National Security Policy and Strategy

United States Army War College

Department of National Security and Strategy

National Security Policy

and Strategy

Course Directive

AY17

This document contains educational material designed to promote discussion by students

of the U.S. Army War College. It does not necessarily reflect the views of the Department

of the Army.

INTENTIONALLY BLANK

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

COURSE OVERVIEW:

Page

GENERAL….........................................................................................................

PURPOSE............................................................................................................

OUTCOMES......................................................................................................

COURSE STRUCTURE AND KEY QUESTIONS.................................................

SCOPE.................................................................................................................

STUDENT READINGS.........................................................................................

CURRICULAR RELATIONSHIPS........................................................................

JOINT PROFESSIONAL MILITARY EDUCATION (JPME)..................................

COURSE REQUIREMENTS.. ..............................................................................

COURSE CALENDAR….....................................................................................

BLOCK I: THE NATIONAL SECURITY ENVIRONMENT AND DECISION-MAKING

MODELS

1-S INTRODUCTION TO NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY AND STRATEGY.....

2-S INTERNATIONAL IMPACTS ON NATIONAL SECURITY DECISION-..........

MAKING: THE GLOBAL POLITICAL SYSTEM………………………………..

3-S INTERNATIONAL IMPACTS ON NATIONAL SECURITY DECISION-.........

MAKING: THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC SYSTEM……………………………….

4-S DOMESTIC IMPACTS ON NATIONAL SECURITY DECISION-MAKING:........

U.S. HISTORY, VALUES, AND INTERESTS…………………………………..

5-S NATIONAL SECURITY DECISION-MAKING MODELS....................................

6-S CASE STUDY I: CONTAINMENT AND NSC 68............................................

BLOCK II: NATIONAL SECURITY ACTORS AND INSTITUTIONS

7-S THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM I: THE PRESIDENCY AND THE NSC

8-S THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM II: CONGRESS AND ......................

INTEREST GROUPS……………………………………………..…………..…

9-L/S THE ROLE OF THE MILITARY IN NATIONAL SECURITY DECISION-

MAKING…………………………………………………………………………….

10-L/S CASE STUDY II: ESCALATION IN VIETNAM………………………………...

.....................................................................

BLOCK III: INSTRUMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER

11-S INTRODUCTION TO THE INSTRUMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER……..

.....................................................

12-L/S INSTRUMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER IN TIMES OF PEACE................

13-S INSTRUMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER IN TIMES OF CONFLICT I…….

14-S INSTRUMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER IN TIMES OF CONFLICT II……

BLOCK IV: CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN GRAND STRATEGY

15-S NATIONAL STRATEGIC GUIDANCE & POSTURE…………………………

16-L/S THE 21ST CENTURY STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT………………………

17-S 21ST CENTURY AMERICAN GRAND STRATEGY…………………..…..

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I: GUIDELINES FOR STRATEGY FORMULATION………………..

APPENDIX II: COURSE WRITING REQUIREMENTS AND GUIDLELINES…..

APPENDIX III:

NSPS STUDENT CRITIQUE………………………………………

100

APPENDIX IV:

USAWC PROGRAM LEARNING OUTCOMES………………………...

101

APPENDIX V:

JOINT LEARNING AREAS AND OBJECTIVES (JPME II)...........

103

APPENDIX VI:

AY17 THEMES ….........................................................................

106

APPENDIX VII:

BLOOM’S TAXONOMY……………………………………………...

108

APPENDIX VIII

OFFSITE ACCESS TO COURSE READINGS, LIBRARY

DATABASES, AND BLACKBOARD………………………………..

110

APPENDIX IX:

PROGRAM LEARNING OUTCOMES (PLOS)—CURRICULUM

…………………………………………………………………..

MAP……………………………………………………………………

112

APPENDIX X:

JOINT LEARNING AREAS AND OBJECTIVES—CURRICULUM

MAP ………………………………………………………………….

MAP……………………………………………………………………

113

COURSE OVERVIEW

…The values of our founding inspire leaders in parliaments and new

movements in public squares around the globe. And when a typhoon hits the

Philippines, or schoolgirls are kidnapped in Nigeria, or masked men occupy

a building in Ukraine, it is America that the world looks to for help. So the

United States is and remains the one indispensable nation. That has been

true for the century passed and it will be true for the century to come.

But the world is changing with accelerating speed. This presents opportunity,

but also new dangers. We know all too well, after 9/11, just how technology

and globalization has put power once reserved for states in the hands of

individuals, raising the capacity of terrorists to do harm.

Russia’s aggression toward former Soviet states unnerves capitals in

Europe, while China’s economic rise and military reach worries its neighbors.

From Brazil to India, rising middle classes compete with us, and

governments seek a greater say in global forums. …

It will be your generation’s task to respond to this new world. The question

we face, the question each of you will face, is not whether America will lead,

but how we will lead -- not just to secure our peace and prosperity, but also

extend peace and prosperity around the globe.

―President Barack H. Obama

Remarks by the President at the United States Military Academy

Commencement Ceremony - May 2014

1. General.

a. The National Security Policy and Strategy (NSPS) course focuses on national

security policies and the strategies that put them into operation. It examines the elements

that underpin national security policy and strategy, including the international and domestic

environments, the American political system, national security policy and strategy

formulation, the instruments of national power, and the processes employed by the United

States Government for integrating and synchronizing those instruments to formulate

national security policies and strategies in the pursuit of national security objectives. The

course also examines the role of the current national strategic documents to include the

National Security Strategy (NSS), the Defense Strategy Review (formerly known as the

Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR)), and the National Military Strategy (NMS), among

others.

b. During NSPS, the Department of National Security and Strategy (DNSS) faculty’s

goal is to provide a positive adult learning environment through seminar discussions,

readings, case studies, guest lectures, and question and answer periods. Throughout the

course, the faculty will challenge students to evaluate complex national security issues

that are often characterized by ambiguity and uncertainty using critical, creative, ethical,

and systemic thought processes, as well as historical/contextual reflection and analysis.

c. The synthesis, analysis, evaluation and application of national security policy, and

the military's role within the interagency decision-making process, conform to no

prescribed doctrine. Strategic thinking requires creativity as well as discipline in grappling

with the complex and dynamic matters of policy, strategy, and the use of national power

to promote and protect national interests. National security strategists in the 21st Century

must effectively operate in a complex, ambiguous and rapidly-changing environment.

Strategists must be able to integrate the multiple dimensions of the global environment,

as well as factors such as culture, international and domestic politics, economics, public

policy, and technology. Upon completion of the NSPS course, students will be better able

to analyze complex and ambiguous national security issues, providing a solid foundation

for their prospective service at the strategic level.

2. Purpose. The purpose of the NSPS course is to develop senior military and civilian

leaders who understand the art and practice of policy and strategy formulation in achieving

national security objectives in the current and emerging global environment.

3. Outcomes. The NSPS course outcomes are:

a. Analyze the process of national security policy and strategy formulation and the

major factors that influence this process.

b. Analyze and understand contemporary and emerging international security

challenges and their impact on the national security agenda.

c. Synthesize key concepts, tools, and processes in the development of appropriate

policy and strategy responses to national security challenges facing the United States in

the 21st Century international security environment.

4. Course Structure and Key Questions. The course is divided into four blocks, each of

which revolves around one or more key questions in the national security decision-

making process.

Block I: The National Security Environment and Decision-Making Models. The first

block provides a conceptual foundation for understanding national security decision-

making. Lessons in this block examine the key concepts underpinning national security

policy and strategy, discuss the environments – both international and domestic – in

which policy and strategy formulation take place, and examine a set of decision-making

models that attempt to explain why governmental decision-making often deviates from a

purely rational process that produces value-maximizing decisions. Block I of the course

ends with a case study that examines the development of NSC-68, the document that

articulated and defended the strategy of containment of the Soviet Union in the Cold

War. Questions examined in Block I include:

a. How should national security be defined and what national interests flow from this

definition of national security?

b. How are policy and strategy defined and what is the relationship between them?

c. What are the key factors in the contemporary international environment

that shape U.S. national security policy and strategy?

d. How do historical experience and the characteristics of the U.S. political system

influence U.S. national security policy and strategy?

e. What influence do bureaucratic politics, group dynamics, and the characteristics of

individual decision-makers have on national security policy and strategy?

Block II: National Security Actors and Institutions. The second block of the course

examines the key actors and institutions in the national-security decision-making process.

Among the actors and institutions examined are the President, the National Security

Advisor and the National Security Council, the Congress, interest groups, and the

Washington, D.C.-based military establishment of the Joint Staff and the Office of the

Secretary of Defense. This block examines how these actors and institutions interact to

formulate and implement national security policy and strategy. A key insight of this block

is that interaction among these actors and institutions is dynamic - sometimes cooperative

and sometimes competitive – with shifting coalitions of actors shaping policy and strategy,

and personalities often playing a significant role. Block II ends with a case study on the

U.S. decision to escalate the war in Vietnam, in which students play the roles of key

actors in that process. Questions examined in Block II include:

a. Who are the key actors—whether individuals or institutions—in the national

security community and what factors shape interaction among them?

b. How do civilian and military roles in the national security decision-making process

differ, and what is the proper role of the military in this process?

c. What are the characteristics of the interagency process (as it has developed over

the past 60 plus years) in the formulation and implementation of national security policy

and strategy?

Block III: Instruments of National Power. The third block of the course examines the

instruments of national power and how the United States uses them to achieve its

national security objectives. Lessons in this block provide an overview of the

instruments of diplomacy, information, military and economic power, and then examine

how the U.S. uses these instruments during times of peace and times of conflict. A key

insight of Block III is that the nation uses the instruments of power in an integrated

manner – while one instrument may dominate in a given situation, the other instruments

are also engaged in support of U.S. objectives in that situation. Questions examined in

Block III include:

a. What are the instruments of U.S. national power and what are their relationships

with one another?

b. What are the key characteristics of each instrument of power and what

considerations guide its use?

c. How might the United States most effectively wield its national power to meet the

challenges and opportunities of the 21st Century?

Block IV: Contemporary American Grand Strategy. The fourth and final block of the

course examines national security policy and strategy in the 21st Century. The lessons

of this block examine key U.S. national security documents, survey the contemporary

global security environment and the issues that dominate it, and examine competing

visions for 21st Century U.S. grand strategy. Questions examined in Block IV include:

a. In light of current circumstances, and projected forces and trends for the future,

what national security priorities do you think should be reflected in national-level strategy

documents (e.g., the National Security Strategy, Defense Strategy Review, and National

Military Strategy)?

b. What types of national security policies and strategies will most effectively advance

U.S. national interests over the next 10-20 years?

c. What lessons on the formulation and implementation of national security policy and

strategy can be drawn from the study of major national security decisions in U.S. history?

5. Scope. The national security professional must be as flexible, adaptable, and capable

as the challenges our nation faces. During the National Security Policy and Strategy

course, students should expect to do something that may appear paradoxical: to think

clearly about ambiguous problems arising from complex circumstances. We will

analyze and evaluate these problems from the perspective of those occupying the

highest national security positions in our government—both civilian and military. Despite

the uncertainty of issues and circumstances, students will be expected to offer

options/solutions even when no obvious correct answer seems to emerge. This is no

small task; however, it can be rewarding when approached with a creative, critical, and

informed outlook. What follows is a discussion of a key aspect of the course: the

USAWC Strategy Formulation Framework.

a. Strategy Formulation Framework.

Figure 1.

(1) The “Strategy Formulation Framework” (Figure 1) offers one way to

conceptualize the overall objectives of this course. This framework is examined in detail

in Appendix I of this document. The central part of the framework depicts a logical

approach to organizing our thoughts regarding strategy formulation. Policy flows from the

path of U.S. historical development and the continuing political process. It is derived from

our nation’s enduring beliefs, ethics, values, and previous choices. Policy may be defined

as broad guidance that articulates national interests in the context of the strategic

environment. National policy provides the focus for strategy formulation. Strategy at the

highest level of decision-making is often referred to as Grand Strategy, which may be

defined as the use of all instruments of national power in peace and war to support a

strategic vision of America’s role in the world that will best achieve national objectives.

However, it is important to remember that all strategy is a calculation of ways and means

directed towards the accomplishment of ends, balanced against a continuous assessment

of risk.

(2) Evolving from U.S. history and practice, strategy formulation begins with an

understanding of the nation's values, purpose, and strategic culture. National values,

based on the nation’s enduring beliefs and ethics, significantly influence the identification

of national interests. The strategist can then conduct an appraisal of the challenges and

opportunities that affect these interests—as well as the nation’s ability to promote and

protect them. The core national interests of the United States generally revolve around

the security of the United States, its citizens, and its allies; economic well-being; a stable

international order; and the promotion of national values. However, the strategist must

understand that these core interests, though enduring, may be influenced by the history of

the U.S., the current context of the times, the domestic mood, and the international

security climate.

(3) A strategist will base an effective strategic appraisal on a realistic

understanding of the international and domestic environments and an analysis of the

many trends and forces operating in those environments (depicted in the boxes on the left

and right sides of the framework diagram). Based on this appraisal, political leaders

articulate a grand strategic vision of the nation’s role in the world. Policymakers and

strategists then translate this grand strategic vision into grand strategic objectives

(ENDS). This vision also guides the choice of grand strategic concepts (WAYS; i.e.,

engagement, containment, or preeminence) based on a broad conception of national

power (MEANS), resulting in broad national policy decisions. Key departmental and

agency leaders continue the strategy formulation process at the national security level,

focusing on a more detailed examination of national interests, considered by categories

and intensities. As part of this process, the President determines overall national security

policy objectives and approves a national security strategy for employing the instruments

of national power – diplomatic, informational, military, and economic (DIME) – to achieve

national interests. Strategists then work to provide the President and other key

policymakers with strategy options to serve the policy objectives.

(4) A key analysis for policymakers and strategists is a risk assessment to

determine feasibility (Do we have the means to execute the strategy?), acceptability

(Does the strategy accord with the preferences of key audiences? Is it legal? Ethical? Are

costs likely to be borne?), and suitability (Will the strategy achieve or contribute usefully to

the national policy objectives?). Additionally, this analysis helps identify and assess the

possible second and third order effects involved in implementing the strategy (e.g., the

impact of the strategy on another country, region, the economy; or the potential impact of

resource constraints on strategy implementation). Ideally, such a process leads to the

development of the National Security Strategy and derivative strategies such as the

Quadrennial Defense Review/Defense Strategy Review and the National Military Strategy

among others. At all levels, the strategy formulation process has the same four elements:

ways and means in the service of ends accompanied by a thorough risk assessment. This

process is designed to develop appropriate strategies to achieve specific policy goals in

support of U.S. national interests.

(5) The Strategy Formulation Framework may imply that a rational, sequential or

deliberative approach to policy and strategy formulation exists at the core of policymaking.

However, the formulation of national security strategy is not always a smooth process:

"means" and "ends" often may not match; various "ways" can interfere with, rather than

complement, one another; and specific actions and outcomes may not conform exactly to

initial intentions. An even more fundamental critique of this framework is to recognize that

strategy formulation is not a linear process. Comprehending the dynamic interaction of

all of these steps is why the strategy-making environment often mirrors the 21st Century

international security environment—it is complex and ambiguous.

(6) The dynamic and interactive nature of the national security strategy formulation

process is difficult to depict graphically. The flanking boxes of Figure 1 represent the

international and domestic environments within which the process occurs. These boxes

suggest how a host of real world forces, external to the process, can influence it. The two-

way arrows in the strategy formulation block show that while the framework appears

sequential, every part really depends on every other part, and that strategy requires an

on-going assessment of the relationships between ends, ways, and means. Finally,

strategy development is not a solitary pursuit; multiple actors from both the international

and domestic domains (Congress, the federal bureaucracy, interest groups, other nations,

regional and international organizations, and non-state actors) influence the process. U.S.

policy and strategy pronouncements and changes will cause strategy responses and

adjustments by these actors that, in turn, influence subsequent U.S. actions. Thus, this

process is always dynamic with a continual need to assess and reassess the execution of

a strategy. A key task in this course will be to understand and appreciate one of the most

complex national security processes of the U.S. government.

6. Student Readings. Student readings will be annotated as follows:

a. "Student Issue”--Items received prior to the start of the academic year or

distributed by the faculty during the year.

b. "Blackboard"--Copyright items provided digitally via Blackboard.

c. "Library Reserve”--Items placed on NSPS reserve in the library. (Please ask the

librarians for assistance if you have any difficulty in locating a suggested reading).

d. “Database”--Library provided databases: “ProQuest”, “JSTOR”, “Taylor and

Francis”, “EBSCOHOST”, or others -- Resources available through accessing USAWC

Library remote access. For link to the reading, see Appendix VIII and USAWC Library

Staff for username and password.

e. "Online"--Open source online resources available on the Internet. All internet-

accessible required reading resources will have a hyperlinked web address to indicate

that the material is an open source, online document.

7. Curricular Relationships. NSPS will complement lessons contained in the USAWC

Introduction to Strategic Studies (ISS), Theory of War and Strategy (TWS) and Strategic

Leadership (SL) courses. In TWS we examined the theory of strategy and its historical

application and evolution, which should enable the student to more profoundly

contemplate the theoretical underpinnings of contemporary U.S. strategies and

challenges. The Strategic Leadership course laid the foundation for the NSPS course by

providing the concepts and skills required of leaders within the strategic environment

through an examination of responsible command, leadership, management practices,

and group decision-making dynamics.

a. NSPS builds upon the lessons contained in SL by focusing on case studies of

strategic decision-making and crisis management. This foundation should enable

students to more insightfully examine the contemporary (and some future) strategic

challenges in the global environment, followed by an examination and evaluation of the

strategy formulation process, the elements of national power and statecraft wielded by the

United States, and the processes for synchronizing and integrating those instruments.

NSPS will facilitate the continued study and application of key strategic concepts and

theories regarding the use of force covered in Theory of War and Strategy, as well as the

integration of the military instrument of national power with the other instruments to

include diplomatic, informational, and economic ones.

b. Additionally, the course will continue to build upon the roles and competencies of

strategic leaders introduced in the Strategic Leadership course – especially critical,

creative and systems thinking, ethical reasoning, and decision-making. Moreover, NSPS

will provide the conceptual tools for work in the remaining three core courses, Theater

Strategy and Campaigning (TSC), Defense Management (DM), and the Regional

Studies Program (RSP) in which students study the various systems for strategic

planning, providing the military capabilities in support of the national military strategy,

and planning for global and theater military operations. NSPS will also provide a venue

for discussion on the subject of the “means” behind U.S. policy and strategy by

examining how America resources its wars, and the relationship of U.S. economic power

to military power that provides a foundation for further examination of these issues in

DM.

8. Joint Professional Military Education (JPME II). Joint Learning Areas are integrated

into the resident core curriculum. NSPS provides the student with the foundation for

understanding national security policy formulation, national and military strategy, and

the national and international security environments. Specific Joint Learning Areas are

listed in Appendices V and X of this directive. JPME Phase II Joint Learning Areas are

taken from Appendix E to Enclosure E to Officer Professional Military Education Policy,

CJSCI 1800.01E, current as of 29 May 2015.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

In order to complete NSPS successfully, students will meet established standards in

each of the two basic requirements listed below. Each requirement will be evaluated by

the Faculty Instructor (FI) throughout the course.

1. Contribution: The essential requirement to achieve the overall objectives of NSPS is

active participation in the seminar-learning environment. Through active participation,

students contribute to the learning of others. Contribution includes interaction with guest

speakers. Students are expected to contribute by accomplishing the required readings,

research, and tasks listed in paragraph 3, Student Requirements, for each lesson or as

assigned or modified by the Faculty Instructor. Active learning begins with thorough and

thoughtful preparation. Contribution will comprise 30 percent of the overall NSPS grade.

2. Written Requirements:

a. Requirements. Each student will complete a single writing requirement in two

parts. Refer to Appendix II for a detailed description of these requirements. The first part

of the writing requirement will be a single page, single-spaced bulletized paper articulating

and testing a strategy to implement a policy option selected from a list provided by the

Faculty Instructor. The second paper will be a 6-8 page, double-spaced background

paper on the same topic. The audience for both papers is a senior Department of

Defense decision-maker. The goal of the first paper is to concisely encapsulate a

recommended strategy for his/her decision; the goal of the second paper is to provide

him/her more background information on the topic. These papers are intended to be

submitted and graded together, and are meant to simulate the type of writing

requirements often found within the national security policy and strategy enterprise.

b. Evaluation Standard. Written assignments will be evaluated based on content,

organization, and style. The criteria for evaluating papers will be the student’s

demonstrated understanding of and ability to apply course concepts, to organize material

logically, and to compose and express thoughts clearly and coherently through effective

writing. Descriptions of the criteria for “Outstanding,” “Exceeds Standards,” “Meets

Standards,” “Needs Improvement,” and “Fails to Meet Standards” are found in the

Communicative Arts Directive. A paper evaluated as “Needs Improvement” or "Fails to

Meet Standards" will be returned to the student for rework and resubmission. The papers

will be graded as a single assignment and together will comprise 70 percent of the overall

NSPS grade.

