Improving the Practice of National Security Strategy: A New Approach for the Post-Cold War World

Air & Space Power Journal, Spring, 2005 by Youssef H. Aboul-Enein

Improving the Practice of National Security Strategy: A New Approach for the Post-Cold War World by Clark A. Murdock, principal author. Center for Strategic and International Studies (http:// www.csis.org), 1800 K Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006, 2004, 196 pages, $21.95.

Like other think tanks in the Washington, DC, area, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) produces studies and papers of interest to policy makers. Clark Murdock--senior fellow in the CSIS International Security Program, who previously worked in policy planning in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and as a policy advisor to the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee--has assembled six contributors from academe, the military, and government to discuss aspects of improving the formulation of national security strategy (NSS). Part one covers methods of analysis, while part two includes case studies of Somalia, Kosovo, and other conflicts that tested America's policy makers. (Dr. Andrew Marshall, director of net assessment at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, who has spent a lifetime pushing the envelope of strategic thinking within the Department of Defense, arranged for the trading of this study.)

The book opens with a historical look at how a formal statement of strategy has become such a commonly accepted practice that Congress mandates the publication of an NSS yearly and a review of defense strategy at the beginning of each administration. The 9/11 Commission reaffirms this practice, writing glowingly of the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act, which codified this requirement as well as others. Improving the Practice of National Security Strategy then delves into the basics of how an NSS that orchestrates elements of national power (diplomatic, economic, and military) supports the national interest.

Murdock argues that hierarchical strategic thinking--for example, the "strategies-to-task" model pioneered by Lt Gen Glenn Kent, USAF, retired--dominates the US military and that at war colleges, the ends, ways, and means approach to formulating strategy has become a mantra. Although these tools prove useful for debate in classrooms, the formulation of an NSS is never quite that simple--witness Andrew Marshall's account of the Eisenhower administration's Project Solarium, a superclassified endeavor designed to prioritize the nation's grand strategies, and the fact that the Clinton administration had no fewer than three draft documents of the NSS in wide circulation.

A section on the do's and don'ts of exercising US power provides an excellent look into how strategies often emerge from the unfolding of events; it also offers valuable tips on the difficulties of converting words into deeds and decisions. The book culminates with a checklist that focuses on seven basic questions a policy maker must answer before embarking on a new endeavor: (1) What is the United States trying to achieve in this particular instance? (2) Will the means under consideration ensure success? (3) Are the costs of achieving the desired effects worth the benefits? (4) Are there satisfactory answers for the three what-if questions? (5) What if we do nothing? (6) How will the stakes change if the United States becomes involved? (7) What if something unexpected happens? The study then applies these inherently subjective questions, designed to elicit different responses from policy makers, to 11 case studies to illustrate their use in analyzing a conflict.

Improving the Practice of National Security Strategy is an excellent book for individuals who wish to expand upon what they learned in a staff-college course on national security decision making. It can also serve as an excellent refresher for officers with orders to the Joint Staff or the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

LCDR Youssef H. Aboul-Enein, MSC, USN

Gaithersburg, Maryland