Drought: Western U.S.

When is a drought a national security issue? When it's severe enough to threaten national security, especially transportation, crop production, cities and towns, and regional military training and safety.

Map from here.

 

The U.S. Drought Monitor is jointly produced by the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Map courtesy of NDMC.

Another interesting look from NASA at the levels of water "stored" in soil here:

The map below shows surface soil moisture as of March 29, 2021, as measured by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) satellites. The colors depict the wetness percentile; that is, how the levels of soil moisture compare to long-term records for the month. Blue areas have more abundant water than usual, and orange and red areas have less. The darkest reds represent dry conditions that should occur only 2 percent of the time (about once every 50 years).

The map below shows shallow groundwater storage as of March 29, 2021, as measured by the GRACE-FO satellites. The colors depict how the amount of groundwater compares to long-term records (1948-2010). Groundwater in aquifers is an important resource for crop irrigation and drinking water, and it also can sustain streams during dry periods. Groundwater takes months to rebound from drought, though, as it has to be slowly and steadily replenished by surface moisture that seeps down through soil and rock to the water table.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports on California water supply issues with the last report being from May 2021 (pdf):

As California enters the dry months of summer, this water year is on track to be one of the driest on record- due in no small measure to the lack of landfalling atmospheric rivers and persistent ridging/blocking over the Northeast Pacific Ocean (drought.gov). Statewide snowpack peaked on March 23rd with 64 percent its daily average, then shriveled to 17 percent of its daily average by the end of April, and to 7 percent by May 12th. Seasonal (October-April) precipitation totals were less than 50 percent of average in all three regions. Early May has been extremely dry, further reducing the seasonal average. California’s major reservoirs (excluding Lake Mead and Lake Powell) are collectively storing almost 8.5 million acre-feet less than they were this time last year. **** RESERVOIRS Total storage in California’s major reservoirs (excluding Lake Powell and Lake Mead) was 73 percent of average on April 30th, compared to 101 percent this time last year. Storage in Shasta Dam was 59 percent of average at the end of the month, roughly 1.4 million acre-feet less than this time last year. Storage in Lake Mead continues to decline, with reservoir levels approaching the 1,075-foot elevation that would trigger a Level 1 Water Shortage Declaration for the Lower Colorado River Basin.

here:

CA Water Supply Outlook Rep... by lawofsea

As near as I can determine, that "Level 1 Water Shortage Declaration" comes from Interim Guidelines for the Operation of Lake Powell and Lake Mead

D. Shortage Conditions 1. Deliveries to the Lower Division States during Shortage Condition Years shall be implemented in the following manner:

• a. In years when Lake Mead content is projected to be at or below elevation 1,075 feet and at or above 1,050 feet on January 1, a quantity of 7.167 maf shall be apportioned for consumptive use in the Lower Division States of which 2.48 maf shall be apportioned for use in Arizona and 287,000 af shall be apportioned for use in Nevada in accordance with the Arizona-Nevada Shortage Sharing Agreement dated February 9, 2007, and 4.4 maf shall be apportioned for use in California. 
• b. In years when Lake Mead content is projected to be below elevation 1,050 feet and at or above 1,025 feet on January 1, a quantity of 7.083 maf shall be apportioned for consumptive use in the Lower Division States of which 2.4 maf shall be apportioned for use in Arizona and 283,000 af shall be apportioned for use in Nevada in accordance with the Arizona-Nevada Shortage Sharing Agreement dated February 9, 2007, and 4.4 maf shall be apportioned for use in California. 
• c. In years when Lake Mead content is projected to be below elevation 1,025 feet on January 1, a quantity of 7.0 maf shall be apportioned for consumptive use in the Lower Division States of which 2.32 maf shall be apportioned for use in Arizona and 280,000 af shall be apportioned for use in Nevada in accordance with the Arizona-Nevada Shortage Sharing Agreement dated February 9, 2007, and 4.4 maf shall be apportioned for use in California.

According to Lakesonline.com, Lake Mead's level on 27 June 2021 was 1,069.42 Feet MSL, about 160 feet below "full pool."

