The instruments of national power : achieving the strategic advantage in a changing world

Abstract

This thesis employs the historical method to illustrate that the central aim of U.S. basic national security policy and strategy is and has been to achieve and maintain the core national interests - ensure the physical security of the nation, the nation's values, and the nation's economic prosperity -and core desired end state - provide for the enduring security for the American people - by exerting the full spectrum and reach of its instruments of national power in peace and in war. To accomplish this, U.S. national security policy and strategy must dispose of the artificial walls currently separating its foundations and realign and resynchronize the capabilities resident in its instruments of national power. Doing so will enable the U.S. to achieve the strategic advantage. In sum, this thesis illustrates that national security encompasses homeland defense and security and that the current architecture is counterproductive because destabilizes and retards the capabilities, including the "reach," of the instruments of national by creating unnecessary friction and competition for resources between them and their proponents and denigrating their capabilities to achieve the strategic advantage. Absent a secure homeland, there is no national security and no strategic advantage.