October-November

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

NSPS-1: Introduction

NSPS-2: Global

Political Order

NTL: Duckenfield –

Global Economic

Order

NSPS-3: Global

Economic Order

NTL: Troxell –

Financial Power

RWR

NSPS-4: History,

Values and Interests

NSPS-5: Decision-

Making Models

NSPS-6: NSC-68

Case Study

NTL: Troxell –

China’s Economic

Rise

NSPS-7: Presidency

and NSC

RWR

NSPS-8: Congress

and Interest Groups

NTL: Ulrich – Civil-

Military Relations

NSPS-9: Military in the

Policy Process

BH Lecture (0830):

Barno & Bensahel -

Military in the Policy

Process

NSPS-10: Vietnam

Escalation Case

Study

(0830-1230)

BH Lecture (0830):

Jones – The 1965

Vietnam Escalation

NSPS-11: Instruments

of Power Overview

NSPS-12: Instruments

of Power in Peacetime

(1300-1600)

BH Lecture (1130):

Grossman –

Diplomacy as an

Instrument of

Statecraft

NSPS-13: Instruments

of Power in Conflict I

NTL: Berry – The

Arctic

Holiday –

Veterans’ Day

NSPS-14:

Instruments of

Power in Conflict II

NTL: Rapp – The

Iraq Surge

NSPS-15: Strategic

Guidance

NTL: Hamilton – The

U.S. and Russia in

Syria

SRP-5

NSPS-16:21

Century

Strategic

Environment

BH Lecture (0830):

Manuel – 21

Century

Grand Strategy

NTL: Hillison & Gellert

– U.S. Trade Policy

NSPS-17: 21

Century

Grand Strategy

Papers due

BLOCK I

THE NATIONAL SECURITY DECISION-MAKING ENVIRONMENT AND MODELS

No other society has asserted that the principles of ethical conduct apply to

international conduct in the same way that they do to the individual—a

notion that is the exact opposite of Richelieu’s raison d’état. America has

maintained that the prevention of war is as much a legal as a diplomatic

challenge, and that what it resists is not change as such but the method of

change, especially the use of force.

A Bismarck or a Disraeli would have ridiculed the proposition that foreign

policy is about method rather than substance; if indeed he had understood it.

No nation has ever imposed the moral demands on itself that America has.

And no country has so tormented itself over the gap between its moral

values, which are by definition absolute, and the imperfection inherent in the

concrete situations to which they must be applied.

―Henry Kissinger

Diplomacy

NSPS is designed to broaden our strategic level conception and understanding of the U.S.

position in the current global order through a survey of international and U.S. domestic

national security and policy systems. Block I begins with an examination of the strategy

formulation process and introduces the USAWC Strategy Formulation Framework that

serves as a construct for organizing our thoughts regarding policy and strategy

formulation. The next two lessons examine the global political and economic orders and

how they affect U.S. national security decision-making. Lesson 4 examines the domestic

national security decision-making environment, exploring historical U.S. values, the idea of

“U.S. purpose” and the effect these have on how the U.S. defines its interests and

formulates policy and strategy. Lesson 5 advances models of national-security decision-

making and lesson 6 gives us the opportunity to apply these models to the foundation and

evolution of U.S. Cold War strategy as a means of synthesizing our understanding of the

tensions between values and interests and the notion of “grand strategy.”

BLOCK I OUTCOMES:

 Understand the concepts of national security, national interests, grand strategy,

policy and strategy.

 Examine the USAWC’s Strategy Formulation Framework as a model for

understanding how strategy is formulated.

 Understand the key international and domestic factors that impact the U.S.

national security decision-making process.

 Understand the various models used to explain national security decision-making.

 Critically examine the implementation of NSC-68 and the strategy of Containment

of the Soviet Union that it proposed.

INTENTIONALLY BLANK

21 October 2016

(0830-1130)

COL Bob Hamilton, 245-3278

LESSON 1: INTRODUCTION TO NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY AND STRATEGY

Mode: Seminar NSPS-1-S

1. Introduction.

a. In Theory of War and Strategy (TWS) we examined the nature of conflict and

searched for the theories that have provided insight to, and understanding of, the history

of conflict. This course takes our informed understanding of history, conflict, and strategy

and examines how the U.S. national security policy and strategy processes handle

strategic challenges and opportunities. We will examine the environment in which U.S.

policy and strategy are formulated, the actors who play key roles in the policy and

strategy formulation process, and the instruments that the U.S. uses to advance its

national security policy and strategy objectives. We will also explore a set of models that

attempt to explain how states make national security and foreign policy decisions, and we

will study historical cases through the lenses of these models. Finally, we will end the

course with a survey of the strategic environment and a discussion of possible U.S. grand

strategies to deal successfully with this environment.

b. In this lesson, we will begin by examining the concept of national security in the

context of the modern international environment and the U.S. domestic environment. From

the beginning of the Cold War to the present, the meaning of national security and

national interests has been debated and redefined continuously. Is national security

something that can be defined and fully surveyed, or does this concept have a

continuously changing and malleable nature? Should national security objectives be

limited to defending the state against other states and non-state actors, or should issues

such as migration, pandemic disease, and climate change also be included in how we

approach the concept of national security? How we define national security will to a great

extent influence how we define our national interests. Having examined the concept of

national security and national interests, we will turn to the concepts of strategy and grand

strategy, exploring the relationship between these two concepts as well as the relationship

between strategy, grand strategy and policy.

c. Our second task in this lesson is to explore the U.S. Army War College Strategy

Formulation Framework (Appendix I) as a means of understanding the ways in which

policy and strategy are constructed at the national level. A key part of this task will be to

gain an understanding of the definitions of policy and strategy, and the relationship

between the two. In short, whereas policy may be defined as broad guidance that

articulates national interests in the context of the strategic environment, strategy is a

calculation of ways and means directed towards the accomplishment of ends, balanced

against a continuous assessment of risk. If policy answers the question of “what” the U.S.

seeks to do, strategy answers the question of “how” we will do it. Grand Strategy is not

specifically addressed in the Strategy Formulation Framework, although its formulation

may be seen as inherent in the process of defining one’s strategic vision. Grand Strategy

may be defined as the use of all instruments of national power in peace and war to

support a strategic vision of America’s role in the world that will best achieve national

objectives. It is important to note that although these are the definitions we use for this

course, they are not universally accepted. As the readings in this course will make clear,

policy, grand strategy and strategy are complex and sometimes contested concepts in

both the scholarly and governmental communities.

d. Like any conceptual framework, the U.S. Army War College Strategy Formulation

Framework offers an abstract and simplified representation of a dynamic and complex

reality. The Framework seeks to reduce complexity by concentrating attention on the

basic building blocks of strategy formulation, the strategic thought process, and the

depiction of the strategy formulation process as a series of discrete steps. These steps

consist of the identification of enduring national values; the identification of more focused

national interests incorporating these values; a strategic vision that leads to a grand

strategy and policy objectives that support it; and finally, to the formulation of a specific

strategy developed through the calculated application of ways and means designed to

achieve a defined national objective, or end.

e. The entire process takes place within the context of a strategic environment,

depicted schematically on the Framework as a series of variables derived from both the

international and domestic arenas. Strategy is therefore depicted as comprehensive and

holistic – dominated by conscious political purpose – hierarchical and subordinate to

national command authority. However, it is also dynamic, contextual, and decisively

affected by trends within the strategic environment over which policymakers may have

little or no control. We will use the Strategy Formulation Framework as a tool for

introducing basic concepts in strategic analysis and for encouraging critical thinking

about the dynamics and demands of strategy formulation.

2. Learning Outcomes. By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

a. Understand the course organization and student requirements.

b. Understand the concepts of national security, national interests, grand strategy,

policy and strategy.

c. Understand the U.S. Army War College Strategy Formulation Framework, to

include the relationship among ends, ways and means, as well as the FAS-R test and

international and domestic influences on policy and strategy formulation.

3. Student Requirements.

a. Tasks. None.

b. Required Readings.

(1) Sam S. Sarkesian et al, “National Interests and National Security” and “The

Policy Process”, in US National Security: Policymakers, Processes and Politics, 5th ed.

(Boulder, CO: Lynne Reiner Publishers, 2013), 1-14 and 199-209. [Blackboard]

(2) Tami Davis Biddle, Strategy and Grand Strategy: What Students and

Practitioners Need to Know (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 2015), 1-10 and 43- 64.

[Blackboard]

(3) U.S. Army War College, Department of National Security and Strategy, Directive

- National Security Policy and Strategy (Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College,

2016), 1-6 (with a focus on the “Strategy Formulation Framework,” and Appendix I,

“Guidelines for Strategy”, 87-92, SKIM Appendix II, 93-99). [Blackboard]

(4) Barack Obama, “Introduction,” National Security Strategy (Washington, D.C.:

White House, February 2015), 1-5,

https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2015_national_security_strategy_2.pdf

(accessed July 22, 2016). (Must use Firefox or Access Externally) [Online]

c. Suggested Readings.

(1) Alan G. Stolberg, “Making National Security Policy,” in the 21st Century” in The

U.S. Army War College Guide to National Security Issues, Vol. II: National Security Policy

and Strategy, 5th ed., ed. J. Boone Bartholomees (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic

Studies Institute, 2012), 41-62, http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB1110.pdf

(accessed July 11, 2016).

(2) Marybeth P. Ulrich, “American Values, Interests and Purpose: Perspectives on

the Evolution of American Political and Strategic Culture,” in The U.S. Army War College

Guide to National Security Issues, Vol. II: National Security Policy and Strategy, 5th ed.,

ed. J. Boone Bartholomees (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2012), 3-11,

http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB1110.pdf (accessed July 16, 2016).

(3) Arnold Wolfers, “National Security as an Ambiguous Symbol,” Political Science

Quarterly 67, no. 4 (December 1952): 481-93 in JSTOR (accessed July 16, 2016).

(4) Charles F. Hermann, “Defining National Security,” in American Defense Policy,

ed. John F. Reichart and Steven R. Sturm (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University

Press, 1982), http://www.voxprof.com/cfh/hermann-pubs/Hermann-

Defining%20National%20Security.pdf (accessed July 16, 2016). (Must use Firefox or

Access Externally)

(5) Alan G. Stolberg, “Crafting National Interests in the 21st Century,” in The U.S.

Army War College Guide to National Security Issues, Vol. II: National Security Policy and

Strategy, 5th ed., ed. J. Boone Bartholomees (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies

Institute, 2012), 13-25, http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB1110.pdf.

(accessed July 29, 2016).

4. Points to Consider.

a. What is national security? Does this concept have an enduring meaning or does the

meaning adapt to environmental context?

b. How does the way in which we define national security influence how we define

national interests?

c. How are the concepts of grand strategy, policy and strategy defined, and how do

they relate to one another?

d. What is the purpose of the USAWC Strategy Formulation Framework? How can

this framework be used to help understand the policy/strategy process?

e. Why are these concepts important to senior military and government leaders and

what roles do they play in policy and strategy formulation?

24 October 2016

(0830-1130)

Prof. Mark Perry, 961-2031

LESSON 2: INTERNATIONAL IMPACTS ON NATIONAL SECURITY DECISION-

MAKING: GLOBAL POLITICAL ORDER

Mode: Seminar NSPS-2-S

1. Introduction.

a. United States security policy decision-making does not happen in a vacuum: it

must reflect the dynamic domestic and international environments existing at the time. The

next two lessons examine the left-hand side of our Strategy Formulation Framework.

Lesson 2 addresses the international political environment and actors. Lesson 3 deals

with economic institutions and influences.

b. We begin Lesson 2 with a review of prominent international relations (IR) theories

(realist, idealist and constructivist schools) that offer alternative explanations for the

actions of states operating in the international system. Next we consider the international

system and analyze the competing types of world orders, how the current order came

about and whether we are in the process of moving to a new world order.

c. We will then examine the international political framework in which the U.S. and all

states operate today and how international actors and institutions impact the behavior of

states. External influences include such concepts and issues as balance of powers,

alliances, global and regional institutions, treaties and international law, as well as social

factors such as religion, migration, cultural priorities and perspectives. The international

panoply of non-state actors and movements, NGOs and multinational corporations also

influence the actions of states.

d. The array of international factors impacting the actions of a state is dynamic and

amorphous. How these features come together to influence decision-making in any given

situation is unique to that situation. Yet national security decision-makers who discount or

misunderstand important external factors do so at great peril to their nations. The purpose

of this lesson is to raise awareness and challenge your strategic thinking with respect to

the global system and actors that impact U.S. national security strategy.

2. Learning Outcomes. By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

a. Understand the major attributes of the contemporary international system and their

impact on national security decision-making.

b. Analyze the actors, tools, and rules of international politics and understand the

historical foundations of the current world order.

c. Understand the major international institutions and their impact on the international

system.

d. Analyze how international institutions constrain or influence U.S. national security

decisions.

3. Student Requirements.

a. Tasks. Be prepared to discuss the points to consider in Paragraph 4 below.

b. Required Readings.

(1) Glenn P. Hastedt, “The Global Context,” in American Foreign Policy, 10th ed.

(Boston: Pearson Education, 2014), 29-51. [Student Issue]

(2) Joseph S. Nye and David Welch, “What is International Politics?” and

“International Law and Organization,” in Understanding Global Conflict and Cooperation,

8th ed. (Boston: Pearson Education, 2009), 1-13 and 184-194. [Student Issue]

(3) Tyler S. Moselle, The Concept of World Order (Harvard Kennedy School, Carr

Center for Human Rights Policy, June 19, 2008). [Blackboard]

(4) The Charter of the United Nations. Read Chapters I, II, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, and

XV, http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/ (accessed July 17, 2016). [Online]

(5) Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations,” Foreign Affairs 72, no. 3

(Summer 1993): in PROQUEST (accessed August 26, 2016). [Database]

(6) Jorge G. Castaneda, “Not Ready for Prime Time: Why Including Emerging

Powers at the Helm Would Hurt Global Governance,” Foreign Affairs 89, no. 5

(September-October 2010): 109-122 in PROQUEST (accessed July 19, 2016).

[Database]

c. Suggested Readings.

(1) George E. Teague, “The International Political System,” (The United States

Naval War College, March 2002; revised, edited and updated by Nick Gvosdev in March

2010 and Hayat Alvi in June 2013), 1-20.

(2) Eric A. Posner, “Sorry, America, the New World Order is Dead,” Foreign

Policy.com (May 6, 2014),

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/05/06/sorry_america_the_new_world_order_i

s_dead_russia_ukraine (accessed July 17, 2016).

(3) Deborah L. Hanagan, “International Order,” in The U.S. Army War College

Guide to National Security Issues, Vol. II : National Security Policy and Strategy, 5th ed.,

ed. J. Boone Bartholomees (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2012) at:

http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub1005.pdf (accessed July19, 2016).

(4) G. John Ikenberry, “Varieties of Order: Balance of Power, Hegemonic, and

Constitutional,” in After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of

Order After Major Wars (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001) 21-30.

(5) Henry A. Kissinger, “Power Shifts,” Survival 52, no. 6 (December 2010-

January 2011): 205-212.

(6) Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of

World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996).

(7) Luisa Blanchfield. United Nations Reform: U.S. Policy and International

Perspectives (Washington, DC: U.S. Library of Congress, Congressional Research

Service, December 21, 2011), read Summary and 1-25.

(8) Robert Zoellick, “The Currency of Power,” Foreign Policy 196 (November

2012), 67-73, 78 in PROQUEST (accessed August 26, 2016).

4. Points to Consider.

a. What is the structure and nature of the contemporary world order? Did it change

after the end of the Cold War? Is it changing now? What type of world order do we want?

How do we use power to achieve it?

b.Does world order change only through major war or can other dramatic international

events change it? What is driving change in the current world order?

c. The 2015 National Security Strategy includes an international order favorable to the

U.S. as one of the core national interests. To what extent is the current international

system favorable to U.S. interests? What can and should the U.S. do to promote a

favorable international system?

d. Can the United States advance its national interests through international

organizations such as the UN and NATO, or should it rely more on unilateral actions?

Why and under what circumstances should it act multilaterally or unilaterally?

e. Is the UN an outdated and ineffective mechanism for promoting or assuring security

in the 21st century? Are regional organizations more useful and effective for ensuring

political order, peace and security? Can they wield any power if the United States does

not want them to do so?

f. What should the U.S. position be on efforts to reform the UN and other international

institutions?

g. Assess the range of international organizations around the world. Why are the

multilateral efforts of states to advance their interests so different? Why is Europe so

“institutionalized” and Asia is not?

h. The Pacific rim, as a region, could be characterized as unipolar (U.S. at the top with

a rising China challenging its pre-eminence), as bipolar (U.S. and China the dominant

states with all the other states in the region aligned with one or the other bilaterally),

and/or as multipolar (with U.S., China, Russia, Japan and Australia as the main actors).

Which most accurately describes the current power balance in the region?

i. Do recent Chinese actions (AIIB, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, military

expansion, South China Sea claims, bilateral treaties with neighbors) indicate a challenge

to the established world order? How should the U.S. respond?

What does the 2016 Presidential election campaign suggest about national attitudes and

consensus on what role the United States should play in the international system?

25 October 2016

(0830-1130)

Dr. Mark Duckenfield, 245-3294

LESSON 3: INTERNATIONAL IMPACTS ON NATIONAL SECURITY DECISION-

MAKING: GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

Mode: Seminar NSPS-3-S

1. Introduction

a. The United States has immense economic power which translates into political

influence across a broad spectrum of other policy areas. The 2015 National Security

Strategy declares: “The American economy is an engine for global economic growth and a

source of stability for the international system. In addition to being a key measure of power

and influence in its own right, it underwrites our military strength and diplomatic influence.

A strong economy, combined with a prominent U.S. presence in the global financial

system, creates opportunities to advance our security.” (p. 15) This lesson examines how

the international economic order and economic developments are intrinsically linked to the

successful pursuit of American national security objectives.

b. The United States has the world’s largest economy, provides the world’s reserve

currency, and has a privileged position in major economic institutions like the International

Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Nevertheless, in recent decades, countries in the

developing world have grown faster than the United States and American economic

dominance relative to China, India and Brazil has slipped.

c. The economic prosperity of the United States is a central objective of both its

domestic and international policies. The global economic order consists of a vast array of

hundreds of international institutions through which countries coordinate, cooperate and

compete with one another. The United States was a major advocate for the creation of this

international economic architecture and remains a major sponsor and pillar of the

multilateral economic order.

d. Over the past seventy years, the international economic system has seen

sustained increases in the volume of world trade and an explosion in capital mobility. The

greater exposure of domestic economies and societies to international market forces is

commonly referred to as ‘globalization’. The end of the Cold War opened up the previously

closed economies of the former Soviet bloc to economic competition from the capitalist

world. This deepening openness and integration has created immense opportunities and

challenges not only for the countries of the former state socialist world, but also for

countries whose economies were already deeply engaged in international economic

exchange. Long-established domestic industries all across the globe have experienced

foreign competition that has disrupted traditional social, cultural, and political relationships

in addition to the direct economic dislocations.

e. The benefits of globalization and increased economic exchange have not been

evenly distributed and this poses potential challenges to the global political and economic

status quo. The old G-7 system where countries with high per capita incomes held the

balance of economic power is being supplanted by the emerging G-20 system in which

high population developing countries with moderate levels of per capita wealth are

beginning to rival—if not supplant—many of the more traditional centers of economic

power. This is particularly the case with the recent emergence of China as the world’s

largest trading nation and second-largest economy. While China, along with many other

developing economies, has thrived under the existing rules of the international economic

system, it remains to be seen whether it will continue to find these rules to its liking or if it

will seek to revise and rewrite existing rules and re-order international institutions more to

its favor.

f. The international financial crisis of 2008-9 brought the international economic

system to the verge of collapse. Yet while the crisis pummeled the major industrial

economies, the existing international economic order proved quite robust. Not only did the

system itself survive, it also continued to provide support for countries experiencing

serious economic problems.

2. Lesson Outcomes. By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

a. Assess the rationale for the inclusion of economic interests as a part of US grand

strategy.

b. Analyze the importance and consequences of America’s relative economic power

as they relate to the global balance of power.

c. Understand the major international economic institutions and their impact on the

international system.

3. Student Requirements.

a. Tasks. Be prepared to discuss the points to consider in Paragraph 4 below.

b. Required readings.

(1) G. John Ikenberry, “The Future of the Liberal World Order,” Foreign Affairs 90,

3 (May/June 2011): 56-68 in PROQUEST (accessed August 26, 2016). [Database]

(2) Daniel Drezner, “Yes, The System Worked,” in The System Worked: How the

World Stopped another Great Depression (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 24-

56. [Blackboard]

(3) Erich Weede, “The Capitalist Peace and the Rise of China: Establishing Global

Harmony by Economic Interdependence,” International Interactions 36, no. 2 (2010), 206-

213. [Blackboard]

(4) Robert Kagan, “Not Fade Away: The Myth of American Decline,” The New

Republic (January 11, 2012), http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/magazine/99521/america-

world-power-declinism/ (accessed July 11, 2016). [Online]

(5) Barack Obama, “Prosperity” and “International Order,” National Security

Strategy (Washington, D.C.: White House, February 2015), 15-18 and 23-28,

https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2015_national_security_strategy_2.pdf

(accessed August 11, 2016). (Must use Firefox or Access Externally) [Blackboard]

c. Suggested Readings.

(1) COL Deborah Hanagan, Bretton Woods and Economic Order (Carlisle, PA: U.S.

Army War College, July 2013).

(2) Eric A. Posner, “Sorry, America, the New World Order is Dead,” Foreign

Policy.com (May 6, 2014),

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/05/06/sorry_america_the_new_world_order_i

s_dead_russia_ukraine (accessed August 11, 2016).

(3) Henry A. Kissinger, “Power Shifts,” Survival 52, no. 6 (December 2010-January

2011), 205-212.

(4) Jorge G. Castaneda, “Not Ready for Prime Time: Why Including Emerging

Powers at the Helm Would Hurt Gobal Governance,” Foreign Affairs 89, no. 5 (September-

October 2010): 109-122 in PROQUEST (accessed August 11, 2016).

