President Obama’s long-awaited National Security Strategy highlights the returning strength of the U.S. economy as a foundation of U.S. national security and influence abroad but warns of new threats from violent extremism, Russia, the accelerating threats of climate change and the outbreak of infectious diseases.
The document serves as a broad blueprint for Obama’s foreign policy vision and communicates America’s priorities to allies around the world. It updates the president’s previous national security doctrine released in 2010.
While most of the 29-page strategy is broadly focused, it calls for at least one concrete action: ending the “draconian cuts” imposed by sequestration budget cuts that Obama argues “threaten the effectiveness of our military and other instruments of power.”
“I will continue to insist on budget that safeguard our strength and work with the Congress to end sequestration, which undercuts our national security,” Obama wrote in an accompanying letter.
Five years ago, when the country was in economic turmoil and focused on recovering from the biggest recession since the Great Depression, Obama used the national security strategy to call for a return to a domestic focus to stabilize the country’s economy and regain global influence.
In the new document, Obama claims to have turned the page on that problem, by creating nearly 11 million new jobs and sustaining the largest private sector job growth in U.S. history.
“Unemployment has fallen to its lowest level in six years,” he says in the letter. “We are now the world leader in oil and gas production. We continue to set the pace for science, technology and innovation in the global economy.”
While the U.S. is no longer involved in ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that drained the country’s resources and strained the military, he said serious new threats have emerged in violent extremism, attacks on the nation’s cybersecurity, Russian aggression and outbreaks of infectious diseases.
“We must be clear-eyed about these and other challenges and recognize the United States has a unique capability to mobilize and lead the international community to meet them,” he said.
The new document also shifts Obama’s emphasis on American leadership. In the 2010 document, the president stressed the need to rebuild America’s reputation in the world and the importance of working with international organizations such as the United Nations instead of taking unilateral action.
In the new strategy, Obama makes a strong case for American leadership and acting unilaterally, while arguing that it’s always stronger to build coalitions for “collective action.”
“Any successful strategy to ensure the safety of the American people and advance our national security interests must begin with an undeniable truth — America must lead,” Obama said.
“Strong and sustained American leadership is essential to a rules-based international order that promotes global security and prosperity as well as the dignity and human rights of all peoples,” he continued. “The question is never whether America should lead, but how we lead.”
Through the coalition of more than 60 international partners that came together to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Obama said the U.S. is proving that “we are stronger when we mobilize collective action.”
In addition, he said the U.S. is leading a global effort to stop the deadly spread of the Ebola virus and is working “in lockstep” with European allies to enforce tough sanctions on Russia to deter future aggression in Ukraine and Eastern Europe.
When it comes to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, Obama said the U.S. is “currently testing whether it is possible to achieve a comprehensive resolution” to assure the international community that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful.
The president also said the U.S. will continue to pursue a “rebalance” to Asia and the Pacific by deepening ties with a more diverse set of allies and partners. He touted the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade deal currently being negotiated, which would generate more trade and investment opportunities across a region that represents more than 40 percent of global trade.
He highlighted the importance of curbing climate change and the “groundbreaking” agreement with China to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and “cement an international consensus on arresting climate change.”
Obama also drew some lines when it came to constraining some of our past counter-terrorism practices, which he said should be in line with American values.
“That is why I have worked to ensure that America has the capabilities we need to respond to threats abroad, while acting in line with our values — prohibiting the use of torture; embracing constraints on our use of new technologies like drones; and upholding our commitment to privacy and civil liberties.”
In conclusion, he said, America “leads from a position of strength” but must not attempt to “dictate the trajectory of all unfolding events around the world.”
“The United States will always defend our interests and uphold our commitments to allies and partners,” he said. “But, we have to make hard choices among many competing priorities, and we must always resist the over-reach that comes when we make decisions based upon fear.”
