ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the role of policy and strategy in United States (US) national security affairs; changes in the strategic environment; US interests and objectives; Soviet military threats to US interests and objectives; and the proper interplay among threats, interests, objectives and force deployments. Policy lays out the political context within which strategy must operate; that is, it establishes the limits or bounds. The US commitment to Israel is a complicating factor in achieving the required Arab support, which Europeans and the Japanese have more than once pointed out to US policymakers. The fundamental building blocks of strategy are the concepts of national interests and specific objectives to support the attainment of national interests. From national interests should flow a national strategy: a plan for how to employ a nation’s military, political, economic, psychological, and technological tools to achieve interests and objectives.