(5) Ian Bremmer and Nouriel Roubini, “A G-Zero World: The New Economic Club

Will Produce Conflict, Not Cooperation,” Foreign Affairs 90, no. 2 (March/April 2011): 2-7 in

PROQUEST (accessed August 16, 2016).

(6) Mark Duckenfield, “Fiscal Fetters: The Economic Imperatives of National

Security in a Time of Austerity,” Strategic Studies Quarterly 6, no. 2 (Air University;

Maxwell AFB, AL 2012): http://www.au.af.mil/au/ssq/2012/summer/summer12.pdf

(accessed August 25, 2016). (Must use Firefox or Access Externally)

4. Points to Consider.

a. What is the relationship between the current international economic order and the

economic power of the United States?

b. If American economic power erodes, will the system of international economic order

and stability likewise erode?

c. How does increasing globalization of economies influence international relations?

d. Has the economic balance of power shifted toward or away from the United States

during the last two decades? Who now holds a predominant role economically?

27 October 2016

(0830-1130)

Dr. Marybeth P. Ulrich, 245-3272

LESSON 4: DOMESTIC IMPACTS ON NATIONAL SECURITY DECISION-MAKING:

U.S. HISTORY, VALUES AND INTERESTS

Mode: Seminar NSPS-4-S

1. Introduction.

a. In the U.S. tradition, strategy formulation begins with an understanding of the

nation's values, purpose and strategic culture. National values, based on the nation’s

enduring beliefs and ethics, significantly influence the identification of national interests.

The strategist can then conduct an appraisal of the challenges and opportunities that

affect these interests – as well as the nation’s ability to promote and protect them. The

core national interests of the United States generally revolve around the security of the

United States, its citizens and its allies; economic well-being; a stable international order;

and the promotion of national values.

b. This lesson we explore the legacy of America’s founding not only as the source of

its enduring values and interests, but as the origins of its unique national style. The major

strands of American foreign policy and the tension between isolationism and

internationalism will be traced through American history. In addition, the concepts related

to distinct patterns of American thought and action as well as the idea that there are

policy consequences of US national security decision-making culture will be discussed.

c. Values

…the Revolution … is the most important event in American history, bar

none. Not only did the Revolution legally create the United States, but it

infused into our culture all of our highest aspirations and noblest values. Our

beliefs in liberty, equality, constitutionalism, and the well-being of ordinary

people came out of the Revolutionary era. So too did our idea that we

Americans are a special people with a special destiny to lead the world

toward liberty and democracy. The Revolution, in short gave birth to

whatever sense of nationhood and national purpose we Americans have

had.

—Gordon Wood

The Idea of America

The foremost historian of the American revolutionary era, Gordon Wood, argues that

America, at its founding was, and remains, fundamentally an idea. In an era when

monarchical rule was universal and the concepts of popular sovereignty and individual

liberty only notional, the founders’ advancement of these values through an ideological

movement was truly revolutionary. The enshrinement of the principles and process of self-

rule in a written Constitution, which laid out the parameters of political debate and political

participation, institutionalized these previously aspirational democratic values.

The founders understood that the key to sustaining the American idea was to balance the

imperatives of liberty and security in the American political system’s institutional design.

The realization that the weak confederation established in the course of the Revolutionary

War did not adequately secure fundamental American interests such as securing the state

from internal and external threats, while also protecting individual liberty, was the primary

driver for the convening of the Constitutional Convention in 1787.

d. Interests

Allusion to the national interests are sentimentally attractive because they

reaffirm the presumption that the expenditures and exertions that result from

strategic decisions are made for worthy purposes. Even in nondemocratic

regimes, creating the sense that worthwhile ends are being served is often

vital to the mobilization of the national effort.

—James F. Miskel

Naval War College Review, Autumn 2002

National values are lived out against the backdrop of national interests. The United

States’ abandonment of the Articles of Confederation in favor of a new Constitution is an

example of a “rebalancing” of national values and interests to ensure that state and

federal power were sufficient to secure liberty. The Kohn reading analyzes the

Constitution’s design as a national security document featuring “tightly won

compromises” crafted with the common aim of separating, sharing, and checking power.

Embedded in the overall design was the founders’ plan for checking the growth of military

power in the new nation through the establishment of civilian control. Thus, the enduring

theme of civil-military relations is relevant as we explore the founders’ ordering of civil-

military relations in the Constitution.

e. American National Style

The Hastedt reading introduces the ongoing influence of George Washington, John

Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow

Wilson in American national security decision-making. A “school” of American foreign

policy can be traced to each. The echoes of Washington and Adams can be heard in the

arguments of present day isolationists. Hamilton’s emphasis on promoting economic

strength is resonant in Presidents Clinton and Obama’s focus on free trade agreements.

Jackson’s populism and self-reliance style appeals to the Tea Party movement

influencing American politics today.

Understanding American foreign policy requires familiarity with these competing strains

of thought that have characterized American national style throughout history.

2. Learning Outcomes. By the end of the lesson, student should be able to:

a. Analyze the values and purpose of the United States as reflected in the

Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

b. Analyze the concept of interests and the role of national values and interests in

formulating policy and strategy.

c. Understand the role that the history of the United States plays in determining its

values and interests and influencing its national security decision-making style and

substance.

3. Student Requirements.

a. Required Readings.

(1) Glenn P. Hastedt, “The American National Style,” in American Foreign Policy:

Past, Present, and Future, 10th ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), 55-76.

[Student Issue]

(2) Marybeth P. Ulrich, “American Values, Interests and Purpose: Perspectives on

the Evolution of American Political and Strategic Culture,” in The U.S. Army War College

Guide to National Security Issues, ol. II: National Security Policy and Strategy, 5th ed.

(Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2012), 3-11,

http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB1110.pdf (accessed August 16,

2016). [Blackboard]

(3) The Constitution of the United States, Read Articles 1 & 2,

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html (accessed August

16, 2016). Many other interesting links are available at this National Archives site.

[Blackboard]

(4) Richard H. Kohn, “The Constitution and National Security: The Intent of the

Framers,” in The United States Military Under the Constitution of the United States, 1789-

1989, New York: New York University Press, 1991, 1-27.

[Blackboard]

b. Suggested Readings.

(1) Gordon S. Wood, The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United

States (Penguin Press, 2011).

(2) Book TV: Gordon Wood, "The Idea of America," July 11, 2011, YouTube,

streaming video, 10:05, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pO7x25sVag (accessed

August 12, 2016).

(3) The Economist, “What Would America Fight For?”, May 3, 2014,

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21601508-nagging-doubt-eating-away-world-

orderand-superpower-largely-ignoring-it-what (accessed August 12, 2016).

4. Points to Consider.

a. How are American values related to national purpose?

b. How can national interests be defined and distinguished?

c. How does the founders’ ordering of civil-military relations reflect the interplay of U.S.

national values and interests?

d. How is the tension between American values and interests reflected in its “national

style”?

28 October 2016

(0830-1130)

Dr. Paul Kan, 245-3021

LESSON 5: NATIONAL SECURITY DECISION-MAKING MODELS

Mode: Seminar NSPS-5-S

All models are wrong, but some are useful.

—George Box, Statistician

1. Introduction.

a. Crafting foreign and security policy at the national level is a practical undertaking.

Though we still occasionally cite the hopeful phrase of Republican Senator Arthur

Vandenberg, made in 1947, that, “politics stops at the water’s edge,” it is most often a

contested process where the competitive interplay of personalities, institutions, and

priorities are critical variables. Policymaking is not a textbook exercise. It is a robust and

multifaceted political process that often produces unpredictable outcomes.

b. In the American context, the policymaking process unfolds within a formalized

structure, but with many informal variables in play. The process is designed to have policy

and feedback flow smoothly between top and bottom, with ample time for analysis and

reflection. American governance is not always conducive to rapid response to national

needs or maximizing efficiency. Rather, priority is placed upon sustaining stability and

continuity. Changes of direction are usually incremental, consisting of modest

adjustments to the status quo.

c. However, on occasion a crisis will emerge where vital interests are perceived to be

at stake, where there is an imminent threat of armed conflict, and policy makers find

themselves under severe time constraints. In such cases, the national security policy

painstakingly forged by various stakeholders may require reexamination and recalibration,

or may even be discarded or ignored. In times of crisis, the government can ill afford

hesitance or paralysis. The conduct of business will normally be driven from the top down,

often at the highest level, with fewer actors involved. Crisis decision-making is

streamlined; nonetheless, the complex dynamics that affect all foreign and security policy

decision-making still apply.

d. We will use David Patrick Houghton’s The Decision Point as our core reading for

this lesson. Houghton focuses on both theoretical and case-based analyses to examine

how real U.S. foreign policy decision-makers make decisions. The assigned readings will

give us some perspectives through which to analyze and understand the ways in which

high-level decision-making may be shaped and why it often falls short of “pure

rationality,” or apparent optimal effectiveness. Houghton has refreshed and updated the

classic decision-making models developed by Graham Allison in Essence of Decision

(see recommended readings). The assigned readings and classroom discussion are

designed to provide us with four comparative analytic models with which to contrast and

understand foreign policy decision-making, and to inform their interaction and potential

participation in the same.

e. As George Box implies in the quote at the beginning of this lesson, no model can

fully and accurately portray the complex interplay of variables involved in any real-world

national security decision-making process. Nevertheless, decision-making models of the

type advanced by Houghton are useful in that they provide a simplified representation of a

complex process, and alert us to factors that may play important roles in shaping

decisions. An understanding of the decision-making frameworks discussed in Houghton’s

work (and those to which you were exposed in the Strategic Leadership course) should

allow us to better understand why American policymakers made the decisions they did in

our upcoming case studies examining NSC-68/Containment (Lesson 6), the decision to

escalate the war in Vietnam (Lesson 10), the decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003 (Lesson

13) and the multitude of decisions made over the course of the “Long War” between

2001-2015 (Lesson 14).

2. Learning Outcomes. By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

a. Comprehend the rational actor model as well as the roles of bureaucratic,

sociological, and psychological factors in the policy process through understanding

Houghton’s four models of decision making.

b. Assess the value of these models in policy and strategy formulation

and implementation.

c. Evaluate the differences between formal or institutionalized policy and

strategy development processes and crisis decision making.

3. Student Requirements.

a. Tasks. Be prepared to discuss the points to consider in Paragraph 4 below.

b. Required Readings.

David P. Houghton, The Decision Point (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).

[Student Issue]

Read:

(1) “Introduction,” 3-18;

(2) “Homo Bureaucraticus,” 23-42;

(3) “Homo Sociologicus,” 43-61;

(4) “Homo Psychologicus,” 62-84.

c. Suggested Readings.

(1) Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban

Missile Crisis, 2nd ed. (New York: Longman, 1999).

(2) Alex Mintz, “How Do Leaders Make Decisions? A Poliheuristic Perspective,”

The Journal of Conflict Resolution 48, no. 1 (February 2004): 1 in JSTOR (accessed July

25, 2016).

4. Points to Consider.

a. What are the most important assumptions of the Homo Economicus (or Rational

Actor) Model? What are its primary advantages and disadvantages in explaining policy

outcomes?

b. What are the primary differences between the Homo Bureaucraticus and Homo

Economicus Models? What are the most important factors in government decision-

making from the Homo Bureaucraticus Model?

c. What are the key variables affecting policy outcomes that are highlighted by the

Homo Sociologicus Model?

d. How do the five basic assumptions of the Homo Psychologicus Model inform our

interpretation and understanding of the other decision making models?

e. What are the key differences between crisis decision-making and formal deliberate

decision-making as they relate to strategy, if any?

INTENTIONALLY BLANK

31 October 2016

(0830-1130)

Dr. Tami Davis Biddle

LESSON 6: CASE STUDY I: CONTAINMENT AND NSC 68

Mode: Seminar NSPS-6-S

The main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must

be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian

expansive tendencies.... The United States has it in its power to increase

enormously the strains under which Soviet policy must operate... and in this

way to promote tendencies which must eventually find their outlet in either

the break-up or the gradual mellowing of Soviet power.

—George F. Kennan

Congress and National Security

(Council Special Report No. 58. New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2010)

1947

1. Introduction.

a. This lesson examines strategy and grand strategy in the context of US national

security; it uses a case study – the development and roll out of NSC 68 in 1950 – as a

vehicle for understanding the US response to a pressing national security problem: the

threat posed by the Soviet Union and the expansion of communist ideology. National

Security Council paper # 68 was crafted by Paul Nitze, the then head of the State

Department’s Policy Planning Staff. (Nitze would go on to have a long and influential

career in the realm of US national security.) Threats to US national security have surely

changed since the nation rose to great power status in the mid 20th

century, and the

mechanisms for coping with these threats have changed as well. But there is much to be

learned by the use of historical case studies. By examining decisions made in the past we

can analyze decision-makers’ assessments of the external environment and threats to US

interests. We can evaluate decision-makers’ assessments of the enemy (including his

likely behavior in response to US actions). And we can examine the way that decision-

makers’ sought to create a calculated relationship between ends, ways, and means, and

used their own conceptions of the ‘FAS’ criteria (feasible, acceptable, and suitable) in the

planning process. A willingness to ask probing questions about the past can hone and

sharpen our ability to ask targeted and incisive questions about the present. In addition, it

can heighten our present-day situational awareness and build the quality of empathy that

is terribly important for strategic thinkers.

b. A preponderance of US government resources for US national security is allocated

to the Pentagon and the vast architecture of the U.S. military. (This is, in part, a direct

result of NSC 68.) This makes it imperative that senior military officers become fully

educated not only about the complex tasks of their own profession, but also about the

ways in which US decision-makers (including senior political leaders and interagency

leaders) think about US national security and the most central questions of grand

strategy. These involve – above all – making hard choices about how to use limited

resources to best protect and advance American interests in the world.

c. In this case study we will examine the environment of the late 1940s, and the

crafting of what became the principal strategy for the waging of the Cold War, articulated

in NSC 68. We will read an essay examining the birth of NSC 68 (the conditions that

shaped it, and the way it came to life), and we will read and analyze the language of NSC

68 itself. Declassified in 1975, the key themes in the document had largely made their way

into the press in the 1950s. We will assess NSC 68 as an example of strategy

formulation, and we will evaluate its merits and its flaws. For this lesson to succeed, you

must pay very close attention to the language and structure of the document. It reveals

the atmosphere of the day, and Nitze’s ability to articulate and promote a strategic

approach to the problem of the Soviet Union.

d. Nitze was working in the highly-charged environment of 1949-1950, when a series

of crises had prompted a review of American policy towards its former World War II ally,

the Soviet Union. Despite the unconditional surrender of Germany, the post-WWII political

settlement in Europe had been difficult due to emerging differences between the Soviet

Union and its wartime allies. The Czech coup and the Berlin Blockade in1948 were

followed in 1949 by the fall of China to Mao’s communist forces, and the explosion of a

Soviet atomic bomb. These events directly threatened U.S. global interests, and strained

the relationship between democratic states relying on free market systems and

communist states relying on state-controlled economies.

e. Between 1945 and 1950, U.S. policymakers had faced an era of tremendous

transition and turmoil. They not only had to adjust American policy to fit the nation’s new

role in the world (and the new threats it faced), but they had to build the organizations and

bureaucratic institutions suited to protecting and advancing the nation’s interests.

Although the United States had momentarily enjoyed an atomic monopoly, conventional

Soviet land power cast a long shadow over the Eurasian continent. But the heart of the

U.S.-Soviet conflict was over political ideology: it was not clear how communism and

liberal democracy would co-exist, especially since both tended toward universalism.

Nitze, building on the work of Soviet expert George Kennan, called for the “containment”

of Soviet influence around the world. But Nitze went further than Kennan by calling for an

assertive version of containment that would rest heavily upon an expanded U.S. military,

well-armed with both conventional and atomic weapons.

f. While President Truman initially was hesitant to go forward with the resource

commitment that NSC 68 implied, the Korean War (which began in June 1950) changed

the environment. It opened the way for the resourcing and implementation of much of

what Nitze had recommended. The result was, in many respects, a kind of militarization

of containment. The original author of containment, George Kennan, was uneasy about

the new trajectory as he had initially conceived the approach as one that would rely

principally on political and economic tools.

2. Learning Outcomes. By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

a. Understand the circumstances in which NSC 68 was created.

b. Understand and evaluate how and why NSC 68 was crafted as a national strategy

to address the emergent Soviet threat.

3. Student Requirements.

a. Tasks. None.

b. Required Readings.

(1) Ernest May’s “Introduction,” in May ed. American Cold War Strategy:

Interpreting NSC 68 (Boston: Bedford Books, 1993), 1-17. [Blackboard]

(2) The Executive Secretary, “NSC-68: A Report to the National Security Council,”

Naval War College Review 27, no. 6 (May-June 1975): 51-108,

http://www.usnwc.edu/NavalWarCollegeReviewArchives/1970s/1975%20May-June.pdf

(accessed July 26, 2016). (Must use Firefox or Access Externally) [Online]

c. Suggested Readings.

(1) George Kennan, “The Long Telegram,” (February 22, 1946): Introduction

through Part 2, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/documents/episode-

1/kennan.htm (accessed August 25, 2016).

(2) John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar

American National Security Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 25-126.

(3) John Lewis Gaddis, “NSC 68 and the Soviet Threat Reconsidered,” International

Security 4, No. 4. (Spring 1980), 164-76.

4. Points to Consider.

a. Do you think that the rapid sequence of disturbing events (from the U.S.

perspective) in 1948 and 1949 contributed to the tone and language found in NSC 68? Do

sequences of events shape the outlook of policymakers more forcefully than single events

do?

b. Nitze describes the fundamental question of national security as follows: "How do

we get from where we are to where we want to be without being struck by disaster along

the way?" At the time of NSC 68, he clearly saw the Soviet political, economic, and

military structures aimed at world domination. What shaped his interpretation? What

evidence does he assert to support his contention? Nitze also believed that the Soviet

Union posed a direct threat to the very existence of the United States as a free and

democratic nation. Why did he believe this?

c. Was containment an end or a way? In what respects was containment an objective

itself, and in what way was it an instrument to shape pursuit of other, specific ends?’

d. Did NSC 68 find an appropriate relationship between ends, ways, and means? How

much risk did Nitze and his colleagues assume?

e. While it highlighted the importance of political and economic tools, NSC 68 also

gave high priority to military elements of power for coping with the Soviet threat. Do you

feel Nitze got the balance right? What leverage did Nitze feel economic, political, and

military elements would bring to the table? How did he envision U.S. policymakers using

that leverage?

f. Critics of NSC 68, including the author of the original containment policy, George

Kennan, believed that Nitze’s emphasis on military means and ways was unnecessary

and even unhelpful. Do you agree or disagree, based on what you know about the era,

and about what unfolded during the remainder of the Cold War?

BLOCK II:

NATIONAL SECURITY ACTORS AND INSTITUTIONS

The various agencies that propose and execute policy interact to choose

among policy alternatives that the executive branch will implement or, if

necessary, submit to the legislative branch for its approval. Generally,

administrations have sought to involve Congress in foreign policy matters as

little as possible. Presidents and their advisers often come to think of foreign

and security policy as their own preserves, matters that they should be

allowed to handle with minimum interference, especially when sensitive or

classified information is involved. At times in U.S. history, Congress acceded

to this attitude, but in recent decades that has clearly been less the case.

When presidents ignore Congress, fail to consult it adequately (as defined

by Congress), or engage in foreign policy misdeeds or misguided policies,

the battle is joined.

―Donald M. Snow/Eugene Brown

Puzzle Palaces and Foggy Bottom, 147-148

This block focuses on the key actors in the U.S. national security enterprise. These

include the President, the National Security Advisor and members of the National Security

Council, and the U.S. Congress. We also dedicate a lesson in this block to the role of the

military in the policy process, focusing on the Joint Staff and the Office of the Secretary of

Defense (OSD). Finally, we examine the nature of policy decision-making and use a case

study on the escalation of the Vietnam War to synthesize the lessons from this block of

instruction.

BLOCK II OBJECTIVES

 Understand the role of the executive and legislative branches in the national

security decision-making process.

 Understand the impact of Presidential leadership style on the national security

decision-making process.

 Understand the role of interest groups in influencing the national security decision-

making process.

 Understand the role of the uniformed military and the civilian leadership of the

Department of Defense in the national security decision-making process.

 Critically examine the decision to escalate U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War in

1965.

INTENTIONALLY BLANK

1 November 2016

(0830-1130)

Dr. Frank L. Jones, 245-3126

LESSON 7: THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM I: THE PRESIDENCY AND THE

NSC

Mode: Seminar NSPS-7-S

1. Introduction.

a. In this lesson, we will examine the role of the President, the Assistant to the

President for National Security Affairs (APNSA or more commonly known as the National

Security Advisor), and the National Security Council in the policymaking process. The U.S.

Constitution enumerates six formal roles and powers that grant the President significant,

but not complete, authority in foreign affairs. Further, given the vastness of the federal

bureaucracy, a president cannot administer these organizations directly, but he or she can

call upon their expertise and resources to assist him or her in the formulation and

implementation of policy.

b. This expertise resides in the President’s personal staff (the National Security

Council staff) under the direction of the national security advisor, but also with the

National Security Council (NSC) and the departments and agencies that the members of

the Council represent. By law, the function of the NSC is to “advise the President with

respect to the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to the national

security so as to enable the military services and the other departments and agencies of

the Government to cooperate more effectively in matters involving the national security.”

