Seeking a National Strategy: A Concern for Preserving Security and PromotingFreedom. The Phase II Report on a U.S. National Security Strategy for the 21st Century

摘要

We know that major countries rarely engage in serious rethinking and reformabsent a major defeat, but this is a path the United States cannot take. Americans are less secure than they believe themselves to be. The time for reexamination is now, before the American people find themselves shocked by events they never anticipated. During the last half century, the national security strategy of the United States was derived largely from, focused on, and committed to the containment of Soviet Communism. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the dramatic transformation of world politics resulting from the dissolution of the Soviet Union two years later, our leaders have been searching for a unifying theme to provide a strategic framework appropriate to current and future circumstances. That search has not been easy. The U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century has been tasked with thinking anew about America's national security for the next 25 years. In this report, we suggest the strategic precepts that should guide the formulation of U.S. strategy, and then take a fresh look at U.S. national interests and priority objectives. On that basis, we propose the framework of a new national security strategy. This report is intended to contribute to a new consensus on national security strategy to carry the United States forward into a challenging future.