A "maf" is a Million Acre Feet"

One acre-foot equals about 326,000 gallons, or enough water to cover an acre of land, about the size of a football field, one foot deep.

So, a million acre feet would cover 1 million football fields with 1 foot of water each. In 2018, California applied 24.5 million acre feet of water to 8.4 million acres of irrigated land, according to the USDA.

If this drought continues in the west, where will the water come from to provide water to the large cities and farmland of the region? What will a shortage do to food costs? What step should be taken to to prevent a catastrooic failure of water supply?

Orange County, California, has a program that is helping as set out here:

This project is the world's largest wastewater purification system for indirect potable reuse. The Groundwater Replenishment System (GWRS) takes highly treated wastewater that would have previously been discharged into the Pacific Ocean and purifies it using a three-step advanced treatment process consisting of microfiltration, reverse osmosis and ultraviolet light with hydrogen peroxide. The process produces high-quality water that exceeds all state and federal drinking water standards. Operational since January 2008, this state-of-the-art water purification project can produce up to 70 million gallons (265,000 cubic meters) of high-quality water every day. This is enough water to meet the needs of nearly 600,000 residents in north and central Orange County, California.

Other entities in California are turning to desalination Desalination Is Booming as Cities Run out of Water :

Some 30 miles north of San Diego, along the Pacific Coast, sits the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant, the largest effort to turn salt water into fresh water in North America.

Each day 100 million gallons of seawater are pushed through semi-permeable membranes to create 50 million gallons of water that is piped to municipal users. Carlsbad, which became fully operational in 2015, creates about 10 percent of the fresh water the 3.1 million people in the region use, at about twice the cost of the other main source of water.

Expensive, yes, but vital for the fact that it is local and reliable. “Drought is a recurring condition here in California,” said Jeremy Crutchfield, water resources manager at the San Diego County Water Authority. “We just came out of a five-year drought in 2017. The plant has reduced our reliance on imported supplies, which is challenging at times here in California. So it’s a component for reliability.”

A second plant, similar to Carlsbad, is being built in Huntington, California with the same 50-million-gallon-a-day capability. Currently there are 11 desalination plants in California, and 10 more are proposed.

Not everyone is thrilled with desalination, pointing out that it requires great amounts of energy, as set out here and here. It should be noted that the "anti-desal" pieces are older than the startup of the San Diego Carlsbad plant.

Be that as it may, it's not like California's existing power issues are not well known, as set out California tells public to prepare for heatwave; power prices soar:

The group responsible for North American electric reliability has already warned that California is the U.S. region most at risk of power shortages this summer because the state increasingly relies on intermittent energy sources like wind and solar, and as climate change causes more extreme heat events, drought and wildfires across the U.S. West.

It would seem California needs to rethink many issues, including nuclear power to help power a system that will help it survive droughts.

And it's not like the rest of the West and the farm belt aren't facing similar issues.

The Biden "Interim National Security Strategic Guidance" March 2021

You can read this and assess what "strategic guidance" it offers. As noted by Thomas Spoehr here it has some "hits and misses" but also as noted in Don’t Let the Department of Defense Become the Department of Distraction to have some confusion about what constitutes a national security threat and what is a national problem. As Spoehr sets out:

To guide the Biden administration’s initial efforts, the White House recently published a 24-page guidance document on the interim national security strategy. Unfortunately, if you were the secretary of defense hoping to glean insights on how the administration wants you to shape the nation’s defenses, you would come away unfulfilled after reading this document.

While many believe a strong Navy will be important to contain China, there is curiously no mention of the service in the new guidance.

Maybe some thoughts about the new Space Force and the significant challenges America faces in space? Nope.

The role of the Air Force? Nada.

What about climate change? Jackpot! Mentioned 14 times.

COVID-19 gets a shout-out nine times, and racial justice or equity—three times. Keep in mind, this is national security guidance.

Ten days into his presidency, Biden signed an executive order calling for the need to put “the climate crisis at the center of United States foreign policy and national security.”

Climate change is real, and as many are quick to point out, can lead to global instability and could be the spark that ignites conflict between nations. But so too can rapid population growth, disputes concerning sovereign fishing rights, or conflicting claims regarding off-shore oil fields.

