Military the Multifaceted American Defense

Military The multifaceted American defense strategies do not preclude them from sharing key components, themes, and ideals in common. The National Security Strategy (NSS), the National Defense Strategy (NDS), the National Military Strategy (NMS), and the National Strategy for Maritime Security are critically aligned in terms of several key areas. Each places national defense strategies within a historic and policy framework, with special emphasis on post-September 11 realities.

Terrorism is a major thematic thread in each of these strategic defense documents, which explicates the need for policy that transcends interactions between nation-states. Weapons of mass destruction are articulated as one of the primary defense concerns in all four documents, especially as the infiltration of terrorist networks presents tricky political as well as policy and military strategies. The National Strategy for Maritime Security may be the only document that does not expressly stress the role of the United States as a shaper of the international environment.

Yet the National Strategy for Maritime Security does present the United States as being in a unique position of power to influence the choices made by other nations in regards to their impact on American ports and its domestic security. Therefore, the purported role of the United States as a promoter of global peace, prosperity, and social justice is clearly defined in each of these strategy documents.

Establishing the United States as a self-defined hegemon is a risky stance and yet also a realistic one, especially in light of the fact that "the United States remains the only nation able to project and sustain large-scale operations over extended distances," (Quarterly Defense Report, p. iv). Allocation of funds and human resources is not touched upon in any great detail in any of the four strategy documents. Instead, they each emphasize the importance of recognizing and combatting threats to domestic and international security.

Fearfulness of non-state actors remains salient, but what is particularly interesting is the way Russia and China are singled out as nations with whom the United States is not currently engaged in war with but which nevertheless present peculiar threats. The Department of Defense's National Defense Strategy notes that China's blossoming wealth has also enabled the proliferation of its military, which threatens peace in the Straits of Taiwan and potentially beyond. Russia presents its own realm of problems, especially in light of the failure of democracy to take root there.

The supremacy of the United States as a global military power is an underlying message in these strategy papers, which are written as much to motivate and inspire as to guide policy. Risk management is addressed within a characteristically confident framework, reflecting the overall ambition of America's military strategies. Commitments to far-reaching objectives in Iraq and Afghanistan are toughed upon, and the rhetoric of being "at war" and engaged in a "long war" are repeated, to encourage an appreciation of the gravity of terrorism. Likewise, strategies involving "large-scale counterinsurgency,.