The Council’s statutory membership consists of the President, the Vice President, and the

Secretaries of State, Defense and Energy. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the

statutory military advisor to the Council, and the Director of National Intelligence is the

intelligence advisor.

c. Another aspect of this lesson is to examine the role of the assistant to the

President for national security affairs (NSA). The national security advisor is not a

statutory member of the NSC, but traditionally is responsible for determining the policy

agenda in consultation with the other regular members of the NSC, ensuring necessary

papers are prepared, recording NSC deliberations, and disseminating presidential

decisions. However, the authorities and responsibilities of the NSA, as well as other

members of the President’s national security team, have often varied significantly from

one administration to another. Thus, the functions that the advisor performs (usually

categorized in the scholarly literature as administrator, coordinator, counselor or agent)

are ultimately the President’s decision.

d. We begin this lesson by examining the history of the interagency process used to

formulate and implement national security policy, and some recommendations experts

have made on how the NSC management processes and structure can be made more

agile and effective for the next president. We then specifically examine the role of the

President and the National Security Council in that process and in particular, the national

security system structure the Obama administration is using. Lastly, we use a historical

vignette, the 2006 Iraq strategy review, to study how the national security advisor can

influence the decision-making process and equally important, how the relationship

between the advisor and the President is fundamental to agenda setting and the

examination of policy options.

2. Learning Outcomes. By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

a. Identify the roles of the various participants in the national security policymaking

process, especially the President, the national security advisor and the NSC.

b. Analyze how presidential managerial style and personality influence the formulation

and implementation of national security policy, and evaluate how presidents use a variety

of skills to accomplish their national security policy objectives successfully.

c. Analyze the national security policymaking system’s effectiveness in helping the

President formulate and implement national security policy by assessing the influence that

the national security advisor and the National Security Council have in managing the

system for this purpose.

3. Student Requirements.

a. Tasks.

(1) Be prepared to discuss the readings in conjunction with the learning objectives

and the points to consider.

(2) Be prepared to discuss the difficulties inherent in a policymaking process that is

complex, fragmented, and reliant on a variety of skills, expertise, agendas and influences.

b. Required Readings.

(1) Glenn P. Hastedt, “Presidency,” in American Foreign Policy: Past, Present,

and Future, 10th ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), 175-197.

[Student Issue]

(2) President Barack Obama, Presidential Policy Directive-1, “Organization of the

National Security Council System,” (Washington, DC: The White House, February 13,

2009), http://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=34560 (accessed August 16, 2016). (Must use

Firefox or Access Externally) [Online]

(3) Shawn Brimley et al., Enabling Decision: Shaping the National Security Council

for the Next President (Center for a New American Security, Washington, DC, June 2015),

1-15, http://www.cnas.org/sites/default/files/publications-

pdf/CNAS%20Report_NSC%20Reform_Final.pdf (accessed August 1, 2016). (Must use

Firefox or Access Externally) [Online]

(4) Colin Dueck, “The Role of the National Security Advisor and the 2006 Iraq

Strategy Review,” Orbis 58, no. 1 (Winter 2014): 15-38 in ScienceDirect (accessed August

16, 2016). [Database]

(5) Karen De Young, “How the Obama White House Runs Foreign Policy”, August

4, 2015, 1-9, at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/how-the-obama-

white-house-runs-foreign-policy/2015/08/04/2befb960-2fd7-11e5-8353-

1215475949f4_story.html (accessed October 13, 2016). [Online]

c. Suggested Readings. (Library Course Reserve)

a. Ernest R. May, ed., The Ultimate Decision: The President as Commander in

Chief. (New York: G. Braziller, 1960).

b. Alexander L. George, Presidential Decisionmaking in Foreign Policy: The

Effective Use of Information and Advice (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1980.

c. Gary Hess, Presidential Decisions for War: Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf

and Iraq. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009).

d. Elizabeth N. Saunders, Leaders at War: How Presidents Shape Military

Interventions. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011).

e. Joseph G. Dawson, Commanders-in-Chief: Presidential Leadership in Modern

Wars. (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1993).

f. Sam C. Sarkesian, John Allen Williams, and Stephen J. Cimbala, U.S. National

Security: Policymakers, Processes and Politics, 5th

ed. (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner,

2013).

g. Theodore C. Sorensen, Decision-making in the White House: The Olive Branch

or The Arrows. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963).

4. Points to Consider.

a. What events prompted the creation of the National Security Council? How has this

advisory system changed since the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947? Why

has the advisory system changed?

b. How do presidential leadership style and presidential personality influence the

policymaking process? How do these two factors affect the president’s advisory system

for national security decision-making?

c. President Dwight Eisenhower once remarked, “Organization cannot of course

make a successful leader out of a dunce, any more than it should make a decision for its

chief. But it is effective in minimizing the chances of failure and insuring that the right

hand does, indeed, know what the left hand is doing.” In your estimation, how much credit

should be given to a well-organized advisory system in helping the President make

prudent decisions on national security issues?

d. What are the domestic and international ramifications when the President uses the

various strategies Hastedt mentions to sidestep the limitations that the U.S. Constitution

places on his office?

e. Are there fundamental weaknesses with relying on the War Powers Act to prevent

the President from acting unilaterally on national security issues, especially the

deployment of U.S. forces?

f. Do you find the recommendations that Brimley et al. make for improving

management of National Security Council system more agile and responsive realistic or

are there factors that make such proposed changes difficult to implement?

3 November 2016

(0830-1130)

Dr. Frank L. Jones, 245-3126

LESSON 8: THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM II: CONGRESS AND INTEREST

GROUPS

Mode: Seminar NSPS-8-S

1. Introduction.

a. The framers of the U.S. Constitution designed a government based on a system of

shared and separate powers across the institutions they created. Their grants of power

over foreign policy to two separate branches, the executive and the legislative, led the

political scientist Edward S. Corwin, in his book The President, Office and Powers, to

describe the result as an “invitation to struggle for the privilege of directing American

foreign policy.”

b. Consequently, the process for the making of foreign and defense policies (that is,

national security policy) requires both coordination and cooperation to achieve anything of

real significance in national security affairs. It behooves national security professionals

therefore, to understand how the aforementioned unique institutional arrangement

influences the formulation and execution of these policies. In essence, senior military

leaders and civilian officials, as participants in the U.S. political system, soon discover

that they are accountable to two masters for policymaking and implementation: the

President and the Congress. In this lesson, we will examine the interaction between the

Congress and the executive branch on foreign policy and defense issues.

c. In doing so, we will explore how formal powers contribute to and limit the influence

wielded by the Congress (and the President as well) in any specific policymaking

scenario. Presidents draw upon their constitutional authority to carry out their roles as

commander-in-chief and chief administrator of the federal bureaucracy. The president’s

effectiveness depends largely on “strategic competence,” that is, the appropriate mastery

of policy substance, process, and promotion. Gaining these competencies enables the

president to exploit the institutional competencies of the executive branch. Congress, in

turn, has countervailing powers to shape the development and implementation phases of

policymaking. Further, the informal powers of each branch, if astutely employed, can

significantly enhance the influence of either institution, a point worth weighing. To

maximize the likelihood of successful policy development, the Congress must participate

in the process in ways that leverage its unique institutional competencies.

d. Additionally, we will examine how various interest groups influence national

security policymaking, especially with respect to the Congress. Experts estimate that

there are more than 10,000 interest groups attempting to influence U.S. government

policy, and a substantial number of them focus on national security issues such arms

control, military procurement, trade and diplomatic relations. As an example, the role of

policy institutes or think tanks, often categorized as public-interest groups, has evolved

over time, becoming increasingly relevant during the Cold War era and even more

important today. It is important not to underestimate the degree of influence that these

actors have in the national security policymaking process and how they have become

increasingly integrated into that process.

2. Learning Outcomes. By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

a. Explain how the constitutional powers of the Congress affect U.S. foreign

policymaking, and appraise the political dynamic that exists between the Congress and

the president in this policy area.

b. Identify the role that interest groups have in shaping national security policy;

describe how these actors are organized, and with whom they work at the national level to

achieve their aims.

c. Analyze how the Senate and House Armed Services Committees influence U.S.

national defense through oversight, the defense budget and the development of policy

initiatives.

3. Student Requirements.

a. Task. Be prepared to discuss the readings in conjunction with the learning

objectives and the points to consider.

b. Required Readings.

(1) Pat Towell, “Congress and Defense,” in Congress and the Politics of National

Security, ed. David P. Auerswald and Colton C. Campbell (New York: Cambridge

University Press, 2012), 71-99. [Blackboard]

(2) Glenn P. Hastedt, “Society” and “Congress,” in American Foreign Policy: Past,

Present, and Future, 10th ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), 122-29 and

143-71. [Student Issue]

(3) Paul I. Bernstein and Jason D. Wood, “The Origins of Nunn-Lugar and

Cooperative Threat Reduction,” Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction,

Case Study 3 (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2010), 1-12.

[Blackboard]

c. Suggested Readings. (Library Course Reserve)

(1) Kay King, Congress and National Security (Council Special Report No. 58.

New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2010).

(2) Walter J. Oleszek, Congressional Procedures and the Policy Process, 7th ed.

(Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2007).

(3) Ralph G. Carter and James M. Scott, “Understanding Congressional Foreign

Policy Innovators: Mapping Entrepreneurs and Their Strategies,” Social Science Journal

47, no. 2 (Jun 2010), 418-38.

(4) Lee H. Hamilton, A Creative Tension: The Foreign Policy Roles of the President

and Congress (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2002).

(5) James G. McGann, Think Tanks and the Transnationalization of Foreign Policy

(Foreign Policy Research Institute, E-Notes, December 16, 2002).

(6) Rebecca K. C. Hersman, “Individual Power and Issue Leaders,” and

“Institutional Overlap and Issue Clusters,” in Friends and Foes: How Congress and the

President Really Make Foreign Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press,

2000), 10-33 and 34-52.

(7) Norman A. Swazo, “The Duty of Congress to Check the President’s

Prerogative in National Security Policy,” International Journal on World Peace 21, no. 4

(December 2004), 21-62.

(8) James M. Lindsay, “Deference and Defiance: The Shifting Rhythms of

Executive-Legislative Relations” in Foreign Policy Presidential Studies Quarterly 33, no.

3 (September 2003), 530-46.

4. Points to Consider.

a. How do interest groups influence foreign policy formulation and implementation?

b. How does the Congress employ its constitutional powers to participate in

the foreign policymaking process?

c. What policy initiatives can the Armed Services Committees undertake and what

sources of information (internal and external) can they use to carry out their constitutional

responsibilities effectively?

d. How can members of Congress shape U.S. national security policy through

the institution’s powers and the willingness to act as policy entrepreneurs?

e. What impact might political party or region (the congressional district or state

the member represents) have on the way members of Congress vote on national

security and foreign policy issues?

f. Based on your reading and current news, have committee chairs or other

senior legislators lost power in shaping the legislative agenda in national security, or

is it still possible for them to act on a bipartisan basis, as described in the Nunn-Lugar

case study? What factors besides leadership may help or hinder such efforts to pass

legislation in that support U.S. national interests?

INTENTIONALLY BLANK

4 November, 2016

(0830-1130)

Dr. Marybeth Ulrich, 245-3272

LESSON 9: THE ROLE OF THE MILITARY IN NATIONAL SECURITY DECISION-

MAKING

Mode: Seminar NSPS-9-L/S

1. Introduction.

a. Policymaking is different than strategy making. Policy is a political goal, regardless

of the sphere of politics or any organizational setting. It is what outcome is to be achieved.

Policy in the national security arena, we might say, is Policy with a capital “P.” Policy as

used by executives and managers in every organization is policy with a small “p.” In either

case, policy is a control or forcing mechanism—a form of organizational power—that

either constrains or advances behaviors towards a political end. Strategy, on the other

hand, is how the policy is to be achieved. In this lesson, we look at the policymaking

process from the perspective of the military involvement in that Policy process, Policy with

a capital “P.”

b. Understanding the players and roles acting in the national security decision-making

process opens up a different world than what you may have experienced in the

operational and tactical realms. The stage is usually Washington, D.C. and not the

combatant command headquarters or the battlefield. The players are predominately

civilians—at the senior levels, the civilians are either elected, appointed by elected

civilians, or have been appointed by civilians who themselves have been appointed by

elected civilians.

c. However, senior military leaders fill advisory roles that are critical to this process. In

fact, the status of the military as a profession is intrinsically linked to the expertise that

military actors uniquely hold. Society depends on the cultivation and sharing of this

expertise to maintain the nation’s defense. Consequently, a thorough understanding of

civil-military relations at the strategic level is a vital competency for senior military leaders.

This lesson will provide an overview of civil-military relations competencies that are

relevant for national security professionals actively participating in the national security

decision making and policy formulation process.

d. The lesson will also lay out the roles that various defense-related actors play in the

national security decision-making space. The specific organizational context of the

Department of Defense will be studied as a means of understanding the interface of

military actors throughout the national security system.

e. Finally, we will discuss the current state of US civil-military relations. We will

consider how the military’s increasingly distant relationship with society may be affecting

the national security decision making and policy process, particularly with regard to use of

force and the conduct of long wars. This lesson continues our exploration of the

instruments of power in relation to the development of policy where, in our system, military

leaders advise and civilian leaders decide.

2. Learning Outcomes. By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

a. Understand the main civil-military relations competencies expected of senior

leaders. Be familiar with the key points of cooperation and tension in the civil-military

policy interface.

b. Understand how the military participates in the policy process in terms of its role in

the interagency and its interactions with other key stakeholders in the national security

policy process.

c. Be familiar with the key military actors in the national security policy process and

their roles.

d. Understand the key issues and challenges of 21st century US civil-military

relations.

3. Student Requirement.

a. Required Readings.

(1) Marybeth P. Ulrich, “A Primer on Civil-Military Relations for Senior Leaders,” in

The U.S. Army War College Guide to National Security Issues, Vol. II: National Security

Policy and Strategy, 5th ed. (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2012), 306-

314, http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB1110.pdf (accessed August 10,

2016). [Blackboard]

(2) Amos A. Jordan et al., “The Role of the Military in the Policy Process,” in

American National Security, 6th ed., ed. Amos A. Jordan et al. (Baltimore and London:

The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), 170-89. [Blackboard]

(3) Stephen M. Saideman, “More than Advice? The Joint Staff and American

Foreign Policy,” in Inside Defense, Understanding the U.S. Military in the 21st Century,

ed. Derek S. Reveron and Judith Hicks Stiehm (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), 31-

39. [Blackboard]

(4) James Fallows, “The Tragedy of the American Military,” The Atlantic (January

2015), http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/the-tragedy-of-the-

american-military/383516/ (accessed August 10, 2016). [Online]

b. Suggested Readings.

(1) Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint History Office, The

Chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: The Role of the Chairman (Washington, DC:

Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1995),

http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/doctrine/history/jcspart1.pdf (accessed August 17, 2016). Scan

pages 3-38. Note: A brief history of the development of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from

World War II to the Chairmanship of John Shalishkashvili, containing a large number of

photos of the chairmen and the “tank” and 9-10 pages of text.

(2) Samuel P. Huntington, “The Political Roles of the Joint Chiefs,” in The Soldier

and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge, MA:

Belknap Press of Harvard University Press), 374-87.

(3) Marybeth P. Ulrich, “Infusing Normative Civil-Military Relations Principles in the

Officer Corps,” in The Future of the Army Profession, 2nd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill,

2005).

(4) Suzanne Nielsen and Don M. Snider, American Civil-Military Relations: The

Soldier and the State in a New Era (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,

2009).

(5) Frank L. Jones, “U.S. Defense Policymaking: A 21st-Century Perspective,” in

Handbook of Defense Politics: International and Comparative Perspectives, ed. Isaiah

Wilson III and James J. F. Forest (New York, NY: Routledge 2008).

(6) Peter J. Roman and David W. Tarr, “The Joint Chiefs of Staff: From

Service Parochialism To Jointness,” Political Science Quarterly (Spring 1998): 91-

111 in PROQUEST (accessed July 15, 2016).

(7) Christopher Paul, “The U.S. Military Intervention Decision-Making Process:

Who Participates, and How,” Journal of Political and Military Sociology 32, no. 1

(Summer 2004), 19-43.

(8) Wade Markel, “The Limits of American Generalship: The JCS’s Strategic

Advice in Early Cold War Crises,” Parameters 38, no.1 (Spring 2008): 16-29

PROQUEST (accessed August 19, 2016).

(9) Colin Gray, “Politics and War” in Modern Strategy (New York: Oxford University

Press, 1999), 58-64.

4. Points to Consider.

a. What are the normative principles associated with giving military advice to civilian

policymakers?

b. How would you characterize and describe the relationships between OSD, the

Joint Staff, the Interagency, and the Combatant Commands? How does each interact with

the other, with the President, the interagency process, and Congress? What is the role of

each in policy development, advice, and policy implementation? What are the sources of

the tension inherent in the civil-military relationship at the strategic level?

c. What are the key issues and challenges in US civil-military relations today? What

are the implications for national security policy outcomes?

7 November 2016

(0830-1230)

COL Bob Hamilton, 245-3278

LESSON 10: CASE STUDY II: U.S. ESCALATION IN VIETNAM

Mode: Lecture/Seminar NSPS-10-L/S

You have a row of dominoes set up; you knock over the first one, and what

will happen to the last one is that it will go over very quickly.

—President Dwight D. Eisenhower,

speaking at a press conference on April 7, 1954.

I am not going to lose Vietnam. I am not going to be the president who saw

Southeast Asia go the way China went.

—Newly inaugurated President Lyndon Johnson,

at a White House meeting on November 24, 1963

responding to U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam

Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. telling him that Vietnam

“would go under any day if we don’t do something.”

We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away

from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.

—President Lyndon Johnson,

in a speech at Akron University on October 21,1964,

two weeks before the presidential election.

We do this [escalating U.S. military involvement in Vietnam] in order to slow

down aggression. We do this to increase the confidence of the brave people

of South Vietnam who have bravely born this brutal battle for so many years

with so many casualties. And we do this to convince the leaders of North

Vietnam—and all who seek to share their conquest—of a simple fact: We

will not be defeated. We will not grow tired. We will not withdraw either

openly or under the cloak of a meaningless agreement.

—President Lyndon Johnson,

speaking to the nation on April 7, 1965 explaining

his decision to send U.S. combat troops to Vietnam.

1. Introduction.

a. By the summer of 1965, the worsening situation in South Vietnam resulted in a

concerted attempt by the Johnson Administration to assess the situation and develop a

strategy to deal with it. Neither the increase in U.S. troop levels from 16,000 in August

1964, to some 71,000 less than a year later, nor the commencement of a bombing

campaign against North Vietnam appeared to have any real effect. Instead, instability in

the South Vietnamese government, the rapid deterioration of the South Vietnamese

military, and significant and sustained Viet Cong territorial gains made it clear that unless

something changed, the prospect of a communist victory in Vietnam was a distinct

possibility.

b. In June and July of 1965, a series of high-level meetings in Washington and Saigon

resulted in a decision to escalate U.S. involvement in the conflict – a decision that is one of

the most thoroughly analyzed foreign policy events in American history. In this lesson, we

too will analyze this decision through an exercise designed to place each student in the

role of one of its key participants. Your task will be to familiarize yourself with the historical

context of the situation through the assigned readings and background materials, and –

as a group – come up with a recommendation to the President. Inherent in this task are

requirements to analyze U.S. policy objectives, consider the ways and means available to

the U.S., and develop a strategy, the ends of which serve the policy objectives you inferred

from the exercise material.

c. As the background reading and the exercise material – much of which consists of

declassified documents used in the actual decision-making process – make clear, U.S.

officials struggling with this question had to balance a number of competing and

sometimes contradictory imperatives. Among these were preventing communist

domination of Southeast Asia; establishing a stable, self-sustaining, non-communist

government in South Vietnam; demonstrating a U.S. capability to counter wars of

national liberation and sustaining the reputation of the United States as a reliable

partner, especially among key allies in the region; avoiding a war with China in Asia;

deterring the Soviet Union from using the U.S. engagement in Asia as an opportunity to

destabilize Europe; and sustaining public support for the U.S. war effort.

d. This lesson begins with a lecture in Bliss Hall that provides an overview of the

strategic situation in Vietnam in 1965. Students will then return to seminar rooms and

conduct an experiential learning event that puts them in the roles of key decision-makers

in the Johnson Administration as they grappled with the problem of Vietnam in the

summer of 1965. The objective of this learning event is for the group to come up with a

strategy to deal with the situation in Vietnam and brief that plan to the FI, playing the role

of President Johnson.

2. Learning Outcomes. By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

a. Evaluate how decision-makers defined and articulated the appropriate “ends” for

American strategy in Vietnam. Assess the “ways and means” that the United States used

to achieve these ends.

b. Analyze how U.S. history and culture shaped the decision to escalate American

involvement in Vietnam.

c. Understand the roles that organizational behavior, group dynamics and the

individual characteristics of decision-makers played in shaping the outcome in the debate

over whether to escalate U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

d. Understand the roles played by internal/domestic and external/international factors

in shaping the outcome in the debate over whether to escalate U.S. involvement in

Vietnam.

3. Student Requirements.

a. Tasks. Assume the role (assigned by your Faculty Instructor) of one of the

participants in the decision over whether to escalate U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

b. Required Readings.

(1) David P. Houghton, “An Agonizing Decision: Escalating the Vietnam War,” in

The Decision Point: Six Cases in U.S. Foreign Policy Decision Making (New York: Oxford

University Press 2013), 149-63. [Student Issue]

(2) Gary R. Hess, “Lyndon B. Johnson and the Vietnam Crisis: ‘America Keeps her

word,’” in Presidential Decisions for War: Korea, Vietnam, the Persian (Baltimore: The

John Hopkins University Press, 2009), 75-112. [Student Issue]

(3) 1965: The Decision to Escalate the Vietnam War: Background Information for

the Exercise”, Merrill Center for Strategic Studies, Johns Hopkins University, 1-7.

