Collaboration Key in Creation of National Security Strategy

By Ian Graham
Emerging Media, Defense Media Activity

June 3, 2010 - The 2010 National Security Strategy was presented to Congress last week, touted as a wide-spanning "whole-of-government" plan built on lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the Quadrennial Defense Review.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy Amanda J. Dory spoke with journalists on a DoDLive Bloggers Roundtable yesterday to discuss what the new National Security Strategy means for America, the Department of Defense and international relations.

"The National Security Strategy is clear: there isn't any higher priority than the safety and security of the American people, and obviously the department of defense plays a big role in that," she said.

"The United States will maintain the military advantage as the cornerstone of our national defense [and] anchors global security, but the NSS also devotes a significant amount of time to talking about non-military capabilities," she added.

The National Security Strategy, Dory said, is released every few years and it's used to form the United States' National Defense Strategy and the National Military Strategy. The strategy focuses on immediate threats facing the U.S. as well as those projected in the future.

Dory elaborated on the inclusion of new domains, like space and cyber, in this NSS, and recognized new challenges that come with operating in those realms.

"It really kind of begins to open up beyond our traditional way of thinking about the different domains in which the United States can be vulnerable," she said. "The land, the air, the maritime -- this national security [strategy] adds into our thinking, the cyber domain, the space domain, as well, and emphasizes the possibility for threats to manifest in those domains."

The new strategy is directly related to many different reviews, including the Quadrennial Defense Review and its equivalents in the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Dory said "cross-talk and collaboration" helped to create a strategy with distinct themes that apply across the government.