National Economic Council

supported by very strong Treasury and Commerce Departments, and

the US Trade Representative; and, issues of environmental

security, in the Office of the Vice President. When working as

the National Security Council, opinions of cabinet-level

representatives of this structure can only be melded together by

the President himself, not by the National Security Advisor or

the White House Chief of Staff.

Foreign policy issues sometimes seem to be dealt with as

they arise, and seemingly with much more concern for how they

will play at home than their longer term impact abroad. This is

not true in every case, and the Clinton administration has had

some notable successes: agreement on GATT and NAFTA trade

accords; denuclearization in Russia and Ukraine; extension of

security assurances, even if somewhat weak, eastward into Central

Europe by the Partners for Peace program in NATO; an apparent

agreement with North Korea on plutonium production; and the

reestablishment of the Aristide government in Haiti are among

this administration's success. But in other important instances-

-abandonment of their original policy of "assertive

multilateralism" after a tactical reversal of several failed

policy initiatives in Bosnia; a brief attempt to denuclearize

South Asia; and, before finally acting, an extended vacillation


over what to do about an illegal regime in Haiti--the process

seeks more often a quick resolution and "victory" for the

President than it does to define and fulfill the longer term role

and interests of the United States on a very disorderly world.

Finally, there is the political situation of the President,

who won only 43 percent of the popular vote running as a New

Democrat in 1992. In addition to dealing with a Republican

majority in Congress, he now must now create consensus within the

Democratic party, since he is largely opposed in a unified manner

by the Republicans except on issues of international trade. 

After the first six months, and particularly after the

Congressionally mandated withdrawal from Somalia and the

subsequent dismissal of his Secretary of Defense, the President's

foreign policy record has become a major issue for his opponents.

 This was even the more so in June and July 1994 when the

President's polls on foreign policy were the worst ever, showing

no boost whatsoever for his participation in the G-7 summit and

his subsequent European tour. Having now signed and sent to

Congress his first formal report of security strategy, it will be

interesting to see if the concern of one White House staffer will

be valid, "To publish a detailed report of national security

strategy now would just provide chum for the sharks."

This may not, however, be the case. As published, the

Clinton NSSR contains a remarkably different vision of how to

provide for America's "security" in the future. First, the

conception of security is much more broad than used by earlier

administrations. Given the new environment with apparently no

military threats to the nation's physical security, the

administration has defined security as "protecting our people,

our territory, and our way of life." The addition of the last

clause underlines the recognition that the strategy must be

designed as much, if not more, for exploiting "the opportunities

to make the nation more safe and prosperous," as it is for

protecting it from a new class of "dangers" to its security. When

contrasted to the necessities and burdens of the Cold War, this

seizing of the historical opportunity, and that based on

improving the lot of America's domestic life as well as promoting

its democratic and economic aspects overseas, is a refreshingly

positive and attractive approach.

Further, there is a simple elegance of using only three


national security goals--enhancing our security, promoting

prosperity at home, and promoting democracy--under which to

integrate all of the government's efforts to advance US

interests. Thereby, the many ways in which various means

contribute to these ends and the interrelationships involved are

more readily apparent, as are the trade-offs between them (to the

consternation of some who have for decades seen their particular

contribution to national security as their undeniable claim on

resources!). As conceived and published, the strategy, for

instance, makes clear that the contribution of various means to

provide for "environmental security" contributes to the first

goal--"enhancing our security"--n much the same way as does

"maintaining a strong defense capability."

But, even with this truly post-Cold War conception of our

security coupled with a much more sweeping array of policy

instruments for its pursuit--from population control, to

environmental security, to nonproliferation initiatives, etc.--

one is left with the impression that some of the more

traditional, but vitally effective, means of providing for our

national security, e.g., nuclear deterrence, have been

inadequately addressed in the strategy. Equally noticeable by

their absence in this globalist approach to national security are

the priorities necessary to make this strategy operative. While

the "engagement" of the United States in the future is "to be

selective," dependent on the intensity of the interest involved,

there is little discussion of how U.S. leadership--"Never has

American leadership been more essential"--is to be effective

without direct engagement of our national capabilities, and the

specific causes or regions in which that must be done are not

made clear. In fact, the foreign policy record of the first two

years already demonstrates this to be one of the strategy's major

shortcomings.

