National Security Strategy 2022

Name

Student’s Name

Instructor’s Name

Course Code

30 March 2024

FA5 Question

The 2022 National Security Strategy states that the US pursues three national security interests: to expand opportunities and economic prosperity for the people of America, to protect the security of Americans, and to defend the values of democracy that form the foundation of American culture (The White House 7). However, some fundamental challenges limit the US’ ability to achieve these interests. The most significant challenge presently is the rise of powers such as Russia and China that advocate for revisionist policies and authoritarian governance models, posing a threat to the rule-based international order. As the US and its democratic partners work to strengthen systems of democratic governance globally, these countries continue to recklessly flout international laws by leveraging supply chains and technology for repression and coercion, undermining other countries’ democratic political processes, and waging aggression wars against the international order as Russia did against Ukraine (The White House 8). They continue to export ideas of illiberal democracy in an attempt to remake the world order to support their repressive and personalized autocratic systems (The White House 9). Attempts by the US to protect global democracy creates a conflict with these autocracies, thereby threatening the security of Americans and their economic prosperity given the various economic interdependencies that exist between nations.

In my view, the greatest opportunity for the US to advance its security interests is the broad range of nations across the world that support the vision of a rule-based democratic world order. There is a need for the US to collaborate with these allies in developing defense strategies that promote combined defense planning against autocratic systems. Clementine Starling, a security expert, notes that collaboration efforts have previously failed because they focus on getting allies integrated into existing US defense plans (Atlantic Council n.pag). A more effective approach would comprehensively integrate allies in defense planning from the onset, and accurately outline the mechanisms by which the advantages, competencies and perspectives of all partners will be incorporated.

The concept of integration is the centerpiece of both President Biden’s 2022 National Security Strategy and the Secretary of Defense’s National Defense Strategy. The president emphasizes the need for states to cooperate in fighting common security challenges (The White House 9). Similarly, the National Defense Strategy emphasizes integrated deterrence, where the US military works closely with US partners and allies to prevent aggression across regions (Department of Defense III).