Sheep in Wolf's Clothing. The May 1997 National Security Strategy

摘要

A public document such as the National Security Strategy, particularly during an interregnum, severely mutes controversial issues, structures content to appeal to the broadest possible audience, and chooses semantics based on 'universal' values. The Strategy has left me with a vague disquiet which ultimately coalesces around two leitmotivs One is the blurring of the distinction between domestic policy and foreign policy and the other is disguising a symmetrical approach behind asymmetrical rhetoric. As a result of the interaction of the two leitmotivs, I find the Strategy flawed in identifying transnational threats which are of vital or even major interest and in choosing appropriate instruments of statecraft.