In the months and years ahead this issue of the

effectiveness of American leadership may well be the linchpin of

any strategic formulation for advancing America's interests in

the world, including this new one by the Clinton administration.

 There are several reason for this. First, allies and friends no

longer need our assistance with their security, or so they

perceive and act. As a result, the leverage that extended

deterrence and other strategic arrangements of the Cold War

accrued to our leadership has withered. Second, the economic


aspects of Clinton's foreign policy may be perceived as intrusive

from the perspective of a nation whose markets we want to be

opened to our exports. This has already caused several former

allies and friends to distance themselves from what they see as

economic nationalism, and a leadership that is fostering it.

Third, America's problems at home, particularly faltering

education, rampant crime and violence, and rising racial

divisions have dimmed the message we send to promote the spread

of democracy abroad. If these are the result of our form of

democracy, as many rising industrial nations believe, we are

promoting a form of cultural imperialism that they can do

without.

Conclusions.

Several conclusions about the formulation of American

national security strategy can be drawn from the experiences of

these six reports, conclusions of process and substance that,

perhaps, are arrived at uniquely from the NSC perspective.

The first conclusion is obvious from the earlier

discussions, but so deeply pervades all else that I want to state

it explicitly--there is no real consensus today as to the

appropriate grand strategy for the United States. And, more

important, this lack of consensus is due far less to any type of

constraint on strategic thinking than it is to the fundamental

value differences in our electorate, and the resulting legacy of

federal government divided between the political parties and

buffeted by the myriad of factions that effectively cross party

lines on separate issues. It is easy to agree with those

academics concerned that the dysfunctions of "divided government"

and "demosclerosis"9 increasingly preclude coherent strategic

behavior on the part of our nation.10

After all, grand strategy is really the idea of allocating

resources to create in both the short and long term various

instruments of power, instruments with which the nation then

provides for its defense and the furtherance of its aims in the

world. True, there have been extraordinary changes in the

external environment, and we won the Cold War. But to many,

including those working to formulate security strategy through

this period of intense change, the erosion of consensus on

foreign policy was apparent far earlier. One need look no


further than the foreign and economic assistance allocations from

roughly 1984 onward, or the endless clashes on modernization of

strategic defenses, or the constant tug of war on war powers and

treaty obligations, or the Reagan administration's attempts to

buttress "aggressive unilateralism" and the Clinton

administration's short-lived attempt to pursue "assertive

multilateralism." And, as the Iran-Contra fiasco showed to all,

without a modicum of consensus there can be no effective security

strategy or policy.

This conclusion is stated first because it conditions those

that follow, and because it conditions one's expectations for the

specific mode of formulating national security strategy that is

discussed in this paper. A Presidential strategy report can

never be more than it really is, a statement of preference from

the executive branch as to current, and perhaps future, grand

strategy. Given our government of shared powers, it remains for

a constructively adversarial process with the Congress to refine

that preferential strategy into one that has any chance of being

effective--one around which there can be created domestic

political consensus, and thus an allocation of resources

effective in creating instruments of national power.

The second conclusion focuses on the function of long-range

planning, or strategic planning, which is the base from which

security strategy formulation must be built. Simply stated, in

my experience the executive branch of government does not do

long-range planning in a substantive or systematic manner. (I

make a sharp distinction between planning and programming.) To

be sure, there are pockets of planning activity within the

"permanent" government of many departments and agencies,

particularly Defense and State. Some of this is good,

comprehensive planning from the perspective of that particular

agency. But it is devoid of the political dynamic which can be

provided only by the participation of those who have won

elections, which under our system of government provides the

authority to set future directions and pace in security policy

and strategy. Taken in the whole then, particularly given the

number of departments and agencies within which there is lφttle

planning activity, I am comfortable stating this conclusion in a

stark form.

This paucity of strategic planning is well documented in


academic writings, particularly the memoirs of former officials.

And, the causes are well known to political scientists.11 In my

own experience, two causes stand out. The first is the limit of

what is physically possible for elected officials to do in any

given amount of time. Long-range planning and strategy

formulation will always run a poor second to the pressing

combination of crisis management and near-term policy planning

and implementation. There is seldom a week that the NSC staff

and the planning staffs of the principal Cabinet officers are not

fully involved in either preparation for or clean-up after a

presidential trip, a summit, a visit by a head of state (or

government), or a major negotiation. And this is as it should

be; the maxim is true in diplomatic and political activity at

this level--if today is not cared for, tomorrow will not arrive

in a manageable form. Secondly, the pernicious effects of

divided government, manifest in micromanaging and punitive

legislation on the one hand and intractable stonewalling and

relentless drives for efficiency on the other, preclude resources

for permanent, long-range planning staffs that could

institutionalize such a process.