[Blackboard]

(4) Escalating the War in Vietnam: A Simulation of the July 1965 Deliberations,

Merrill Center for Strategic Studies, Johns Hopkins University, 3-26. [Blackboard]

(5) Biographies of Participants: read only the biography for the official whose role

you have been designated to play for the exercise [Blackboard]

c. Suggested Readings.

(1) George McTurnan Kahin, Intervention: How America Became Involved in

Vietnam (New York: Knopf, 1986).

(2) Frederik Logevall, Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the

Escalation of War in Vietnam. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).

(3) H.R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty. (New York: HarperCollins 1997); Robert S.

McNamara, In Retrospect. (New York: Times Books, 1995).

(4) Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect. (New York: Times Books), 1995.

4. Points to Consider.

a. What other options were available to U.S. policymakers in July 1965 and why

weren’t these selected?

b. Was the decision to escalate fated to end in defeat or did decisions taken

subsequently doom what might have otherwise been a successful strategy?

c. Was there conflict between the civilian and military members of the group

concerning issues of “military expertise”? Did (or might) the members of the JCS have

difficulty giving military advice to the president that might conflict with the assessment of

their boss (the SecDef)?

d. Were there other officials or organizations (civilian or military) that should have

been represented in this decision?

e. What insights do Houghton’s three models of governmental decision-making (Homo

Bureaucraticus, Homo Sociologicus, Homo Psychologicus) provide in analyzing the

decision to escalate the Vietnam War?

BLOCK III:

INSTRUMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER

We will direct every resource at our command--every means of diplomacy,

every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every

financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war--to the destruction

and to the defeat of the global terror network. Now, this war will not be like

the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and

a swift conclusion. It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years

ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost

in combat. Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and

isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy

campaign unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic

strikes visible on TV and covert operations secret even in success. We will

starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from

place to place until there is no refuge or no rest.

President George W. Bush

Address to a Joint Session of Congress, 20 September 2001

In this block we will explore the fundamental nature, uses, and limitations of the

instruments of U.S. national power (diplomatic, informational, military, and economic). We

will develop an appreciation of the instruments of power and examine how they

complement, and at times, contradict one another. We end this block of the course with a

two-lesson case study examining the “long war”, with the first lesson focused on the

decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003, and the second lesson examining the formulation and

adjustment of overall strategy in the “long war”.

BLOCK III OBJECTIVES

 Understand and evaluate the instruments of national power as “means”

of promoting and protecting national interests.

 Critically examine the U.S. decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003.

 Critically examine the formulation and adjustment of strategy for the “long war”.

INTENTIONALLY BLANK

8 November 2016

(0830-1130)

COL Dan Cormier, 245-3209

LESSON 11: INTRODUCTION TO THE INSTRUMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER

Mode: Seminar NSPS-11-S

1. Introduction.

a. In this lesson, we will examine the concept of instruments of power. Power has

many definitions in international relations. The word is derived from the French pouvoir

(to be able) and implies a capacity to affect the environment. Its application ranges from

forcing others to comply with a desired goal to hidden influence.

For example, it can be a

resource to influence the behavior of others through the application of negative pressure,

such as through coercion. It may also be used in a more positive approach or as a

referent factor that inspires cooperation. This last aspect manifests in many ways. It can

include mutually beneficial international agreements, adherence to identity norms, such

as through patriotism, and concepts of international legitimacy, human rights or public

opinion. Joseph Nye’s concept of soft power fits into this classification. It replaces

traditional notions of power with “influence,” elevating the ability to attract or persuade

others to an equal footing to the uses of hard power, such as coercion.

Conceiving of

the nation’s instruments of power within this broad spectrum allows for critical and

creative applications that avoid simply repeating past techniques or applying established

functions. It also helps to escape associating the tools of power with particular

government agencies, such as seeing diplomacy as the sole purview of the State

Department. This broad outlook of power also accounts for the iterative and bargaining

character of international relations, encouraging the search for novel ways to approach

national dilemmas.

b. Students have seen multiple examples of the connections between the means of

power and their relationship to international relations. For example, in the Theory of War

and Strategy Course there were lessons on the various domains of Power. They

provided a theoretic basis for thinking about how air, land and sea power affect

international relations, as well as the different theories of how they may be used to

achieve policy goals. The idea that there are instruments of power provides a way to

clarify the various tools of statecraft.

c. Several conceptual frameworks seek to assist in understanding these tools. The

readings for this lesson provide a broad overview of them. The chapter by D. Robert

Worley provides a concise explanation of the various instruments of power. Glenn P.

See R. Craig Nation, “National Power,” in J. Boone Bartholomees, Jr., U.S. Army War College Guide to National

Security Issues, Vol. I: Theory of War and Strategy (Carlisle Barracks: Strategic Studies Institute, 2012) 147-158.

Joseph S. Nye, Jr., The Future of Power (New York: Public Affairs, 2011) 18-24.

Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008) 1-10.

Hastedt describes the various government departments and agencies, as well as their

impact on foreign policy. The Department of Defense, through its Joint Doctrine,

organizes the instruments of power into four broad categories: Diplomatic, Informational,

Military and Economic (DIME). It is important to note that this conceptual structure is not

universally recognized. Others propose a broader framework, such as adding law

enforcement, intelligence and financial means (MIDLIFE), or avoid the barriers created

by categorizations altogether. They all seek to provide “a way” to conceive of the means

of national power. They also stress their dynamic use. For example, joint doctrine

emphasizes the need to integrate all of the tools, as well as through dynamic ways, to

achieve objectives. It points out that their use can diverge in purpose, scale, risk or

intensity, as well as across the range of possible operations or within different time

horizons.

These readings provide critical background and serve as a starting point for

class dialogue.

d. Seminar discussion will focus on analyzing the current administration’s outlook on

national policy and the uses of instruments of power. The Goldberg article, “The Obama

Doctrine,” provides a unique insight into this perspective. A detailed exploration of this

reading seeks to establish a baseline assessment of how the administration perceived

US power and its application in foreign policy. This study allows for an appreciation of

how worldviews relate to the uses of power. By examining the instruments of power in

this holistic fashion, the lesson avoids approaching the subject through the conceptual

walls that divide national power into the tools of departments or as distinct methods.

Instead, it intends to provide a broader understanding of how the means of policy

actually function within a complex strategic environment, across a range of international

relations theories and inside different time horizons. This approach illuminates the

connections between different policies, national interests and the nation’s purpose. The

lesson will establish a foundation for the remaining lessons within this block of study.

2. Learning Outcomes. By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

a. Comprehend the nation’s instruments of power as conceptual tools to achieve

objectives.

b. Analyze the forms, potential uses, and limitations of the different instruments of

national power in the 21st Century strategic environment.

c. Examine how the current U.S. President considers the purpose and uses of

national power.

3. Student Requirements.

See JP 1, Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States, I-11 to I-15.

a. Tasks.

(1) Complete the required readings.

(2) Be prepared to discuss the readings in conjunction with the learning

objectives and the points to consider.

b. Required Readings.

(1) D. Robert Worley, “Instruments of Power,” in Orchestrating the Instruments of

Power: A Critical Examination of the U.S. National Security System (Raleigh: Lulu

Press, 2012), 275-91. [Blackboard]

(2) “Instruments of National Power and the Range of Military Operations,” in Joint

Publication 1, Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States (Washington, DC: Joint

Chief of Staff, March 25, 2013), I-11 to I-15, http://dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/jp1.pdf

(accessed August 18, 2016). [Blackboard]

(3) Glenn P. Hastedt, “Bureaucracy,” in American Foreign Policy, 10th ed.

(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), 201-29. [Student Issue]

(4) Jeffrey Goldberg, “The Obama Doctrine,” The Atlantic Monthly 317, no. 3 (April

2016): 70-90 in PROQUEST (accessed August 18, 2016). [Database]

c. Suggested Readings.

(1) D. Robert Worley, “Mechanisms of Power”, in Orchestrating the Instruments

of Power: A Critical Examination of the U.S. National Security System (Raleigh: Lulu

Press, 2012), 293-42.

(2) Glenn P. Hastedt, “Diplomacy,” “Economic Instruments,” “Military Instruments:

Big Wars,” and “Military Instruments: Small Wars,” in American Foreign Policy, 10th ed.

(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014).

(3) Joseph S. Nye Jr., “Theorizing Public Diplomacy: Public Diplomacy and Soft

Power,” The Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science (March

2008): in LEXISNEXIS (accessed August 19, 2016).

(4) Nicholas J. Cull, The Decline and Fall of the United States Information

Agency: American Public Diplomacy, 1989-2001 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

(5) Melissa Hathaway, “Connected Choices: How the Internet is Challenging

Sovereign Decisions,” American Foreign Policy Interests, 36, no. 5 (2014): in

TaylorandFrancis (accessed August 18, 2016).

(6) David Kahn, “The Rise of Intelligence”, Foreign Affairs 85, no. 5

(September/October 2006): 25-34 in PROQUEST (accessed August 18, 2016).

(7) Richard Immerman, “Intelligence and Strategy: Historicizing Psychology,

Policy, and Politics,” Diplomatic History 32, no. 1 (January 2008): 1-23.

(8) Mark Duckenfield, “Fiscal Fetters: The Economic Imperatives of National

Security in a Time of Austerity,” Strategic Studies Quarterly 6, no. 2 (Air University;

Maxwell AFB, AL 2012), http://www.au.af.mil/au/ssq/2012/summer/summer12.pdf

(accessed August 18, 2016).

4. Points to Consider.

a. What are the different forms of national power? In what ways are they enabling

functions that support decision makers and in what ways are they instruments that allow

ways to achieve objectives? What are the different methods they can be used to

contribute to national policy and strategy goals?

b. How does the 21st Century strategic environment affect the potential use and

limitations of the different instruments of national power? In what ways do other

international actors and norms of behavior constrain the exercise of power?

c. How does presidential leadership and associated worldviews influence the uses of

national power?

9 November 2016

(1300-1600)

Prof. Mark Perry, 961-2031

LESSON 12: INSTRUMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER IN TIMES OF PEACE

Mode:

Seminar

NSPS-12-L/S

1. Introduction.

a. This lesson continues the Block III dialog on the instruments of national power by

exploring how the United States applies power to achieve objectives during times of

peace. In other words, we will discuss how the U.S. normally conducts foreign policy

day in and day out, when and where we are not embroiled in conflict. The steady state

of the world is peace and the U.S. Government is, of course, principally organized to

operate in peacetime. Conflicts represent extraordinary challenges for U.S. security and

how we employ our national power during such exceptional times is the subject of the

next two lessons, 13 and 14. Conflicts, when they do occur, are limited to a particular

country or region, while the rest of world continues on its way peacefully. So the U.S.

machinery of government must continue to operate more or less normally in most of the

world, even as we deal with conflict in part of it.

b. In Lesson 11 we discussed different constructs for understanding the instruments

of power. A good word for how a nation applies power is statecraft. We can think about

the instruments of power as elements, or facets, of statecraft. The many elements of

statecraft are at work continuously, differing in proportion and relation depending on the

specific array of national objectives and influences at play in a country or region. During

peace, the soft power elements of statecraft predominate and the U.S. Government

emphasizes diplomacy, development assistance, trade and financial facets, cultural

exchanges and other programs for mutual understanding, etc. The military aspects of

statecraft are in play as well, in a supporting role: joint exercises with allies, train and

assist programs, mil-to-mil relations, updating treaties, conducting basing negotiations,

enhancing capabilities and professionalism of foreign militaries to promote regional

stability.

c. Instruments of power are not equated with a particular department of the

government; rather, each department participates in the application of every instrument.

Officials in DOD and the military conduct diplomacy every time they meet with foreign

officials. Likewise, DOS officials exercise military power when they deal with basing or

over-flight rights, negotiate security treaties and participation in coalitions. A U.S. Navy

ship visit to a foreign port is concurrently a diplomatic and a military event. The threat of

use of force is both a diplomatic and a military exercise of national power. DOD and

DOS work with many other departments with key roles to play in the application of U.S.

economic power and information power. Congress plays a fundamental role in the

elements of power, using powers of appropriation, conducting hearings and

consultations, making official statements and dispatching congressional delegations

around the world.

d. This lesson will use two case studies to frame our dialog about how the U.S.

normally employs power to achieve objectives. The first is the complex and immensely

important bilateral relationship with Pakistan. The readings will help set up a discussion

about how the U.S. develops and implements bilateral policy and the kinds of tools and

programs we employ. Our relations with Pakistan present the difficult choices that

characterize U.S. foreign policy in terms of how best to support yet influence, and how to

balance interests and costs. The second case study deals with the emerging

multinational challenge to the U.S. resulting from the opening of the Arctic. Big

international problems -- like Arctic development, global climate change, terrorism,

narcotic trafficking, organized crime, freedom of navigation, internet and cyber-attacks,

uses of space – are rendered even more difficult to deal with by the weakness of the UN

and other international organizations. These transnational, “wicked” problems raise the

question of whether the U.S. should step into the void, as the indispensable nation, and

play a leadership role. The Arctic case study should set up a discussion of when and

how the U.S. should use its national power to address transnational problems.

2. Learning Outcomes. By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

a. Understand how the United States employs the various instruments of national

power in the conduct of international relations during normal, non-conflict times.

b. Analyze how the elements of statecraft interact in the pursuit of national interests,

and how they are coordinated to be mutually supportive, both with respect to building

bilateral relations and in addressing multinational challenges.

c. Understand how the government agencies and organizations collaborate in the

employment of instruments of power during times of peace.

3. Student Requirements.

a. Task. Complete the required readings. Be prepared to discuss them in

conjunction with the objectives and points to consider.

b. Required Readings.

(1) U.S. Department of State, “Executive Summary,” The 2015 Quadrennial

Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of

State, 2015), 7-15, http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/241429.pdf (accessed

August 16, 2016). (Must use Firefox or Access Externally) [Blackboard]

(2) Alex Oliver, “The Irrelevant Diplomat,” Foreign Affairs (March 14, 2016),

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2016-03-14/irrelevant-diplomat (accessed

August 16, 2016). [Online]

(3) William A. Burns, “10 Parting Thoughts for America’s Diplomats,” Foreign

Policy (October 24, 2014), http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/10/23/10-parting-thoughts-for-

americas-diplomats/ (accessed August 16, 2016). [Online]

(4) Joseph S. Nye, “What China and Russia Don’t get About Soft Power,”

Foreign Policy (March 21, 2016), http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/04/29/what-china-and-

russia-dont-get-about-soft-power/ (accessed August 17, 2016). [Online]

(5) Anam Mian, “The Rocky U.S.-Pakistan Security Relationship,” Security

Assistance Monitor (Updated August 21, 2015),

http://securityassistance.org/fact_sheet/rocky-us-pakistan-security-relationship

(accessed August 17, 2016). [Online]

(6) Daniel S. Markey, “Reorienting U.S. Pakistan Strategy,” Council on Foreign

Relations (January 2014), http://www.cfr.org/pakistan/reorienting-us-pakistan-

strategy/p32198 (accessed August 17, 2016). [Online]

(7) “Pakistan’s Civilian Forces Are Undermining Democracy,” STRATFOR

(August 13, 2014), https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/pakistans-civilian-forces-are-

undermining-

democracy?0=ip_login_no_cache%3D757635eb83cbc9e7d4f2cf557d5afdf3 (accessed

August 17, 2016). [Online]

(8) “The Emerging Arctic,” A CFR InfoGuide, http://www.cfr.org/polar-

%20%20regions/emerging-arctic/p32620#!/?cid=otr_marketing_use-arctic_Infoguide#!

(accessed August 29, 2016). [Online]

(9) “Russia’s Plans for Arctic Supremacy”, STRATFOR (January 16, 2015),

https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/russias-plans-arctic-supremacy (accessed August 17,

2016). [Online]

(10) “The Growing Importance of the Arctic Council,” STRATFOR (May 17,

2013), https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/growing-importance-arctic-council (accessed

August 17, 2016). [Online]

(11) “U.S. National Strategy for the Arctic Region,” Council on Foreign Relations

(May 10, 2013), http://www.cfr.org/arctic/us-national-strategy-arctic-region/p30686

(accessed August 17, 2016). [Online]

4. Points to Consider.

a. How does the country team concept in U.S. embassies function to promote a

“whole of government” approach to international relations? What are some of the tools,

programs and techniques that the U.S. employs to build bilateral relations? What are

some key differences in U.S. objectives and efforts in developing countries versus more

developed countries?

b. How do the embassies and Combatant Commands work together regionally and

within specific countries? With respect to official responsibilities outside the U.S., what is

the difference between Chief of Mission authority and Combatant Commander

authority?

c. What are some of the opportunities and challenges for U.S. leadership in dealing

with regional challenges, like development of the Arctic, and with global challenges,

such as climate change? How does the interagency process in Washington function to

coordinate policy and strategy to address multilateral challenges?

d. What are some ways in which the DOD and U.S. Military apply the diplomatic

element of power? Economic? Information? How does State Department use or

participate in the application of military power? How are these efforts coordinated

between DOD and DOS?

10 November 2016

(0830-1130)

CAPT Wade Turvold, 245-3022

LESSON 13: INSTRUMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER IN CONFLICT I: THE 2003

INVASION OF IRAQ

Mode: Seminar NSPS-13-S

The United States and its friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an

outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.

…[M]eeting the threat now with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard,

and Marines, so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of

firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.

—George W. Bush, 2003

1. Introduction.

a. A government’s most momentous decision is to take its people to war. Although

the Constitution grants Congress the authority to formally declare war, in practice the

President is usually at the center of any decisions involving the use of the military. The

Constitution confers upon the President great power to define and implement U.S.

foreign policy. The President considers American interests and objectives, and the wide

range of means available to act within the international system – foremost among them

is the military instrument of national power.

b. Beyond formal powers, the President enjoys the authority of the “bully pulpit” – the

unique capacity inherent in the presidency to speak directly as the nation’s leader to the

American public, which naturally rallies around presidential leadership in times of crisis.

Enhancing that bond with the public is a president’s capacity to articulate American

interests and objectives in terms of the ideals that Americans associate with their role in

the world.

c. The power of a president, however, has its limits. Congress, interest groups, the

press, and other media respond to initiatives, so that every step toward involvement in a

war risks domestic criticism. In addition to being cautious not to lead where the

American public will not follow, a president must also weigh the potential approval, or

disapproval, of the international community.

d. During and immediately following the Cold War, Presidents Truman, Johnson, and

George H. W. Bush each believed that aggressive actions taken by rival nation states

presented credible threats to U.S. national security, necessitating the use of military

force. Their decisions took Americans to war against North Korea, North Vietnam, and

Iraq, respectively.

e. In the new millennium, President George W. Bush led America into a war very

different in rationale and objectives. The military action against Iraq, launched in March

2003, was intended to eliminate Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) before Iraq

could take verifiable action to arm terrorist groups or intimidate its neighbors.This led to

the overthrow of the regime of Saddam Hussein. In its place, theoretically, a democratic

Iraq would emerge, becoming a model for political change throughout the Middle East.

President Bush’s decision to force regime change in Iraq marked a departure point for

American foreign policy. While Congress readily supported his decision to attack Iraq,

that support reflected a momentary public consensus that the war was just and vital to

American security. Earlier presidential decisions to use force in Korea, Vietnam, and the

Gulf responded to the use of force by perceived enemies. However, for Iraq in March

2003, the president espoused a new doctrine of ‘preventive war.’

f. This case study highlights several issues discussed to this point in NSPS,

including the creation and implementation of policy and strategy, the role of values and

interests, the structure of the global strategic environment, and just war and IR theory

concepts. It illustrates the role of Congress and domestic opinion, as well as the war-

making powers of the Executive branch. Perhaps most importantly, the 2003 Iraq War

highlights the politics and personal interaction between the President and the major

players within the National Security Council. The Bush Administration made

assumptions, considered available ways and means, and took risk to achieve goals that

they considered vital to national interests. Whether those goals were justified and

achievable with the means and ways chosen is debatable, and should be carefully

considered within seminar dialogue.

2. Learning Outcomes. By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

a. Examine the global environment, domestic environment, national interests,

assumptions, policy, and risk factors of a presidential decision to go to war.

b. Apply the strategy formulation framework to the decision to invade Iraq.

c. Apply Houghton’s decision-making models to the decision to invade Iraq.

3. Student Requirements.

a. Task. Complete assigned readings and be prepared to discuss the readings in

conjunction with the learning objectives and the points to consider.

b. Required Readings.

(1) Gary R. Hess, “George W. Bush and the Second Crisis with Iraq,” in Presidential

Decisions for War: Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, and Iraq, 2nd ed. (Baltimore: Johns

Hopkins University Press, 2009), 221-48. [Student Issue]

(2) David Patrick Houghton, “Into Iraq: A War of Choice,” in The Decision Point,

Six Cases in U.S. Foreign Policy Decision Making (New York: Oxford University Press,

2013), 218-47. [Student Issue]

c. Recommended Viewing.

Michael Kirk, “Bush’s War,” Part 1, PBS Frontline, March 24, 2008,

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/bushswar/view/ (accessed August 19 2016).

[Online]

d. Suggested Readings.

(1) William T. Allison, The Gulf War, 1990-91 (New York: Palgrave MacMillan,

2012), 1-39 and 145-165.

(2) Andrew J. Polsky, “The Perils of Optimism: George W. Bush,” in Elusive

Victories: The American Presidency at War (New York: Oxford University Press,

2012), 273-25.

(3) David Rothkopf, “A Thumb on the Scales: Tipping the Balance in the Battle

Between the Traditionalists and the Transformationalists,” in Running the World: The

Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power

(New York: Public Affairs, 2005), 389-447.

