Let’s hope that the full strategy will focus more on nuts-and-bolts national security and foreign policy goals and less on other topics, which, fresh off an election, clearly weigh on their minds now. The administration will have the opportunity to refine it when they publish the required full National Security Strategy within a year of the inauguration. That it came out so quickly speaks well of the processes in the nascent Biden National Security Council. National security guidance, especially early in an administration, provides useful insight into a president’s vision and views.
presence in Afghanistan should be considered on the merits, not a bumper sticker slogan. The term “forever war” should be retired, and the decision to retain a U.S. military presence in Afghanistan is performing several functions, such as advising Afghan forces and conducting counter-terrorism operations, but fighting a “forever war” is not one of them. Divesting arms in hand on the mere promise of a future technology is foolhardy.Īlso carried forward from the Presidential campaign is the mantra that the United States “should not, and will not, engage in ‘forever wars’ that have cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars.” The U.S.
Unsurprisingly, the guidance also takes up the increasingly common call for the military to “shift our emphasis from unneeded legacy platforms and weapon systems to free up resources for investments in the cutting-edge technologies….” Missing is any acknowledgement that the legacy platforms proposed for divestment would be essential to defend America from adversaries today, should the need arise. Armed Forces remain the best trained and equipped force in the world.” will “reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy.” It seems rather at odds with statements made by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who testified at his confirmation hearing that nuclear deterrence is “DOD’s highest priority mission.” How can the administration reduce the role of nuclear weapons if it is the DOD’s highest priority mission? Perhaps this refers to backing off some of the new “low-yield” weapons that Trump proposed and Democrats consistently rejected as destabilizing, but with so few details we can only speculate.įurther guidance on the military reassuringly identifies investment in people as the highest priority, and that the administration will sustain readiness and “ensure the U.S. The nuclear section goes on to state the U.S. Biden’s third priority, defending democratic values, was mentioned in the Trump strategy in a sub-section under “Advance American Influence.” But Biden affords democratic values higher prominence. The first two-security and prosperity-nest nearly exactly with the first two pillars of President Trump’s 2017 National Security Strategy and deserve top billing in any American national security document. The interim guidance identifies three national priorities: protect the security of the American people expand economic prosperity and opportunity and realize and defend the democratic values at the heart of the American way of life. Alliances are back.” Such political sloganeering seems jarringly out of place in a strategy document.
And under the Biden-Harris Administration, America is back. Alliances and allies enjoy great importance in the Biden guidance, with its call to “reinvigorate and modernize our alliances and partnerships around the world.” Unfortunately, accompanying that sound guidance are some lingering traces of campaign rhetoric, e.g., “America cannot afford to be absent any longer on the world stage. Areas of continuity with the Trump administration include identification of China, Russia, North Korea and Iran as potential adversaries.