In place of a systematic approach to long-range or strategic

planning, what the executive branch does do, and in some cases

rather well, is episodic planning for particular events. This is

how one can describe the creation of each of the published

strategy reports--a focused, comprehensive effort of some 4-6

months involving political leadership and their permanent

bureaucracies in the development of common vision and purpose for

the near-term future. The often cited NSC-68 and PRM-10 reviews

are historic examples of other successful, but episodic,

strategic planning events.12 A more recent example is the Ikle-

-Wohlstetter Commission of 1988.13 To be sure, in most cases

these were incremental responses to a rather consistent external

security environment, made by administrations, often new, that

were stewards of a consensus U.S. grand strategy. But the fact

remains these episodic events did produce in-depth reviews across

the range of interests and instruments of national power, and

resulted in much more than rhetorical change to the overall

strategy.

The relevant question now, it seems to me, given the

inherent constraints to systematic, long-range planning noted

above, is whether it is wise in the future to attempt anything


more than broad, but episodic, planning exercises for the

formulation of grand strategy. More specifically, should the

Executive attempt a new statement of grand strategy every year?

My own experience, reinforced by the above historical examples,

leads to the conclusion that comprehensive strategy reviews

should only be executed twice during an administration's tenure,

during the first and third years to be presented early to each

two-year session of the Congress. Further, if the pace of change

in external events subsides, a valid case could probably be made

to conduct such a review only once, during the first year of a

new administration.

While the adoption of comprehensive strategy reviews at set

intervals would address one problem with the coherent formulation

of strategy, a much more formidable constraint also is apparent

from experiences, which is offered as a third conclusion--the

executive branch is not well organized to accommodate the

changing metrics of national power,14 particularly the

reascendancy of economic power in the formulation and execution

of future U.S. grand strategy.15

This problem does not stem from a failure to recognize and

treat the economic element of power for what it is, the long-term

strength underpinning the other elements of power.16 Rather it

stems from a failure to agree on the appropriate policies at the

federal level to preserve that essential power, policies that are

in fact more domestic than foreign in their impact. Toward the

end of the Cold War, this failure was manifest in several forms,

notably the political inability to deal effectively with the twin

deficits of the 1980s. They still are not addressed in a

seriously compelling manner early in the 1990s even though their

root cause, a systemic excess of national investment over

savings, is well known. Volumes have been written pinning the

blame on both the Executive and the Congress; and it appears

there is quite enough for both as neither has led the electorate

to understand the severity of the issues or otherwise to forge

consensus for resolution.

A second major contributor to the failure is the complexity

of recent arrangements for making economic policy. At least five

cabinet officials have a significant role (Treasury, State,

Defense, Commerce and the U.S. Trade Representative). Integrating

these responsibilities, until the Clinton administration, has


rested with three agencies within the Executive Office of the

President: the Economic Policy Council, the National Security

Council, and the Domestic Policy Council. Advice comes from two

more agencies: the Office of Management and Budget and the

Council of Economic Advisors. The integrated, coordinated use of

economic instruments of power, particularly in the context of

regional security strategies, was understandably difficult to

achieve in this organizational environment. Neither is it yet

clear that the approach of the Clinton administration, a new

National Economic Council co-equal to the National Security

Council, will be any more effective.

Beyond the problems of finding time to work on strategy and

finding someone to be in charge of economic policy, I conclude

that there is another shortcoming of a different nature in the

current process. The art of formulating strategy is that of

combining the various elements of power and relating them to the

desired end--the key is integration. This belief is derived as

much from experience in crisis management as in strategy

formulation. Too often, after a crisis was ongoing, it was clear

that there had been little prior coordination or integration of

policy instruments focused on a particular region or country

before the crisis. Too often the only effective instruments for

immediate leverage were military. In retrospect it was clear

that if we had been pursuing a well-documented and integrated

strategic approach toward the region or country in question, one

in which the current policy instruments drew from all elements of

power, the ability for more effective response would have been

greatly enhanced.

