US National Security Strategy: Interests, Threats, and Alliances
This paper examines the 2022 U.S. National Security Strategy, focusing on the three core national security interests articulated by the Biden administration: expanding economic prosperity, protecting Americans' security, and defending democratic values. The paper identifies the rise of revisionist powers — particularly Russia and China — as the most significant challenge to these interests, noting their use of coercion, supply chains, and authoritarian governance models to undermine the rule-based international order. It argues that the greatest opportunity for advancing U.S. security lies in deeper collaboration with democratic allies, advocating for comprehensive integration of partners in defense planning from the outset rather than folding allies into pre-existing U.S. strategies.
- Introduction: Core U.S. National Security Interests: Three NSS interests and key challenges facing the US
- Challenges from Revisionist Powers: Russia and China undermine democratic world order
- Opportunities Through Allied Collaboration: Deeper allied integration as primary strategic opportunity
- Integrated Deterrence in U.S. Defense Strategy: Integration as core concept in NSS and NDS
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper directly engages primary sources — the 2022 National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy — lending its claims strong documentary authority.
- It balances identification of a threat (revisionist autocracies) with a constructive policy recommendation (comprehensive allied integration), giving the argument a clear problem-solution arc.
- The inclusion of an expert voice (Clementine Starling, Atlantic Council) strengthens the allied-collaboration argument by acknowledging past failures and proposing a more effective model.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates policy analysis through synthesis of official government documents. Rather than simply summarizing the National Security Strategy, the student evaluates its implications, identifies gaps in current allied collaboration efforts, and proposes a more effective approach — showing critical engagement with primary sources rather than mere description.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens by laying out the three national security interests from the 2022 NSS, then identifies the primary challenge (revisionist autocracies undermining the democratic world order). It pivots to opportunity, arguing for deeper allied integration in defense planning, and closes by grounding both Biden's NSS and the National Defense Strategy in the shared concept of integrated deterrence. Each paragraph builds logically on the last, creating a focused short-form policy essay.
Introduction: Core U.S. National Security Interests
The 2022 National Security Strategy states that the United States pursues three national security interests: to expand opportunities and economic prosperity for the American people, 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 U.S.'s ability to achieve these interests. The most significant challenge at present is the rise of powers such as Russia and China that advocate for revisionist policies and authoritarian governance models, posing a direct threat to the rule-based international order.
Challenges from Revisionist Powers
As the United States and its democratic partners work to strengthen systems of democratic governance globally, revisionist states continue to recklessly flout international laws by leveraging supply chains and technology for repression and coercion, undermining other countries' democratic political processes, and waging wars of aggression against the international order — as Russia did against Ukraine (The White House 8). These powers continue to export ideas of illiberal democracy in an attempt to remake the world order in support of their repressive and personalized autocratic systems (The White House 9). U.S. efforts to protect global democracy create an inherent conflict with these autocracies, thereby threatening the security of Americans and their economic prosperity given the various economic interdependencies that exist between nations.
Works Cited
Atlantic Council. "The Next National Defense Strategy is Coming: These Seven Points are Key to Understanding It." The Atlantic Council, 20 Apr. 2022, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/experts-react-the-hits-and-misses-in-bidens-new-national-security-strategy/
Department of Defense. "National Defense Strategy of the United States of America." US Department of Defense, 2022, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/trecms/pdf/AD1183514.pdf
The White House. "National Security Strategy." The White House, October 2022,
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