(4) Joseph J. Collins, Choosing War: The Decision to Invade Iraq and Its

Aftermath (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, April 2008),

www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a479692.pdf (accessed August 19, 2016).

(5) Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002).

(6) Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004).

4. Points to Consider.

a. What is the history of Iraq and the United States in the Gulf region? How did the

events of September 11, 2001 change the calculus of that relationship?

b. What is the broader context – was this a unique moment in modern history,

understood by some, misunderstood by others?

c. How are realist and liberal lenses regarding foreign policy reflected in the actions

of the George W. Bush Administration? What other theories and concepts from SL,

TWS, and thus far in NSPS are at play? What role did personality play in the post-9/11

decision to invade Iraq?

d. What are the key aspects of decision-making as it relates to strategy? How do

various decision-making models help illuminate the Bush administration’s decision for

war? What role did assumptions play in the decision to invade? What about risk

assessment?

e. How strong, or weak, was the case for war? Was there solid consensus among

Bush’s advisors for war? What alternatives fell by the wayside and why? Was this a just

war?

f. How did George W. Bush manage civil-military relations? How did he manage

international relations with friends, allies, and enemies?

g. How fully and effectively did George W. Bush adhere to the constitutional process

in building congressional and popular support for war?

h. How strong was the Bush Administration’s “Coalition of the Willing?” What was the

effect of not gaining UN support for military action? Why did the Bush Administration feel

the timing was right for an invasion Iraq?

14 November 2016

(0830-1130)

Dr. Adrian (Zeke) Wolfberg, 245-3294

LESSON 14: INSTRUMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER IN CONFLICT II – THE LONG

WAR

Mode: Seminar NSPS-14-S

1. Introduction

a. In the National Security Policy and Strategy (NSPS) course, we have examined

the U.S. Army War College Strategy Formulation Framework, a conceptual model for

identifying the basic components of strategy: ends, ways and means. Within this

framework, we have also identified the inputs and outputs of strategy, as well as the

domestic and international factors that influence the strategy formulation process. In

lesson 5 of the course, we examined models of governmental decision-making, each of

which focuses on a factor or variable that might explain why and how governments arrive

at unexpected and sometimes non-optimal decisions. Lessons 6 and 10 of the course

examined two important national security decisions – how to deal with the Soviet Union

and what to do about Vietnam – through the lenses of both the Strategy Formulation

Framework and Houghton’s models of governmental decision-making. This lesson and

the preceding lesson serve two purposes. First, they serve as two additional case

studies for examining governmental decision-making. Second, they serve as vehicles for

examining how the instruments of power are used during times of conflict. While lesson

13 focused on the decision to go to war in Iraq, this lesson focuses on how the U.S.

government prosecuted the broader campaign against terrorism, of which the Iraq war

was considered – at least inside the Bush administration – a part.

b. Through its examination of decision-making within the context of the wars against

terrorism fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, the reading used for this lesson arrives at the

conclusions that “U.S. leadership was not able to formulate a real strategy for victory,

implement it with unified effort, or provide the capabilities necessary” (241). Additionally,

“the President knew the U.S. response would require an unprecedented integration of all

elements of national power, which he was unable to provide” (241). In the assigned

chapter, the authors organize their findings into the categories of concepts, command,

capabilities and constraints. As you read this chapter and digest the authors’

conclusions, ask yourself to what extent decision-making in the Long War corresponded

to what we might expect by examining it through the prisms of the Strategy Formulation

Framework and Houghton’s models of governmental decision-making. If and when it

diverged from what the Framework and models would lead us to expect, ask yourself

what may have caused this divergence. As simplified representations of reality, the

Framework and Houghton’s models are inherently limited in their ability to describe how

a process unfolds in reality. However, if they are useful, they should alert us to factors

that matter in many or most important decision-making processes. This lesson provides

another opportunity for us to test them against actual governmental decision-making

processes.

c. Next, pay attention to the authors’ conclusions about how the Bush and Obama

administrations integrated – or failed to integrate – the instruments of power in pursuit of

the strategic objectives they pursued. If you conclude, as the authors of the assigned

chapter do, that the U.S. failed to bring all the required instruments of power to bear, ask

yourself why and how this occurred.

2. Learning Outcomes. By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

a. Provide insight into the process of policy and strategy formulation, and the factors

that influence these, from the perspective of senior leaders in Washington DC and their

interaction with senior leaders in the field, during a time of recent conflict (2001-2016) in

Iraq and Afghanistan.

b. Within the context of these recent conflicts, address the importance and difficulties

in defining the nature and scope of the security threat and its impact on establishing a

strategy, and, as a consequence, the challenges of using the full range of instruments of

power and/or capabilities required for success.

c. Apply the strategy formulation framework and Houghton’s decision-making

models to decisions made in the context of the Long War.

3. Student Requirements.

a. Tasks. None.

b. Required Reading.

Christopher J. Lamb with Megan Franco, “National-Level Coordination and

Implementation: How System Attributes Trumped Leadership,” in Lessons Encountered:

Learning from the Long War, ed. Richard D. Hooker, Jr., and Joseph J. Collins

(Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 2015), 165-276,

http://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/Books/lessons-encountered/lessons-

encountered.pdf (accessed August 29, 2016). (Must use Firefox or Access Externally)

[Online]

(Note: the text runs from pages 165 to 250, and the references occupy the remaining 26

pages, yielding a total number of 85 readable pages for this assignment).

c. Suggested Reading.

(1) George W. Bush, Decision Points (New York: Crown Publishers, 2010).

(2) Dick Cheney with Liz Cheney, In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir

(New York: Threshold Editions, 2011).

(3) Hillary R. Clinton, Hard Choices (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014).

(4) Martin E. Dempsey, “Risky Business,” Joint Force Quarterly 69 (2nd Quarter

2013).

(5) Robert M. Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (New York: Knopt,

2014).

(6) Stephen Glain, State vs. Defense: The Battle to Define America’s Empire (New

York: Crown Publishers, 2011).

(7) Jack L. Goldsmith, Power and Constraint: The Accountable Presidency after

9/11 (New York: Norton, 2012).

(8) Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, The Endgame: The Inside Story of

the Struggle for Iraq, from George W. Bush to Barack Obama (New York: Pantheon

Books, 2012).

(9) Gail Harris and Pam McLaughlin, A Woman’s War: The Professional and

Personal Journey of the Navy’s First African American Female Intelligence Officer

(Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2016).

(10) Christopher R. Hill, Outpost: Life on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy

(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014)

(11) Richard L. Kugler, Policy Analysis in National Security Affairs: New Methods

for a New Era (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University, 2006)

(12) Richard D. Hooker, Jr., and Joseph J. Collins, “Introduction,” in Lessons

Encountered: Learning from the Long War, ed. By Richard D. Hooker, Jr., and Joseph J.

Collins (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 2015), 1-20.

(13) James G. March and Chip Heath, A Primer on Decisionmaking: How

Decisions Happen (New York: Free Press, 1994).

(14) Stanley A. McChrystal, My Share of the Task: A Memoir (New York:

Portfolio/Penguin, 2013).

(15) Leon E. Panetta with Jim Newton, Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in

War and Peace (New York: Penguin, 2014).

(16) Joel Rayburn, Iraq after America: Strongmen, Sectarians, Resistance

(Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2014).

(17) Condoleeza Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington

(New York: Crown Publishers, 2011).

(18) Richard P. Rumelt, Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why it

Matters (New York: Crown Business, 2011).

(19) Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown: A Memoir (New York: Sentinal,

2011).

(20) George C. Tenet with Bill Harlow, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the

CIA (New York: HarperCollins, 2007).

4. Points to Consider.

a. With regard to strategy formulation, how important is it that strategists adequately

assess the “problem” before developing a strategy, and what does an adequate problem

definition entail and look like?

b. When considering the use of instruments of power over the course of a conflict, to

what degree should a reevaluation of their effects and interactions between instruments

be assessed?

c. When decisions are made by key leaders, what factors influence the degree to

which decisions about instruments of power are implemented with the intended effects

by intended actors?

BLOCK IV:

CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN GRAND STRATEGY

All States have a grand strategy, whether they know it or not. That is

inevitable because grand strategy is simply the level at which knowledge

and persuasion, or in modern terms intelligence and diplomacy, interact

with military strength to determine outcomes in a world of other states, with

their own “grand strategies.”

―Edward Luttwak

The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire, p. 409

This block further examines U.S. purpose, interests, and values as articulated in the

current National Security Strategy, and consequently America’s position in the

contemporary international order. We will focus on how the national security system

employs foresight, develops policy, formulates strategy, allocates resources, gathers

feedback, and assesses progress and outcomes. We will examine the role of DOD

strategic documents in interpreting and expanding on the National Security Strategy and

other presidential guidance, while also focusing on understanding potential strategic

options. Finally, we analyze and assess America’s strategic position, potential options and

the need and role for continuous revitalization and reform of U.S. national security

processes.

BLOCK IV OBJECTIVES

 Evaluate the role of DOD strategy documents in U.S. policy and strategy

formulation.

 Examine the President’s strategic vision and guidance.

 Evaluate America’s grand strategy and purpose in the contemporary security

environment.

INTENTIONALLY BLANK

15 November 2016

(0830-1130)

COL Scott Sanborn, 245-3307

LESSON 15: NATIONAL STRATEGIC GUIDANCE & POSTURE

Mode: Seminar NSPS-15-S

The basic principles of strategy are so simple that a child may understand

them. But to determine their proper application to a given situation requires

the hardest kind of work.

—Dwight D. Eisenhower

1. Introduction.

a. In this lesson students will study key documents that describe, inform, and

influence U.S. national security strategies. To this point in the course we have examined

a framework for developing strategy at the strategic level and during this lesson we will

look at actual documents that describe our national strategic posture, our aims and goals

and communicate the ways and means to achieve them. We begin by revisiting

President Obama’s National Security Strategy (NSS) released in February 2015. During

NSPS lesson 1, we briefly examined the NSS to identify the enduring US national

security interests. During lesson 3, we examined it to gain a better appreciation for the

US economic interests and priorities. Today we take a more holistic perspective with the

view of how the NSS informs a whole-of-government approach to achieve our ends. We

will then look at a series of supporting defense-related strategic documents: the 2012

Defense Strategic Guidance, the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and the

National Military Strategy (NMS). We will contrast this with a critique of the 2014 QDR

conducted by the congressionally appointed National Defense Panel. Finally, we will look

at two short excerpts from the 2015 and 2016 National Defense Authorization Acts to

gain insights into how Congress seeks to inform and shape the development of US

national security strategy.

b. While DOD plays its own unique role in supporting and implementing the NSS,

Congress also plays an important although less direct role. For example, the National

Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015 amended the law and changed the name

of QDR review to the Defense Strategy Review (DSR) and directs several substantive

changes to how DOD must conduct its review - including the requirement for a greater

level of specificity, an identification of tradeoffs and a greater overall articulation of

defense strategy, among others. Congress directed this adjustment based on the

perception that the QDR process had migrated away from the long-term planning

document they originally intended (a perspective also held by the 2014 NDP, a panel of

experienced national security professionals chartered to review the 2014 QDR).

c. Since strategy and policy must respond to a fluid strategic environment, change is

inevitable. Thus, the formulation of strategy and policy cannot remain static. Instead, this

formulation must be an interactive and iterative process if a state is to successfully adapt

to changing geopolitical realities and account for emerging challenges and new dynamics

such as Russian aggression against Ukraine, rising tensions in the South China Sea or

the rise of ISIL. They must address domestic considerations such as the strength or

weakness of the economy (for example what occurred during the 2008-2009 recession.)

The “monitor for success, failure, or modification” block of the strategy formulation model

represents this process of adaptation in relation to an ever-changing environment. Even

an examination of strategic documents over just a four year span beginning with the

DSG published in 2012 and extending to the NSS in 2015 provides an indication of how

these documents must evolve.

d. Previous lessons in NSPS revealed the complexity of strategy and policy

formulation in an uncertain world. There has been extensive and spirited discussion

among practitioners and scholars in the past few years regarding the future of American

grand strategy. Some have argued that the United States is incapable of formulating

such an articulation of national goals because of the lack of a foreign policy consensus.

Others contend that the dynamic nature of the strategic environment calls for new

thinking about American national security objectives in view of a changing world order,

perhaps the end of the liberal order established in the aftermath of World War II. While

still others will argue that we do have a grand strategy and the NSS is the embodiment of

it. Given these circumstances, one might rightfully ask, “What is America’s grand strategy

today?” This lesson seeks to provide a basis for answering these questions by examining

the principal documents that are meant to articulate American strategy, the complex

ways that these documents are developed and their meaning for the achievement of U.S.

national security objectives in the contemporary world.

2. Learning Outcomes. By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

a. Understand the role and vision of the National Security Strategy in relation to the

military instrument of power.

b. Understand the role and vision of DOD strategy documents in U.S. policy and

strategy formulation—the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and the National Military

Strategy (NMS).

c. Understand the Obama administration’s formal and informal strategic guidance,

and evaluate their role and implications in relation to U.S. national security interests.

d. Understand the role of Congress in guiding the direction of U.S. national security

strategy.

e. Evaluate U.S. national security strategy documents through the lens of the U.S.

Army War College Strategy Formulation Framework.

f. Synthesize key concepts, tools and processes in the development of appropriate

policy and strategy responses to national security challenges facing the United States in

the 21st Century international security environment.

3. Student Requirement.

a. Tasks. Be prepared to discuss the readings in conjunction with the learning

objectives and the points to consider.

b. Required Readings.

(1) Barack Obama, “Introduction,” National Security Strategy (Washington, D.C.:

White House, February 2015), 1-14, scan remainder,

https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2015_national_security_strategy.pdf

(accessed August 25, 2016). (Must use Firefox or Access Externally) [Online]

(2) U.S. Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review 2014

(Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Defense, March 2014), Read cover letter and

Executive Summary (III-XV); scan remainder,

http://archive.defense.gov/pubs/2014_Quadrennial_Defense_Review.pdf (accessed

August 25, 2016) Note 1. The 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)

renames the QDR the Defense Strategy Review and directs changes in how it is to

be conducted. (Must use Firefox or Access Externally) [Online]

(3) The National Defense Panel, Ensuring a Strong U.S. Defense for the Future:

The National Defense Panel Review of the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review

(Washington, DC: U.S. Institute for Peace July 2014), Read cover letter and Executive

Summary (1-7), http://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/Ensuring-a-Strong-U.S.-Defense-

for-the-Future-NDP-Review-of-the-QDR_0.pdf (accessed August 25, 2016). (Must use

Firefox or Access Externally) [Online]

(4) U.S. Congress, Carl Levin and Howard P. “Buck” McKeon National Defense

Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Congress, December

2014), Read sec. 1072 pages 226-231 (6 pages), https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CPRT-

113HPRT92738/pdf/CPRT-113HPRT92738.pdf (accessed August 25, 2016). (Must use

Firefox or Access Externally) [Online]

(5) U.S. Congress, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016

(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Congress, January 2016), Read sec. 1072 pages 226-231. (6

pages) Read sec. 1064 pages 264-265. (1 page),

https://www.congress.gov/114/bills/hr1735/BILLS-114hr1735enr.pdf (accessed August

25, 2016). (Must use Firefox or Access Externally) [Online]

(6) U.S. Department of Defense, Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for

the 21st Century (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Defense, January 2012), 1-8,

http://www.defense.gov/news/Defense_Strategic_Guidance.pdf (accessed August 25,

2016). (Must use Firefox or Access Externally) [Online]

(7) Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, The National Military

Strategy of the United States of America, (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Defense,

2015), Read Chairman’s forward (i) and main body of document I, 1-17,

http://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Publications/2015_National_Military_Strategy.p

df (accessed August 25, 2016). [Online]

c. Suggested Readings.

(1) Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2017 Defense Posture Statement: Taking

the Long View, Investing for the Future (Washington DC: US Department of Defense,

February 2016),

http://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2017DODPOSTURE_FINAL_MAR17

UpdatePage4_WEB.PDF (accessed August 25, 2016). (Must use Firefox or Access

Externally)

(2) Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 18th Chairman’s 2nd Term

Strategic Direction to the Joint Force (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Defense) 1-

4, https://www.jcs.mil/portals/36/Documents/CJCS_2nd_Term_Strategic_Direction.pdf

(accessed August 25, 2016).

(3) Colin Gray, “Politics and War” in Modern Strategy (New York: Oxford

University Press, 1999), 58-64.

(4) Aaron L. Friedberg, “The Making of American National Strategy, 1948-1988,”

The National Interest 11 (Spring 1988): 65-75.

(5) Barry Posen, “Stability and Change in U.S. Grand Strategy,” Orbis 51, no. 4

(Fall 2007): 561-67.

4. Points to Consider.

a. What is the role of strategic guidance documents? Are they a description of grand

strategy guiding foreign policy and national security decisions, whether or not that

strategy is clearly articulated? Do they provide clarity on what should be done or simply

broad contours of what the administration would like to have done? Should we consider

these documents “strategy” documents that describe a balanced application of ends,

ways and means…or are they actually “policy” documents that inform the development of

strategy over the coming months and years?

b. What are the current priorities in President Obama’s National Security Strategy?

What are the challenges or threats that have been identified? How are the national

instruments of power integrated into the 2015 NSS and how will members of the

executive branch use this document to develop a “whole of government approach”?

c What role does Congress play in developing these strategic documents? Do they

play a direct or an indirect role? What leverage does the Congress have if they don’t

believe their voice is heard?

17 November 2016

(0830-1130)

Dr. Larry Goodson, 245-3261

LESSON 16: THE 21ST CENTURY STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT

Mode: Lecture/Seminar NSPS-16-L/S

1. Introduction.

a. This lesson serves as an opportunity to consider the myriad current international

security issues facing those charged with informing or acting in the national decision-

making process. The NSPS course focuses on the students’ ability to understand and

apply the Strategy Formulation Framework to review and recommend modifications to

U.S. policy. This lesson challenges the students to draw on important course concepts

and theory along with the Strategy Formulation Framework by addressing potential

national security issues of major importance to the United States.

b. For this lesson students will read about various regional and international issues,

including the revival of Great Power politics (the Russian resurgence, the rise of China),

ISIL and the Syrian War, nuclear proliferation, and the implications of global climate

change. In seminar they will be tasked to review existing U.S. policy and strategy

regarding these complex problems that are likely to confront national security

professionals now and in the near future. Students will be required to synthesize course

material in developing their responses to the identified issues.

c. This lesson begins with an address by the NSPS capstone speaker, Ms. Anja

Manuel. Upon returning to seminar, students will engage in a thorough discussion of the

issues discussed in the readings and by the speaker and outline potential U.S. policy

and strategy considerations.

2. Learning Outcomes. By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

a. Comprehend the complexity of preparing for the emerging global security

environment in the first quarter of the 21st century and the exercise of U.S. diplomatic,

informational, military, and economic power.

b. Apply key course concepts to understand and assess a given national

security issue/threat.

c. Synthesize and apply multiple aspects of the relationship between, and the

relative importance of, the diplomatic, information, military, and economic instruments of

statecraft, with the goal of coordinating them towards a common end.

d. Apply the Strategy Formulation Framework to develop approaches for

addressing a given national security issue in the form of a policy review.

3. Student Requirements.

a. Tasks.

(1) Critically examine contemporary international security issues in the context of

U.S. interests.

(2) Explain and discuss U.S. interests in dealing with the security issues and

consider them in the context of the DIME to comprehend how integrated options might

facilitate resolution.

b. Required Readings.

(1) Michael V. Hayden, “Understanding the New Global Disorder: Three

Tectonics,” November 19, 2014, http://www.fpri.org/articles/2014/12/understanding- new-

global-disorder-three-tectonics: 1-8, (accessed August 19, 2016). [Online]

(2) Barack Obama, National Security Strategy Fact Sheet,

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/02/06/fact-sheet-2015-national-

security-strategy (accessed August 19, 2016). [Online]

c. Focused Readings.

(1) Russia

(a) Graham Allison and Dimitri K. Simes, “Russia and America: Stumbling to

War,” National Interest (April 20, 2015): 1-6, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/russia-

america-stumbling-war-12662?page=8: (accessed August 25, 2016). [Online]

(b) White House, “Remarks by President Obama at 25th Anniversary of

Freedom Day,” Warsaw, Poland, June 4, 2014, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-

office/2014/06/04/remarks-president-obama-25th-anniversary-freedom-day (accessed

August 18, 2016). [Online]

(2) China

(a) William Choong, “China’s South China Sea strategy: simply brilliant,” The

Strategist, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, May 18, 2015,

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/chinas-south-china-sea-strategy-simply-brilliant/

(accessed May 19, 2016). [Online]

(b) White House, “National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice's As Prepared

Remarks on the U.S.-China Relationship at George Washington University,” Washington,

DC, 21 September, 2015, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-

office/2015/09/21/national-security-advisor-susan-e-rices-prepared-remarks-us-china

(accessed August 18, 2016). [Online]

(3) ISIL

(a) Graeme Wood, “What ISIS Really Wants,” The Atlantic (March 2015): 1-43,

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/:

(accessed August 25, 2016). [Online]

(b) Larry P. Goodson, “The Great Middle Eastern War,” unpublished paper,

May 19, 2016. [Blackboard]

Statesman (December 15, 2015), http://www.newstatesman.com/world/middle-

east/2015/12/syrian-war-and-return-great-power-politics. (accessed August 25, 2016).