Increasingly in this post-Cold War era, those ends toward

which we are developing a strategic approach are being defined at

the regional and subregional level. Even strategies for such

transnational issues as environmental security, terrorism and

narcotics trafficking focus at the subregional level for

implementation, as do many strategies for the use of economic

power. But planning for the effective integration of policy

instruments for the various regions and subregions remains

problematic.

Lastly, I conclude, contrary to some of what is contained in

this paper, that we should not concentrate exclusively on

institutions and processes when discussing the development of


national security strategy. As I have seen so often, it is

people who really define the character of the institutions and

who make the processes what they are. Almost uniformly I have

observed people of intelligence and goodwill respond to the need

to place national interests above those of organization or

person. This is not to conclude, however, that all is well and

we can count on such people consistently overcoming the real

constraints on strategic thinking and behavior in our government.

Rather, it is to conclude that it is much too early for a cynical

approach to the on-going reformulation of America's role in the

world.

Notes:

1. 50 U.S.C. 402, (Title I of the National Security Act of

1947).

2. The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of

Brigadier General Michael Hayden, USAF, in providing insights on

the preparation of the 1990 and 1991 reports, Colonel Jeff Jones,

USA, on the 1993 report, and Dr. Peter Feaver on the report of

the Clinton Administration. All judgements in this paper remain,

of course, solely the responsibility of the author.

3. Even though much of the reform literature, such as the

1985 Report of the Senate Armed Services Committee, "Organization

of the Department of Defense--The Need for Change," discusses

needed reforms in both the executive and congressional branches,

Congress chose only to pursue reform within DOD. Since Congress

was not reforming itself, it was not in a position to lean

directly on the Executive Office of the President for reforms.

4. Report of the President's Special Review Board, U.S.

Government Printing Office, 1987, also available as The Tower

Commission Report by several publishers. Of particular interest

to the context of this paper are Part II, "Organizing for

National Security," and Part V, "Recommendations."

5. For an example of the benefits to the new Bush

administration as the political appointees executed a strategic

review, see: Don M. Snider, Strategy, Forces, and Budgets:

Dominant Influences in Executive Decision-making, Post-Cold War,

1989-1991, Strategic Studies Institute, USAWC, 1993, p. 18-20.


6. National Security Strategy of the United States, January

1987, p. 40.

7. For a case study on the development of security strategy

within the Bush administration, see: Snider, Ibid.

8. Les Aspin, Report of the Bottom-Up Review, Department of

Defense, October 1993.

9. Jonathan Rauch, Demosclerosis: The Silent Killer of

American Government, Random House, Inc., 1994.

10. For example, see Aaron Friedberg, "Is the United States

Capable of Acting Strategically?," The Washington Quarterly, Vol.

14, No. 1, Winter 1991, pp. 15-20.

11. David C. Kozak, "The Bureaucratic Politics Approach:

The Evolution of the Paradigm," Bureaucratic Politics and

National Security, David Kozak and James Keagle, eds., Rienner

Publishers, 1988, pp. 3-15.

12. John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, Oxford

University Press, 1982, pp. 89-127, and Zbigniew Brzezinski,

Power and Principle, McGraw Hill, 1983, pp. 51-52.

13. Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy,

Discriminate Deterrence, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989.

14. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature

of American Power, Basic Books, 1990, pp. 200, 227; and Catherine

McArdle Kelleher, "US Foreign Policy and Europe, 1990-2000,"

Brookings Review, Vol. 8, No. 4, Fall 1990, pp. 8-10.

15. Samuel Huntington, "America's Changing Strategic

Interests," Survival, Vol. 33, No. l, January/February 1991, pp.

8-16; and Robert Hormats, "The Roots of American Power," Foreign

Affairs, Vol. 70, No. 3, Summer 1991, pp. 130-135.

16. Hormats, p. 130.
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Major General Richard A. Chilcoat

Commandant

*****

STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE

Acting Director

Colonel William W. Allen

Director of Research

Dr. Earl H. Tilford, Jr.

Author

Dr. Don M. Snider

Editor

Mrs. Marianne P. Cowling

Secretary

Ms. Rita A. Rummel

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Composition

Mrs. Mary Jane Semple

Cover Artist

Mr. James E. Kistler