Other national problems which threaten our well-being and similarly warrant attention include the rise in obesity, youth hunger, and the opioid epidemic.

But, national security threats are different. Not more important, but distinct from other national problems. When prior administrations sought to characterize the fight on illegal drugs as a “war” and involve the Pentagon, there is a reason that never felt quite right. It was a conflation of a national problem with a national security threat.

By their nature, national security threats represent proximate dangers to America’s safety or security. Left unaddressed they can lead to a profoundly injurious change in the American way of life.

Interim National Security S... by lawofsea

Arctic Operations: We Really, Really Need the Right Equipment and an Arctic Port

The U.S. Chief of Naval Operations has a nice tweet regarding the "Arctic region" here.

However, as noted in the March 2020 Seapower here:

Unlike the South China Sea and other contested areas, the U.S. Navy does not have the capability to conduct freedom-of-the-seas operations in the icebound waters of the Arctic, a key Pentagon official conceded.

With only one heavy and one medium icebreaker and no Navy ships with hulls hardened against ice, “We do have limitations in the Arctic right now,” James H. Anderson, assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans and capabilities, told a readiness subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 3 during a hearing on U.S. military readiness in the Arctic.

***

In addition to a deficit of ice-hardened hulls, Sullivan said the U.S. lacks a strategic port on — or even near — the Arctic Ocean that could handle repairs or refueling of large Navy or even U.S. Coast Guard vessels.

“Russia has close to a dozen or two dozen ports,” he said, noting the closest viable port at Anchorage or Dutch Harbor, Alaska, was 1,000 nautical miles or more from Arctic waters. In addition to ports and military bases, Russian President Vladimir Putin has 54 icebreakers, Sullivan said. “He’s got all the cards.”

The dearth of ice capable ships is not this CNO's fault, but goes back years and years.

For example, here are a couple of posts I put up in 2007 and 2008, reproduced in their entirety:

From 2007

Reported here. Assuming that the ice caps are melting away and there is an ice free passage across the North Pole, then...

When the commander of the U.S. Coast Guard thinks of future trouble spots, his focus is increasingly to the north — the vast waters around a melting polar ice cap.

Once almost totally inaccessible to shipping and oil drilling, the region poses new opportunities for economic activity, as well as new challenges for those who patrol its frigid seas.

"If you go into a life raft 20 miles off the coast of North Carolina, chances are you are going to see the Coast Guard in a few hours," Adm. Thad Allen says. "If you go into life rafts at the edge of the Arctic ice cap, there are questions about when you should expect help to arrive."

The Arctic is still relatively empty but stands to become more crowded in coming years as several countries stake their claim to its rich oil and gas reserves. The increased maritime traffic has made the Arctic a more significant focus for the Coast Guard in the past six months, Allen says.

"We're like the cop on the beat up there," he says. That beat is massive — about half of the USA's 90,000 total miles of coastline is in Alaska.

***

Ice in the Arctic sea has decreased by nearly 20% over the past two decades, and "it would not be beyond the realm of possibility to have an ice-free route across the top of Russia sometime in the next five or 10 years," Allen says.

Such a route would shave up to 5,000 miles — a week's sailing time — off the journey between the North Atlantic and the North Pacific, he says, attracting ships that otherwise would have transited the Panama or Suez canals. Allen says there has also been heavier traffic in the Bering Sea between Alaska and Russia. He says it could become an international waterway similar to the English Channel or the Straits of Malacca between Malaysia and Indonesia.

The reduction in ice sparks competing claims among the eight nations that border the Arctic: the United States, Russia, Canada, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark (which controls Greenland).

Russia claims 460,000 square miles of the Arctic as an extension of its continental shelf under a 1982 treaty that set guidelines for dividing undersea resources.

See earlier post on the on-going land grab effort here.

From 2008

From the Heritage Foundation The New Cold War: Reviving the U.S. Presence in the Arctic:

As an Arctic nation, the United States has signif­icant geopolitical and geo-economic interests in the High North. The U.S. should not only have a place at the table, but also seek a leadership role in navi­gating the nascent challenges and opportunities, such as disputes over the Outer Continental Shelf, the navigation of Arctic sea-lanes, and commercial development of natural resources and fisheries.