[Online]

(d) White House, “Address to the Nation by the President,” Washington, DC,

December 6, 2015, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/12/06/address-

nation-president (accessed August 18, 2016) [Online]

(4) Nuclear Nonproliferation

(a) Khurshid Khan, “Limited War Under the Nuclear Umbrella and its

Implications for South Asia,” Stimson Center Report, (June 14, 2012),

http://www.stimson.org/content/limited-war-under-nuclear-umbrella-and-its-implications-

south-asia (accessed August 25, 2016). [Online]

(b) National Nuclear Security Administration, Washington, DC, “Preventing

Proliferation of Nuclear Materials and Technology,” (Washington, DC: January 31, 2011),

https://nnsa.energy.gov/mediaroom/factsheets/dnnfactsheet2011 (accessed August 18,

2016). [Online]

Nuclear Weapon (Washington, DC: The White House),

https://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/foreign-policy/iran-deal (accessed August 18, 2016).

[Online]

(5) Climate Change

(a) NASA,“Global Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet,” Read the first

four sections under the pull-down menu entitled “Facts,” http://climate.nasa.gov/

(accessed August 26, 2016). [Online]

(b) White House, Climate Change and President Obama's Action Plan

(Washington, DC: The White House), https://www.whitehouse.gov/president-obama-

climate-action-plan (accessed August 18, 2016). [Online]

4. Points to Consider.

a. Do the current national policies create an adequate framework for strategy

formulation and development for the issues under consideration?

b. What are the potential regional and global threats, challenges and opportunities

presented by the contemporary strategic issues? How could the various instruments of

national power be used to achieve U.S. policy objectives and protect America’s national

security interests? How might these be used to further protect those interests and

objectives of allies, partners and other regional players?

c. What U.S. statutes and Congressional mandates must the Executive Branch take

into consideration as part of the policy formulation process? What potential effects does

your recommended policy or strategy have on the U.S. domestic environment? Does

your policy require changes to these statutes/mandates?

d. What possible second- or third-order consequences might be involved in any U.S.

policy response to the contemporary strategic issues considered?

18 November 2016

(0830-1130)

COL Bob Hamilton, 245-3278

LESSON 17: 21st CENTURY AMERICAN GRAND STRATEGY

Mode: Seminar NSPS-17-S

1. Introduction.

a. In this lesson, we will examine U.S. grand strategy with a focus on the near future

– the next 10-15 years. We will start by examining criticisms and recommendations for

current U.S. “grand strategy.” Of course, it is first necessary to define what we mean by

“grand strategy.” As noted in the course overview and in Lesson 1 of this course, while

we have settled on a definition of grand strategy as the use of all instruments of national

power in peace and war to support a strategic vision of America’s role in the world that

will best achieve national objectives, this definition is not used universally. While there

are multiple definitions, most of them share several key tenets. Some of the more well-

known definitions of grand strategy are below:

• B.H. Liddell Hart – strategy is about winning the war; grand strategy takes the

longer view, it is about winning the peace.

• Edwin M. Earle – grand strategy so integrates the resources of a nation that war is

either unnecessary or is undertaken with the maximum chance of victory.

• Walter A. McDougall – an equation of ends and means so sturdy that it triumphs

despite serial setbacks at the level of strategy, operations or campaigns.

• Tami Davis Biddle - grand strategy identifies and articulates a given political

actor’s security objectives at a particular point in time, and describes how they will

be achieved using a combination of instruments of power -- including military,

diplomatic, and economic instruments.

b. The shared tenets of these definitions of grand strategy imply a whole-of-

government approach; and that it takes the longer and broader view, rather than being

focused on a specific issue or region. Of course, the basic question is “does the U.S.

have a grand strategy”, or is the U.S. simply reacting to one crisis after another? We will

examine the proposed approaches to grand strategy from several noted authors in the

foreign policy/international relations field. These authors have diverse opinions about

what priorities should drive grand strategy, and what “ways” might be most effective.

Apply what you have learned in both NSPS and TWS to determine which alternatives are

more or less likely to preserve U.S. security and advance U.S. national interests.

c. For this final lesson of NSPS students are asked to prepare an outline of forward

thinking U.S. grand strategy. What should U.S. grand strategy for the next 10-15 years

be based on? What are your own beliefs about the position the U.S. should maintain in

the world? What should national interests be and how should the U.S. pursue these

interests? This grand strategy should reflect serious consideration of the array of

international and domestic security challenges facing the United States.

d. In broad terms, what major changes would your strategy require in resourcing,

military force structure, basing and employment, involvement in international

organizations, etc.? Be prepared to discuss the feasibility, acceptability, and suitability of

your choices.

2. Learning Outcomes. By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

a. Evaluate America’s objectives in the emerging international environment and the

challenges and opportunities that will shape American grand strategy.

b. Evaluate alternative grand strategies and identify or develop one that will best

posture the United States to advance its national interests over the next decade.

c. Identify and evaluate the resource implications of competing American grand

strategic options.

3. Student Requirements.

a. Tasks.

(1) Critically examine the alternative grand strategies presented in the readings

and identify the IR theories that underlie each alternative.

(2) Be prepared to discuss and explain the grand strategy you selected or

developed, to include why you believe it is best suited to advancing U.S. interests in the

emerging strategic environment.

b. Required Readings.

(1) Glenn P. Hastedt, “Alternative Futures” in American Foreign Policy: Past,

Present and Future (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), 367-79.

[Student Issue]

(2) Kevin B. Sullivan, “What American foreign policy will look like in 2050,” The

Week (April 21, 2015), http://theweek.com/articles/549004/what-american-foreign-policy-

look-like-2050 (accessed August 19, 2016). [Online]

(3) Stephen D. Krasner, “American Foreign Policy In Transition,” (Hoover

Institution, June 2, 2015), http://www.hoover.org/research/american-foreign-policy-

transition (accessed August 19, 2016). [Online]

(4) James Mattis, “A New American Grand Strategy,” (Hoover Institution,

February 26, 2015), http://www.hoover.org/research/new-american-grand-strategy

(accessed August 19, 2016). [Online]

c. Suggested Readings.

(1) Anne-Marie Brady, “Chinese Foreign Policy: A New Era Dawns,” The Diplomat

(March 17, 2014), http://thediplomat.com/2014/03/chinese-foreign-policy-a-new-era-

dawns/ (accessed August 19, 2016).

(2) Peter Harris, “Back to Balancing? Ukraine, the Status Quo, and American

Grand Strategy in 2014,” The National Interest (May 19, 2014),

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/back-balancing-ukraine-the-status-quo-american-

grand-10487 (accessed August 19, 2016).

(3) Charles Kupchan, “Grand Strategy: The Four Pillars of the Future,”

Democracy 23 (Winter 2012): 9-18 in PROQUEST (accessed August 19, 2016).

(4) Robert D. Kaplan & Stephen S. Kaplan, “America Primed,” The National

Interest 112 (March/April 2011): 42-54 in PROQUEST (accessed August 19, 2016).

(5) Joseph Nye, “The Future of American Power: Dominance and Decline in

Perspective,” Foreign Affairs (November/December 2010): 2-12 in PROQUEST (accessed

August 19, 2016).

(6) Brent Scowcroft, “The World in Transformation,” The National Interest 119

(May/June 2012): 7-9 in PROQUEST (accessed August 19, 2016).

4. Points to Consider.

a. Should the quest to maintain American primacy, of itself, be a driving force behind

U.S. behavior in the world? Can you envision ways in which a determined quest for

ongoing primacy might be detrimental to long-term U.S. interests?

b. If not maintenance of American primacy, what should be the central tenet of an

American grand strategy? Is it possible to develop a grand strategy that promotes U.S.

interests while also promoting the interests of key allies and potential adversaries?

c. What are the risks inherent in various grand strategy options? How might allies and

potential adversaries react to changes in American behavior resulting from a shift in

grand strategy?

INTENTIONALLY BLANK

APPENDIX I

GUIDELINES FOR STRATEGY FORMULATION

1. General. Strategy is an art. It is also somewhat scientific, in that it follows certain

patterns that require a common understanding of terminology, adherence to certain

principles, and disciplined, albeit creative, thought processes. Remember that these

strategy formulation guidelines are not formulas. Strategy will be developed in keeping

with the particular features of the time, place and personalities involved. Nevertheless,

these guidelines offer an approach to address the complexity of strategy, and are

intended for strategists attempting to achieve the coherence, continuity, and consensus

that policymakers seek in designing, developing and executing national security and

military strategies.

2. National Purpose. This is the starting point for the entire process. Enduring values and

beliefs embodied in the national purpose represent the legal, philosophical and moral

basis for continuation of the American system. From the nation’s purpose—as well as an

understanding of the nation’s domestic and global needs—the United States derives its

enduring core national interests. The strategist should return to these considerations in

terms of risk assessment at every derivative level of strategy formulation.

3. National Interests. There are four generally agreed upon core U.S. national interests:

physical security—defined as protection against attack on the territory and people of the

United States in order to ensure survival with fundamental values and institutions intact;

promotion of values; stable international order; and economic prosperity. These have

changed little during the course of U.S. history with the Preamble to our Constitution

declaring that its purpose was to “provide for the common defense, promote the general

Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

4. Strategic Vision. At the grand strategic level, the ways and means to achieve U.S. core

national interests are based on the national leadership’s strategic vision of what

America’s role in the world should be to safeguard these national interests. All

administrations focus on national interests, but the administration perspective is shaped

by assessments of threats and opportunities by senior advisors, personal beliefs of the

President, and the decision making process and culture established by the President.

Through these aspects and the unique circumstances of each administration, presidents

establish different strategic visions of America’s role in the world, often causing them to

emphasize certain national interests over others. As noted in lesson 1, a consideration of

grand strategy – in other words, thinking about the use of all instruments of national

power in peace and war to support a strategic vision of America’s role in the world that

will best achieve national objectives – can be seen as inherent in the process of defining

one’s strategic vision. However, grand strategy is rarely articulated as a cohesive,

structured, and concise document or set of ideas such as in NSC-68. Thus strategic

vision may serve as a more graspable concept that incorporates the myriad of ways in

which an administration communicates its perception of the world and the future path of a

nation.

a. From the founding of the American republic to the present day, national leaders and

the populace have embraced a variety of views on how best to attain U.S. national

interests. These views have ranged from isolationism, that is, a non-interventionist

stance, to global engagement.

b. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, for example, led the nation in a time of global

economic depression followed by a massive world war during which he moved the

American grand strategic vision from non-intervention in European affairs to active global

engagement with numerous nation-states to defeat Nazi Germany. Within five years of

the end of the Second World War, President Harry Truman articulated a grand strategic

vision of global engagement with the focus on containing an expansionist Soviet Union

that the United States feared would dominate Eurasia. To meet that challenge, the

Truman administration made substantial investments in U.S. military power. The grand

strategy of containment dominated U.S. strategic thinking until the dissolution of the

Soviet Union in 1991. Today the United States maintains a strong commitment to global

engagement, albeit with shifts in the application of ways and means, that is subject to

tensions created by competing interests in sustaining continuity in favorable aspects of

the international order while at the same time pursuing beneficial changes to that order.

5. National Policy. Based on grand strategic decisions, the United States political

leadership provides national policy in the form of broad guidance concerning America’s

global role in pursuit of core national interests. These published and public policies are

only the start point for strategy formulation at the national level. National policy is

conveyed in many iterative and cumulative forms ranging from formal national security

directives and pronouncements in presidential and cabinet-level speeches to presidential

replies to press queries and cabinet-level appearances on current affairs television

shows. An astute and informed participant in U.S. policy and strategy must work

constantly to understand, interpret, and align his or her agency or institution with

overarching policy.

6. Strategy Formulation Process.

a. General:

(1) Inherent in this strategy process is an appropriate degree of analysis designed

to illuminate alternatives in the face of recognized uncertainties. A general outline for this

phase of a strategy process follows:

(a) Identify and determine U.S. interests.

(b) Determine level of intensity for each interest.

regard to interests.

(d) Identify policy objectives (ends).

(e) Consider alternative concepts (ways) that use resources (means) to

achieve objectives.

(f) Determine the feasibility, acceptability and suitability of the strategic options.

(g) Conduct a risk assessment.

(h) Present strategy recommendations.

(2) The analysis must be more than a listing of challenges. To be useful, it must

examine and explain which and in what ways U.S. interests are affected. The analysis

should seek to identify opportunities and threats to U.S. interests. As a consequence, the

strategic analysis may not only be influenced by current national policy, but may help

identify recommendations for policy makers to consider for changes to existing policies or

for the creation of new policies. The analysis should address most (if not all) of the

following questions:

(a) What is the current U.S. policy or precedent?

(b) Who are the critical actors?

(d) With whom does the United States have convergence or divergence of

interest/policy?

(e) What are the other feasible options to employ U.S. power to implement the

strategy options under consideration?

(f) How will the strategy be sustained?

(3) The strategy formulation guidelines delineated above can apply equally to all

formal national security documents (i.e., National Security Strategy, National Military

Strategy, theater military strategy, etc.). The strategist must be able to develop strategies

employing all of the elements of power. Students at the USAWC will develop and practice

these skills in NSPS, elective courses, and the National Security Staff Rides. Remember,

the formulation of strategy at any level employs the strategic thought process based on

the balancing of Ends, Ways, and Means.

b. National Interests. During the strategy formulation process, the strategist moves

beyond the core grand strategic interests to more specific national security interests

derived from those core interests in accordance with national policy. These national

security interests provide more detail to the nation’s needs and aspirations, in terms of the

relationship between the foreign and domestic aspects of national security, and are thus

the start point for defining policy objectives for national security related strategies.

(1) As a rule of thumb, interests are stated as fundamental concerns of the nation,

and written as desirable conditions without verbs, action modifiers, or intended actions.

For example, U.S. national interests might be stated as:

(a) Access to raw materials – (not “Protect sources of raw materials”).

(b) Unrestricted passage through international waters – (not “Secure sea lines

of communications”).

(2) Intensity of interests: Determining the level of intensity helps to determine

priority of interests, recognizing that without prioritization, there is the potential for

unlimited derivative objectives and the consequent mismatch of those policy objectives

(ends) with resources (means). Degrees of intensity are determined by answering the

question: What happens if the interest is not realized? The U.S. Army War College uses

the following four degrees of intensity to classify interests:

(a) Survival/Existential: if not attained, will have catastrophic results for the

nation

(b) Vital: if unfulfilled, will have immediate consequences for national interests.

national interests.

(d) Peripheral: if unfulfilled, will result in damage that is unlikely to affect

national interests.

c. Ends-Ways-Means:

(1) Objectives are derived from national policy and from a detailed consideration

of United States’ national interests by category and intensity against the backdrop of

issues, trends and challenges (threats and opportunities) that affect those interests.

Based on these objectives, strategists then consider alternative concepts and courses of

action for the use of the national elements of power. Note the primacy of the objectives—

strategy should be ends-driven, not resource-driven, in order to ensure maximum

opportunity to achieve the objectives.

(2) Identifying and defining the policy objective (end), therefore, is a critical first

step in the strategy formulation process. Understanding the objective is critical to

formulating strategy.

(3) Once the policy objective is identified, strategists consider the range of

resources (means) available, and then examine potential ways to employ these resources

in pursuit of the objectives. While strategy should remain ends-focused, ways are

necessarily resource-constrained. (For example: Unless a state has nuclear weapons, the

concept of nuclear deterrence cannot be adopted in developing its security strategy, that

is, there is no “mutually assured destruction.” Therefore, the state must find alternative

ways to enhance security or deter attack by a nuclear-capable adversary.)

d. Feasibility, Suitability, and Acceptability (FAS): Once potential strategy options are

identified, each option must be examined to determine feasibility (Are the means available

to execute the ways?), acceptability (Does it have necessary constituent support? Is it

legal? Ethical? Worth the cost?) and suitability (Will it achieve the objectives?). This

evaluation process, often described as a “FAS test,” enables the strategist to evaluate the

likelihood of success for each option and to select that strategy deemed most likely to

attain the objectives with available means and in an acceptable way. Before a final

strategy is recommended or adopted, however, each option must also be subjected to a

risk assessment.

e. Risk Assessment: Strategies at any level often lack resources or the ability to

employ resources in a manner sufficient for complete assurance of success. As a result, a

final and essential test is to assess the risk to attainment of policy objectives, as well as

the risk of second- and third-order effects that implementation of the strategy could have

(i.e., effects on the economy, relationships with allies, etc.). Eliminating all risk is rarely

within reach. Being able to articulate its character and extent is the first step in reducing

its impact.

f. Continuous Assessment (Monitor for Success, Failure or Modification). Strategies

rarely submit to linear and discrete parameters, hence, the last step shown in the

Strategy Formulation Frameowrk is one of continuous assessment to monitor or review

the strategy as it is being implemented. Continuous assessment should be a formalized,

recurring process during the life of the strategy that evaluates the strategy’s effectiveness

in attaining policy objectives. The strategic environment is dynamic and continuous

change is inherent. Strategies that are successful may present new opportunities or

require a new strategy to account for the conditions of success. Strategies that are failing

beg for replacement. In addition, unforeseen changes in the strategic environment may

occur that justify modification of some aspects of an existing strategy, but are not

significant enough to invalidate the greater whole of the strategy. Lastly, national interests

and policy can also change over time and as a result new strategies or modification(s) to

existing strategies may be appropriate. Ideally, properly formulated strategy is

constructed with inherent flexibility and adaptability in its statements of ways and means

to serve particular ends. Continuous changes beyond requirements of success, failure

and changed conditions, beyond the control of the formulators of the strategy, may be

indicators of poor strategic thinking or a flawed strategy formulation process.

Nonetheless, both the strategic environment and the strategy are continuously assessed

to ensure strategy supports the directing policy and interests appropriately.

APPENDIX II

COURSE WRITING REQUIREMENTS and GUIDELINES

1. General. During the NSPS course, each student will complete two written

requirements consisting of a short decision paper detailing a proposed strategy and a

longer paper intended to provide background information on the issue and the reason

for the decision recommended. These papers will be graded as a single assignment and

together will comprise 70% of the final course grade. Specific requirements follow.

2. Decision Paper.

a. Purpose. The primary purpose of the papers is to further your ability to think

critically and analytically about national security policy. To accomplish this goal you will

have to synthesize and apply material learned throughout the course. Because

synthesizing and articulating policy in a short amount of time or space is a key leader

skill, a secondary purpose of both papers is to improve your ability to prepare succinct

written products that provide relevant depth of analysis and a sound recommendation.

b. Requirement. A decision paper provides a very brief yet comprehensive analysis

of an issue, explains to the decision-maker the impact of the decision he or she is being

asked to make, and provides a recommendation. This requirement will test your ability

to synthesize large amounts of information into a brief paper designed to allow a senior

leader to make an important decision in an environment where time is at a premium

and an exhaustive review of the issue’s background is often not possible. The paper

must be concise in framing the issue and possible options available. Concise

background analysis must directly relate to the decision, and may include a history of

the problem as it relates to the decision (why the decision must be made now and what

decisions or events led us to have to make this policy decision).

c. The decision paper will be one page, single-spaced, using one inch

margins. Font should be Arial 12 pitch.

(1) Issue. A brief statement of the policy that requires a strategy for

implementation.

(2) Background. A concise overview of relevant information to allow a decision-

maker to understand the issue and make an informed decision. This section should

include:

a. Strategies considered to implement this policy, using the ends-ways-

means construct.

b. Historical or other information relevant to the decision.

c. Impact, or why the issue is important and the decision must be made now.

(3) Recommendation.

a. Begin with a brief statement of the recommended strategy and supporting

rationale.

b. Compare the recommended strategy with those not recommended.

c. Test the recommended strategy using the FAS-R test (save the testing of

the strategies not recommended for the longer background paper).

NOTE: This section should not include any new information or decision criteria not

already included in your previous analysis.

3. Background Paper. This paper will conduct a more detailed analysis of the policy

decision assigned by each Seminar’s FI and more comprehensively describe, compare

and test the various strategies considered to implement it. In addition, this paper allows

space for detailed historical background on the policy decision under consideration. As

opposed to the decision paper, which is designed to be written in a spare, economical

style, with as few words as possible used to express points or concepts, this paper is

more academic in style, and more detail is appropriate. The background paper is

usually written first, and then the decision paper condenses the key points and

recommendations of the background paper into a format and style that allows a senior

policy-maker to make an informed decision in a time-constrained environment.

a. Purpose. The purpose of this paper is to provide the decision-maker more

detailed, comprehensive analysis of and background on the issue under consideration,

in the event he or she feels this level of detail is required in order to make a decision.

b. Requirement. The core of this requirement consists of 6-8 pages per the provided

format. The paper must articulate the policy objective and executive decision. The

paper must outline possible strategic options available for consideration.

Background analysis must directly relate to the strategic options.

c. Format. The paper will have 6-8 double spaced pages, using one-inch

margins. Font should be Arial 12 pitch. While the focus of the paper is on content,

each background paper must adhere to a general format and contain certain

essential elements:

(1) Policy Decision and Objective(s): An articulation of the policy decision that

requires a strategy. A description of the policy objective and ends defined in the Policy

Decision.

(2) Background (National Interests): A statement of the national interests

affected by the policy decision and strategy implementation.

(3) Strategy Options.

a. Describe, in a few paragraphs, strategies considered for the proposed policy

option to achieve the stated policy objective. In short, what are the strategies the U.S.

could select to implement the policy option? For each strategy discussed, tie together

the objectives/ends with the ways and means needed to achieve the objective. The

strategy should take into consideration all elements of national power, as well as key

domestic and global forces and trends, as detailed in the Strategy Formulation

Framework (there is no requirement to discuss all of these; instead, discuss only those

that play key roles in the strategies under consideration).

b. The strategy should describe how the elements of national power complement

each other, whether and how they might operate together, or how they might

comprehensively support the strategy. You also should identify if any conflict exists

between the elements of power. Does the strategy rely primarily on only one of the

elements of power (military, or economic, or diplomatic, etc.)? If so, why? Does this

increase risk?

