ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the important relationship between United States (US) grand strategy and national security. First, the chapter outlines the purposes of national strategy, instruments of power, and grand strategy. Second, the chapter details the historical context of the National Security Act of 1947 and the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. Third, the chapter analyzes current US national security strategy. Fifth, the chapter evaluates the role that alliances play in national security strategy. Sixth, the chapter considers the interagency process and potential for reform. Historical context illuminates the foundations of the contemporary US national security strategy organization and process. In the postwar era, civilian and military policy makers sought to apply the lessons of that war to improve both the composition and method undergirding US national security. Presidential administrations have sporadically and unevenly produced national security strategies since it became a requirement beginning in 1987.