To play this role and to vindicate its interests, the U.S. needs to continue swiftly mapping the Arctic, build a modern U.S. icebreaker fleet, and work with its Arctic partners in bilateral and multilateral ven­ues. The U.S. needs to revitalize its Arctic policy and commit the necessary resources to sustain America's leadership role in the High North.

Read the whole thing. Check earlier posts on this topic by clicking on labels below, especially "arctic", "polar sea routes."

Fault finding will get us nowhere, the need is to look to our allies who operate in these waters and see if, among the hull types we need they have some ice-hardened ships whose designs we can obtain. Now.

Important Strategic Input: "U.S. Navy Carriers: Strike Range Expansion Is Critical"

If you are going to influence shore based powers, you need to be able to reach out touch them if need be.

This is addressed by Jerry Hendrix in this National Review piece, U.S. Navy Carriers: Strike Range Expansion Is Critical

The United States Navy needs to make some hard choices if it wishes to remain relevant in the Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2AD) security environment that lies ahead of it. It must begin to adjust its strategy as well as its accompanying shipbuilding and aircraft-procurement plans to enable it to fight and win within the emerging great-power competition. This new environment, at last recognized in President Trump’s National Security Strategy and the Secretary of Defense’s National Defense Strategy, requires the Navy to strike enemy capitals and other vital centers of gravity from range, but the Navy’s decision to bypass a carrier-based strike asset, and now even to push off its acquisition of an unmanned mission tanker, suggest that it is not taking A2AD great-power competition seriously. Its decisions place the future relevance of the entire maritime service, at least as it is presently composed, at risk.

We also discussed this on Midrats on 11 March 2018 - and Dr. Hendrix joined us - the discussion rolls through the show, but especially beginning around the 44 minute mark:

U.S. Oil and Gas Building National Security

The good news - Lower Costs, Shale Growth Restrict Oil Price in Long Termfrom FItch Ratings:

Lower global production costs, considerable U.S. shale growth potential and shale's ability to quickly respond to changing market conditions should keep average annual oil prices below USD60 a barrel in the long term, Fitch Ratings says. But oil prices will remain volatile and could periodically exceed our assumptions.
***
We remain sceptical about the effectiveness of OPEC's production cuts to rebalance supply and demand in the near term, as well as to materially reduce crude stocks given the exclusion of Libya and Nigeria (both producing at higher levels since the cut), weak enforceability, and poor track records of adherence. OPEC's average compliance rate slipped to 75% in July from almost 100% at the beginning of the year, according to the International Energy Agency. It improved to 82% in August, but overall we expect average compliance rates in 2H17 and beyond to be weaker than in 1H17.

So relatively low fuel prices should continue, keeping more money into the U.S. economy.

But more good news from the Oil and Gas Journal of Oct 9, 2017, reporting on remarks by Interior Secretary Zinke commenting on efforts to help U.S. oil and gas producers:

“Regulations should be ground in science—not a political agenda,” the secretary indicated. “This is why we’re reviewing and possibly revoking rules that are overly punitive. We’re trying to find the quickest way to get to ‘yes’ without sacrificing our environmental and other responsibilities. With our joint model, we’ll make sure that agencies from many parts of the federal government can work together and involve states, tribes, and other stakeholders earlier in the process.”

Zinke said that more federal oil and gas resource development will improve US security and provide more jobs and economic growth. “I don’t want to see our country held hostage by a foreign oil producer or US troops sent into combat to protect supply routes,” he maintained. “Every drop of US oil that’s produced supplants one from Iran. That’s effective leverage.”

There is an interesting issue that lurks behind efforts to reduce or ban the use of petroleum powered vehicles- well posed by BOb Tippee of the Oil and Gas Journal:


The greenest means of efficient and large elecrical power generation is nuclear, not wind or geothermal or solar or water current.

See Electric Cars Are Not Necessarily Clean: Your battery-powered vehicle is only as green as your electricity supplier and Electric car growth sparks environmental concerns: Mining of raw materials and recycling of lithium-ion batteries in spotlight.