(4) Analysis and Comparison of Strategy Options: Evaluate each proposed

strategy option in terms of feasibility, acceptability, suitability, and risk. Address

second- or third-order consequences of the strategy. What is the desired response?

What is the anticipated response? What critical indicators might require a revision of

the proposed strategy? What actions can mitigate risk?

(5) Recommendation: Briefly restate the strategy recommended to implement

the policy option given, and explain why you chose it. What are its advantages - in

terms of the integration of instruments of national power, and in terms of the FAS-R

test – over those strategies not chosen?

4. Evaluation. Both papers will be evaluated based on content, organization, and style,

IAW the Communicative Arts Program Directive, with emphasis on content. The criteria

for evaluating the papers will address the student’s demonstrated ability to understand

and apply course concepts, to organize material logically, to express thoughts using

standard written English expected of educated senior officers and officials. Descriptions

of the criteria for “Outstanding,” “Exceeds Standards,” “Meets Standards,” “Needs

Improvement,” and “Fails to Meet Standards” are found in the Communicative Arts

Directive. A paper evaluated as “Needs Improvement” or "Fails to Meet Standards" will

be returned for rework and resubmission. Each paper will comprise 50 percent of the

written component of the NSPS grade and the written component will comprise 70

percent of the overall NSPS grade.

5. Due Dates. Both papers are due to DNSS Faculty Instructors no later than

close of business on Friday, 18 November 2016.

6. Sample Paper formats: Format examples are included below. NOTE: Organizations

and agencies within the U.S. government policy process use various formats for papers

designed to frame decisions for its strategic leaders. The sample policy paper

represented here is not intended to reflect the required format of any particular agency

of government. However, for purposes of synthesizing course content, the example

provided is similar to papers that might be used within the Office of the Secretary of

Defense.

DECISION PAPER

TO: SECRETARY OF DEFENSE Date XX XXX XX

THRU: UNDERSECRETARY OF DEFENSE (POLICY)

FROM: ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

(INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS)

SUBJECT: (Hypothetical Example). Strategy for Military Assistance to Ukraine

1. ISSUE: The President has approved in principle a package of military assistance to

Ukraine to allow it to combat Russian-backed separatists in the east of the country. A

National Security Council meeting has been scheduled for XX XXX XX to decide the

form this assistance will take.

2. BACKGROUND: The ongoing separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine has recently

expanded, with the cease-fire breaking down and Russian-backed separatists driving on

the key port city of Mariupol. The President has authorized an immediate expansion of

the U.S. military training mission to Ukraine and has requested options for provision of

military equipment to Ukraine. ASD/ISA proposes the following strategy options, each of

which has the proposed ends of halting further separatist military advances and

stabilizing the conflict to allow the pursuit of a negotiated political settlement.

a. Expand the ongoing military training mission but do not provide equipment.

b. Provide defensive weapons only. Defensive weapons are defined here as

individual protective equipment, anti-aircraft and anti-armor weapons and

counter-artillery radars.

c. Provide significant military equipment to Ukraine, to include all of the items listed

above as well as night vision and communications equipment and armored

vehicles.

A decision is requested by XX XXX XX in order to allow ASD/ISA to prepare for the

NSC meeting on this issue, scheduled for XX XXX XX.

3. RECOMMENDATION: ASD/ISA recommends you select strategy X listed above.

a. Discuss the suitability of the strategy proposed by explaining how it supports the

ends of the policy.

b. Briefly discuss the proposed strategy’s acceptability to key audiences (Congress,

regional allies and partners, the American people, etc.).

c. Briefly discuss the feasibility of the strategy by detailing the means required to

implement it.

d. Discuss and risk inherent in the strategy and how this will be mitigated (or

whether the risk can be accepted).

BACKGROUND PAPER

TO: SECRETARY OF DEFENSE Date XX XXX XX

THRU: UNDERSECRETARY OF DEFENSE (POLICY)

FROM: ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

(INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS)

SUBJECT: (Hypothetical Example). Strategy for Military Assistance to Ukraine

1. POLICY DECISION AND OBJECTIVES: On XX XXX XX the President approved in

principle a package of military assistance to Ukraine to allow it to combat Russian-

backed separatists in the east of the country. A National Security Council meeting has

been scheduled for XX XXX XX to decide the form this assistance will take. The stated

objectives of this policy are XX, XX, and XX. Given the advance of separatist forces on

the key port city of Mariupol, the President wants the expanded package of assistance

to begin arriving as soon as possible to provide a visible sign of support to the Ukrainian

government.

2. BACKGROUND / NATIONAL INTERESTS: A statement of the national interests this

strategy will pursue, protect, or advance.

3. STRATEGY OPTIONS: A statement of each strategy option, followed by an

articulation of the ends, ways, and means inherent in each. Discuss how each strategy

option will advance U.S. interests and support the policy decision. Discuss how each

strategy proposed would integrate the instruments of national power (DIME), or whether

it relies mostly or wholly on a single instrument.

4. ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON OF STRATEGY OPTIONS: Compare each strategy

option in terms of its feasibility, acceptability, suitability and risk. When discussing

acceptability, ensure to address the strategy option’s acceptability to all key audiences

(Congress, other executive branch departments and agencies, the media, the American

people/interest groups, key allies and partners, others?). Discuss how risk can be

mitigated or whether it can be accepted. Discuss the potential reactions of any

adversaries to each strategy option, and the potential second and third order effects of

each strategy option. Discuss what the indicators might be that the strategy option is in

need of revision once it has been implemented.

5. RECOMMENDATION: Recommend one of the strategy options and explain why it

best achieves the stated ends of the policy it is meant to implement. Review the ways

and means to be used in the strategy and the instruments of national power to be

employed, as well is its advantages over the strategy options not chosen in terms of the

FAS-R test and the risk inherent in it.

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APPENDIX III

NSPS STUDENT CRITIQUE

1. Analyses of student views of the USAWC courses are an extremely important input

to the curriculum planning process. The course evaluation consists of a computer-

assisted questionnaire. You can access the computerized survey system through the

Student drop down menu on the USAWC Homepage.

2. You will be contacted via email once the computer survey is available, and you will

be notified of the desired completion date at that time. Questions on the survey should

be directed to the Director of Curriculum Evaluation, 245-3365.

3. The stated objectives of “National Security Policy and Strategy” are on page 2 of the

Course Directive. For your convenience, they are listed below. Please review them prior

to completing the course evaluation survey.

a. Analyze the process of national security policy and strategy formulation and the

major factors that influence this process.

b. Analyze and understand contemporary and emerging international security

challenges and their impact on the national security agenda.

c. Synthesize key concepts, tools, and processes in the development of appropriate

policy and strategy responses to national security challenges facing the United States in

the 21st Century international security environment.

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APPENDIX IV

SCHOOL OF STRATEGIC LANDPOWER PROGRAM LEARNING OUTCOMES

MISSION

Produce strategic leaders and ideas invaluable to the Army, Joint Force, and Nation.

AY17 INSTITUTIONAL LEARNING OUTCOME

Our graduates are intellectually prepared to preserve peace, deter aggression and,

when necessary, achieve victory in war. In pursuit of these goals, they study and confer

on the great problems of national defense, military science, and responsible command.

Achieving the outcomes requires proficiency in four domains of knowledge:

 Theory of war and peace

 U.S. national security policy, processes, and management

 Military and unified theater operations

 Command and leadership

And the ability and commitment to:

 Think critically, creatively, and strategically.

 Frame national security challenges in their historical, social, political, and

economic contexts.

 Promote a military culture that reflects the values and ethic of the Profession of

Arms.

 Listen, read, speak, and write effectively.

 Advance the intellectual, moral, and physical development of oneself and one’s

subordinates.

AY17 PROGRAM LEARNING OUTCOMES (PLOs)

The School of Strategic Landpower (SSL) establishes PLOs that delineate critical fields

of knowledge and appropriate jurisdictions of practice for our students to master. The

core competence of our graduates is leadership in the global application of strategic land

power.

To accomplish this mission, SSL presents a curriculum designed to produce graduates

who can:

PLO 1: Evaluate theories of war and strategy in the context of national security decision

making.

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PLO 2: Analyze, adapt, and develop military processes, organizations, and capabilities

to achieve national defense objectives.

PLO 3: Apply strategic and operational art to develop strategies and plans that employ

the military instrument of power in pursuit of national aims.

PLO 4: Evaluate the nature, concepts, and components of strategic leadership and

synthesize their responsible application.

PLO 5: Think critically and creatively in addressing security issues at the strategic level.

PLO 6: Communicate clearly, persuasively, and candidly.

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APPENDIX V

SERVICE SENIOR-LEVEL COLLEGE JOINT LEARNING AREAS AND

OBJECTIVES (JPME-II)

The REP and DEP curricula address requirements for JLAs and JLOs derived from

CJCSI 1800.01E, Officer Professional Military Education Policy (OPMEP), 29 May

2015.

1. Overview. Service SLCs develop strategic leaders who can think critically and apply

military power in support of national objectives in a joint, interagency,

intergovernmental, and multinational environment. Service War Colleges hone student

expertise and competency on their respective Service's roles, missions, and principal

operating domains and focus on integrating them into the joint force, unfettered by

Service parochialism across the range of military operations.

2. Mission. Each Service SLC is unique in mission and functional support. However, a

fundamental objective of each is to prepare future military and civilian leaders for high-

level policy, command and staff responsibilities requiring joint and Service operational

expertise and warfighting skills by educating them on the instruments of national power

(diplomatic, informational, military and economic), the strategic security environment

and the effect those instruments have on strategy formulation, implementation, and

campaigning. The goal is to develop agile and adaptive leaders with the requisite

values, strategic vision, and thinking skills to keep pace with the changing strategic

environment. SLC subject matter is inherently joint; JPME at this level focuses on the

immersion of students in a joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational

environment and completes educational requirements for JQO (level 3) nomination.

3. Learning Area 1 - National Strategies.

a. Apply key strategic concepts, critical thinking, and analytical frameworks to

formulate and execute strategy.

b. Analyze the integration of all instruments of national power in complex, dynamic,

and ambiguous environments to attain objectives at the national and theater-strategic

levels.

c. Evaluate historical and/or contemporary security environments and applications

of strategies across the range of military operations.

d. Apply strategic security policies, strategies, and guidance used in developing

plans across the range of military operations and domains to support national

objectives.

e. Evaluate how the capabilities and limitations of the U.S. Force structure affect the

development and implementation of security, defense, and military strategies.

104

4. Learning Area 2 - Joint Warfare, Theater Strategy, and Campaigning for Traditional

and Irregular Warfare in a Joint, Interagency, Intergovernmental, and Multinational

Environment.

a. Evaluate the principles of joint operations, joint military doctrine, joint functions

(command and control, intelligence, fires, movement and maneuver, protection and

sustainment), and emerging concepts across the range of military operations.

b. Evaluate how theater strategies, campaigns, and major operations achieve

national strategic goals across the range of military operations.

c. Apply an analytical framework that addresses the factors politics, geography,

society, culture, and religion play in shaping the desired outcomes of policies,

strategies, and campaigns.

d. Analyze the role of OCS in supporting Service capabilities and joint functions to

meet strategic objectives considering the effects contracting and contracted support

have on the operational environment.

e. Evaluate how strategic level plans anticipate and respond to surprise,

uncertainty, and emerging conditions.

f. Evaluate key classical, contemporary, and emerging concepts, including IO and

cyberspace operations, doctrine and traditional/irregular approaches to war.

5. Learning Area 3 - National and Joint Planning Systems and Processes for the

Integration of JIIM Capabilities.

a. Analyze how DOD, interagency and intergovernmental structures, processes,

and perspectives reconcile, integrate, and apply national ends, ways and means.

b. Analyze the operational planning and resource allocation processes.

c. Evaluate the integration of joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and

multinational capabilities, including all Service and Special Operations Forces, in

campaigns across the range of military operations in achieving strategic objectives.

d. Value a joint perspective and appreciate the increased power available to

commanders through joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational efforts.

e. Analyze the likely attributes of the future joint force and the challenges faced to

plan, organize, prepare, conduct, and assess operations.

6. Learning Area 4 - Command. Control and Coordination.

a. Evaluate the strategic-level options available in the joint, interagency,

intergovernmental, and multinational environment.

105

b. Analyze the factors of Mission Command as it relates to mission objectives,

forces, and capabilities that support the selection of a command and control option.

c. Analyze the opportunities and challenges affecting command and control created

in the joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational environment across the

range of military operations, to include leveraging networks and technology.

7. Learning Area 5 - Strategic Leadership and the Profession of Arms.

a. Evaluate the skills, character attributes, and behaviors needed to lead in a

dynamic joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational strategic environment.

b. Evaluate critical strategic thinking, decision-making, and communication by

strategic leaders.

c. Evaluate how strategic leaders develop innovative organizations capable of

operating in dynamic, complex, and uncertain environments; anticipate change; and

respond to surprise and uncertainty.

d. Evaluate how strategic leaders communicate a vision; challenge assumptions;

and anticipate, plan, implement and lead strategic change in complex joint or combined

organizations.

e. Evaluate historic and contemporary applications of the elements of mission

command by strategic-level leaders in pursuit of national objectives.

f. Evaluate how strategic leaders foster responsibility, accountability, selflessness

and trust in complex joint or combined organizations.

g. Evaluate how strategic leaders establish and sustain an ethical climate among

joint and combined forces, and develop/preserve public trust with their domestic

citizenry.

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APPENDIX VI

AY 17 THEMES

ENDURING THEMES

Elihu Root’s challenge provides the underpinnings for enduring themes within the

USAWC curriculum. The enduring themes stimulate intellectual growth by providing

continuity and perspective as we analyze contemporary issues.

ENDURING THEMES ACROSS THE CORE CURRICULUM:

 Strategic Leadership and the exercise of discretionary judgment

o Evaluate leadership at the strategic level (national security policy and

strategy, especially in war)

o Understand the profession’s national security clients and its appropriate

jurisdictions of practice

o Evaluate leadership of large, national security organizations

o Evaluate strategic thinking about the future

o Analyze the framework for leading and managing strategic change,

specifically the components of organizational change and the process by

which organizations change

 Relationship of Policy and Strategy (relationship between ends, ways, and

means)

o Analyze how to accomplish national security aims to win wars

o Analyze how to connect military actions to larger policy aims

o Analyze how to resource national security

o Evaluate international relations as the context for national security.

 Instruments of national power and potential contributions to national security

o Comprehend Diplomatic Power

o Comprehend Informational power

o Evaluate Military Power

o Comprehend economic power

 Professional ethics

o Evaluate the ethics of military operations (to include jus in bello and post

bello)

o Evaluate the ethics of war and the use of force (to include jus ad bello)

o Evaluate the ethics of service to society (domestic civil-military relations)

 Civil-military relations

o Evaluate relationships between military and civilian leadership

o Evaluate relationships between the military and domestic society

o Evaluate relationships between armed forces and foreign populations

 Instruments of war and national security

o Joint: Evaluate the capabilities and domains of joint forces (especially

land, maritime, air, space, cyber)

107

o Interagency: Understand other U.S. government agencies and

departments.

o Intergovernmental; Understand potential relationships with other national

governments.

o Multinational: Understand potential relationships with armed forces or

agencies of other nations/coalition partners.

 History as a vehicle for understanding strategic alternatives

o Identify and analyze relevant historical examples of strategic leadership

and strategic choices (across time and around the world)

o Evaluate historical examples relevant to war and other national security

endeavors

ENDURING LANDPOWER THEME (BY CORE COURSE)

National Security Policy and Strategy: Evaluate Army/landpower and its scope in

addressing national security policy aims. Analyze the diversity of landpower

requirements over time (hence requirement for flexibility).

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APPENDIX VII

BLOOM’S TAXONOMY *

Benjamin Bloom created this taxonomy for categorizing level of abstraction that

commonly occurs in educational settings. The taxonomy provides a useful structure in

which to categorize learning objectives and questions.

Level

Illustrative Level

Definitions

Knowledge

arrange, define, describe,

identify, know, label, list,

match, memorize, name,

order, outline, recognize,

relate, recall, repeat,

reproduce, select, state

Remembering previously

learned information.

Comprehension

classify, comprehend,

convert, define, discuss,

distinguish, estimate,

explain, express, extend,

generalize, give

example(s), identify,

indicate, infer, locate,

paraphrase, predict,

recognize, rewrite, report,

restate, review, select,

summarize, translate

Grasping the meaning of

information.

Application

apply, change, choose,

compute, demonstrate,

discover, dramatize,

employ, illustrate,

interpret, manipulate,

modify, operate, practice,

predict, prepare, produce,

relate, schedule, show,

sketch, solve, use, write

Applying knowledge to

actual situations.

Analysis

analyze, appraise,

breakdown, calculate,

categorize, classify,

compare, contrast,

criticize, derive, diagram,

differentiate, discriminate,

distinguish, examine,

experiment, identify,

illustrate, infer, interpret,

model, outline, point out,

question, related, select,

separate, subdivide, test

Breaking down objects or

ideas into simpler parts

and seeing how the parts

relate and are organized.

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Synthesis

arrange, assemble,

categorize, collect,

combine, comply,

compose, construct,

create, design, develop,

devise, explain,

formulate, generate, plan,

prepare, propose,

rearrange, reconstruct,

relate, reorganize, revise,

rewrite, set up,

summarize, synthesize,

tell, write

Rearranging component

ideas into a new whole.

Evaluating

appraise, argue, assess,

attach, choose, compare,

conclude, contrast,

defend, Evaluating

describe, discriminate,

estimate, evaluate,

explain, judge, justify,

interpret, relate, predict,

rate, select, summarize,

support, value

Making judgments based

on internal evidence or

external criteria.

Creating

categorize, combine,

compile, compose,

create, devise, design,

explain, generate, modify,

organize, plan, rearrange,

reconstruct, relate,

reorganize, revise,

rewrite, summarize

Building a structure or

pattern from diverse

elements.

* Adapted from: Bloom, B.S. (Ed.) (1956) Taxonomy of educational objectives: The

classification of educational goals: Handbook I, cognitive domain. New York; Toronto:

Longmans, Green.

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APPENDIX VIII

OFFSITE ACCESS TO COURSE READINGS AND

LIBRARY DATABASES

EZproxy - Enables access to licensed database content when you are not in Root Hall.

It operates as an intermediary server between your computer and the Library's

subscription databases.

Links - You will find EZproxy links to full text readings in online syllabi, directives,

bibliographies, reading lists, and emails. Usually, instructors and librarians provide

these links so that you can easily access course materials anytime, anywhere. It also

helps us comply with copyright law and saves money on the purchase of copyright

permissions.

Library Databases - You can use EZproxy to access Library databases when you are

away from Root Hall. Go to the Library's webpage http://usawc.libguides.com/current,

click on any database in the Library Databases column, such as ProQuest, EBSCO

OmniFile, or FirstSearch, and then use your EZproxy username and password to login.

Username and Password - From home, when you click on a link that was built using

EZproxy, or you are accessing a particular database, you will be prompted to provide a

username and password. You only need to do this once per session. You will find

EZproxy login information on the wallet-size card you were given by the Library. If you

have misplaced yours, just ask at the Access Services Desk for another card, contact

us by phoning (717) 245-4288 or email [email protected]

[email protected]. You can also access the library portal from

the Army War College homepage: https://internal.carlisle.army.mil/Pages/default.aspx.

Please do not share EZproxy login information with others.

Impact of Firewalls - Most Internet service providers (ISPs) do not limit the areas you

can access on the Internet, so home users should not encounter problems with

firewalls. However, corporate sites often do employ firewalls and may be highly

restrictive in what their employees can access, which can impede EZproxy.

ACCESS SOLUTIONS

Try Again! Many problems with EZproxy are caused simply by login errors. If your first

a Page Not Found message after you do login, use the Back button and click on the link

again. It may work the second time.

Broken Link - If a link appears to be broken, you can find the article by using the

appropriate database instead. Go to the Library's webpage

111

http://usawc.libguides.com/current, click on the database name, type in your EZproxy

username and password to login, and then search for the specific article.

Browsers - EZproxy works independently from operating systems and browsers, but

problems may be caused by your browser if you have not downloaded and installed the

newest version. Also, it is a good idea to check to make sure that the security settings

on your browser are not too restrictive and that it will accept cookies and allow popups.

Be aware ISPs that use proprietary versions of browsers, such as AOL, can interfere

with EZproxy. A simple workaround is to connect to your provider, minimize the window,

and then open a browser such as Mozilla Firefox or Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Databases - Not all remote access problems are caused by EZproxy. Occasionally

databases will have technical problems. Deleting cookies might help. You may

successfully pass through EZproxy only to find an error caused by the database. If this

happens, back out of the database and try using another one. It is unlikely that both

providers would be having technical problems at the same time.

Help and Tips - For assistance, please contact the USAWC Research Librarians by

phoning (717) 245-3660, or email: usarmy.carli[email protected].

Blackboard Access – All syllabus and digitally available media will be made available

at Blackboard.com at

https://proedchallenge.blackboard.com/webapps/login/?action=relogin, please contact

Mr. Christopher Smart at Christopher.a.smart.civ@mail.mil, or 245-4874.

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APPENDIX IX

PROGRAM LEARNING OUTCOMES CURRICULUM MAP

113

APPENDIX X

JOINT LEARNING AREAS AND OUTCOMES CURRICULUM MAP

114

This document contains educational material designed to promote discussion by students of the

U.S. Army War College. It does not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of the Army