Shortly after the New Year, we asked members of the Strategy Bridge community: 

Questions are our best friends for the invention and refinement of strong useful theory, and they are the lethal enemies of poor theory. So suggests Colin Gray. These questions then undergird and shape strategic thinking. What theoretical and empirical question should most inform the rewriting of the U.S. National Security Strategy? This quarter’s series seeks compelling arguments to inform the senior leaders responsible for authoring the next U.S. National Security Strategy. 

Soon our inbox was swimming with fascinating articles asking tough questions about the forthcoming National Security Strategy. 

Authors wrote little about some of the biggest topics in online discussion, especially concerning technology such as artificial intelligence or hypersonics. Instead, one of the most surprising themes was the focus on the proverbial Main Street of America.

Given our emphasis on questions, we will post the question each article poses the day before we publish the article. We invite your comments on social media—how would you answer the question? Please share your thoughts and answers; we look forward to the discussion.

We will run these articles over the next six weeks, interspersed with selected reposts that highlight the arguments and shed different light on these issues. 

Week 1: Process and Problems in U.S. National Security 

Some authors step back from the content of the strategy to evaluate previous strategies and the extent to which they succeeded or failed and why. Others hone in on serious organizational problems the national security community needs to address. 

• Prioritizing Jointness in the Next National Security Strategy, by Matthew Muehlbauer

• Expand, Consolidate, Centralize: Organizational Reform in the Next National Security Strategy, by Leo Li

• Breaking the Move-Countermove Cycle: Using Net Assessment to Guide Technology, by Bryan Clark, Dan Patt, and Timothy A. Walton

Week 2 : The Underestimated and Underhyped

These articles shine light on long-standing unresolved dilemmas as well as others that continue to evolve. They include, for example, an article on how U.S. policy with respect to Africa plays out today as well as one about the difference between deterrence in space and using space for deterrence more broadly.

• “Why Are We in Africa?”: The Dilemmas of Making American Strategy towards the African Continent, by Sam Wilkins

• A Comprehensive Approach to Space Deterrence, by Dean Cheng and John Klein

• Threat Under the Radar: The Case for Cruise Missile Control in the Next National Security Strategy, by Fabian Hoffmann

Week 3: Cautions and Countermodels for China 

These articles address a range of issues regarding China as well as the dangers of crafting and applying ill-fitting models to China.  

• Warning: Scrutinize Any Underlying Assumptions for China in the New National Security Strategy, by Wilson VornDick

• A Game of Great Powers: The Realities of the Evolving Competition between the United States and China, by Andrew Novo

• Assessing Chinese Military Capabilities: Response Actions for American Strategy, by Hannah Goda

• Sharpening the Blunt Tool: Why Deterrence Needs an Update in the Next U.S. National Security Strategy, by Kyle Wolfley

• Beware the Allure of Counter-models, by Kristofer Seibt

Week 4: National Security Begins on Main Street

These articles engage wide-ranging issues including kleptocratic chains of corruption, what women offer in an era of great power competition, and misinformation in the military community.

• The Strategic Cost of Transnational Corruption, by Ian J. Lynch

• Getting Serious About Women, Peace & Security, by Nalani Tyrrell and Joan Johnson-Freese

• Misinformation in the Military Community and the Next National Security Strategy, by Matthew Butler.

• The Next National Security Strategy and National Resilience Through Education, by Ryan Kort

Week 5: Much Ado About Gray Zone 

Articles this week illuminate the complicated 21st-century dynamics of great power competition in an era of hybrid war and of hybrid war in an era of great power competition. They also challenge whether much is new, arguing that war has always cut across domains in complex and complicated ways.

• Competition and Decision in the Gray Zone: A New National Security Strategy, by Matt Petersen

• Hybrid War and What to Do About It, by Jeffrey Bristol

Week 6: Bullets or Bytes and Soundbites

These articles contribute to debates on cyber’s relationship to war as well as how cyber enables the transmission of powerful ideas and may increase the importance of narrative in a hyper-connected world.

• War in All but Name, by Derek Bernsen

• Partnership and Narrative in National Security Strategy, by Jason Phillips

Forthcoming Call for Articles 

As you read the responses to our first quarterly series of 2021, we invite you into the conversation by contributing to our next call for articles, which will be announced in the coming days. The focus of our next quarterly publication is on assumptions about national security in all forms and fashions, so consider this theme while reading the current series over the next six weeks!

Thank you for being part of our community; we look forward to your thoughts on this quarter’s articles and your submissions for the next edition of the The Strategy Bridge.

Have a response or an idea for your own article? Follow the logo below, and you too can contribute to The Bridge:

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