SEC. 603. ANNUAL REPORT ON NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY . . . Sec. 104. (a)(1) The President shall transmit to Congress each year a comprehensive report on the national security strategy of the United States ... (2) The national security strategy report for any year shall be transmitted on the date on which the President submits to Congress the budget for the next fiscal year under section 1105 of Title 31, United States Code. (b) Each national security strategy report shall set forth the national security strategy of the United States and shall include a comprehensive description and discussion of the following: (1) The worldwide interests, goals, and objectives of the United States that are vital to the national security of the United States. (2) The foreign policy, worldwide commitments, and national defense capabilities of the United States necessary to deter aggression and to implement the national security strategy of the United States. (3) The proposed short-term and long-term uses of the political, economic, military, and other elements of national power of the United States to protect or promote the interests and achieve the goals and objectives referred to in paragraph (1). (4) The adequacy of the capabilities of the United States to carry out the national security strategy of the United States, including an evaluation of the balance among the capabilities of all elements of national power of the United States to support the implementation of the national security strategy. (5) Such other measures as may be helpful to inform Congress on matters relating to the national security strategy of the United States. (c) Each national security strategy report shall be transmitted in both a classified and an unclassified form [1] . By the above language, a small section of a much larger reform package known as the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, the Congress amended the National Security Act of 1947 to require annually a written articulation of grand strategy from each succeeding President. In so doing, Congress was attempting to legislate a solution to what it, and many observers, believed to be a legitimate and significant problem of long standing in our governmental processes--a inability within the Executive Branch to formulate, in a coherent and integrated manner, judiciously using resources drawn from all elements of national power, the mid- and long-term strategy necessary to defend and further those interests vital to the nation's security. Few in the Congress at that time doubted that there existed a grand strategy. The nation had been following "containment" in one form or another for over 40 years. What they doubted, or disagreed with, was its focus in terms of values, interests and objectives; its coherence in terms of relating means to ends; its integration in terms of the elements of power; and its time horizon. In theory, at least to the reformers, a clearly written strategy would serve to inform the Congress better on the needs for resources to execute the strategy, thus facilitating the annual authorization and appropriation processes, particularly for the Department of Defense. There have now been six such reports published, two during the second Reagan administration (1987 and 1988), three by the Bush administration (1990, 1991 and 1993), and most recently, the first report by the Clinton administration (July 1994). This monograph, written by the individual responsible for the preparation of the 1988 report and in cooperation with the officials responsible for drafting the 1990, 1991, 1993, and 1994 reports, draws on their experiences to provide insights into the process as well as the individual products. [2] Back to Table of Contents The National Security Strategy Back to SSI List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1995 by US Army War College. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com