Of course, if the goal is reducing CO2, I guess other types of environmental concerns melt away.

Getting Out of the Gulf? Letting the Arabian Gulf Countries Fend for Themselves in Letting Oil Flow

Behind the pay wall at Foreign Affairs is this think piece by Charles L. Glaser and Rosemary A. Kelanic Getting Out of the Gulf: Oil and U.S. Military Strategy which is really not about military strategy, but about national strategy for the Persian Gulf. This means tracing our involvement back to President Jimmy Carter:

In January 1980, U.S. President Jimmy Carter used his State of the Union address to announce that in order to protect “the free movement of Middle East oil,” the United States would repel “an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf.” Carter and his successors made good on that pledge, ramping up U.S. military capabilities in the region and even fighting the Gulf War to prevent Saddam Hussein’s Iraq from dominating the region’s oil supplies. Although Washington has had a number of interests in the Persian Gulf over the years, including preventing nuclear proliferation, fighting terrorism, and spreading democracy, the main rationale for its involvement has always been to keep the oil flowing.

The authors point out that the world has changed since 1980 and pose a multi-billion dollar question:

Is Persian Gulf oil still worth defending with American military might?

I should note that back in 2004, I posited the need to plan a curtailment of Middle East oil in Contingency Planning 101: Preparing for an world oil shortage:

[A]n oil shortage may impel more rapid adoption of alternative fuel sources, including natural gas, hydrogen, nuclear power. Coal, of which the U.S. has a lot, can be "gasified".

Gasification, in fact, may be one of the best ways to produce clean-burning hydrogen for tomorrow's automobiles and power-generating fuel cells. Hydrogen and other coal gases can also be used to fuel power-generating turbines or as the chemical "building blocks" for a wide range of commercial products.

The authors of the Foreign Affairs article suggest:

First, if the United States ended its commitment, how much likelier would a major disruption of Gulf oil be? Second, how much damage would such a disruption inflict on the U.S. economy? Third, how much does the United States currently spend on defending the flow of Gulf oil with its military? Finally, what nonmilitary alternatives exist to safeguard against a disruption, and at what price? Answering these questions reveals that the costs of preventing a major disruption of Gulf oil are, at the very least, coming close to exceeding the expected benefits of the policy. So it’s time for the United States to give itself the option of ending its military commitment to protecting Gulf oil, by increasing its investment in measures that would further cushion the U.S. economy from major oil disruptions. And in a decade or so, unless the region becomes far more dangerous, the United States should be in a position to actually end its commitment.

They suggest some sort of economic disruption:

Assessments of the U.S. economy’s sensitivity to oil prices also vary widely, but a reasonable estimate is that a doubling of the price of oil would shrink U.S. GDP by three percent—or approximately $550 billion. Of course, smaller disruptions would result in smaller economic losses, and the most catastrophic disruption—a long, complete closing of the Strait of Hormuz—would cause larger ones.

But the actual costs to the United States would be far smaller, because Washington could draw on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, its emergency underground oil stockpile, to relieve the pressure on prices. The roughly 700 million barrels currently stored in the SPR form part of the more than four billion barrels held by members of the International Energy Agency (IEA), an organization founded in 1974 to coordinate collective responses to major oil disruptions.

What all of this means is that if the world experienced a massive disruption of oil from the Persian Gulf, a coordinated international release of various reserves could initially replace the vast majority of the daily loss. In all but the worst-case scenarios—far more severe than anything seen before—the impact of a severe disruption would be greatly cushioned.

What they do not discuss is the cushioning effect of the U.S.'s increased oil and gas reserves through the use of new drilling techniques and fracking - there is simply no mention in the article that the U.S. is thought by some to be the leader in energy reserves, as set out in in Oil Price.com's "U.S. Has World’s Largest Oil Reserves":

The U.S. holds more oil reserves than anyone else in the world, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Venezuela.

That conclusion comes from a new independent estimate from Rystad Energy, a Norwegian consultancy. Rystad estimates that the U.S. holds 264 billion barrels of oil, more than half of which is located in shale. That total exceeds the 256 billion barrels found in Russia, and the 212 billion barrels located in Saudi Arabia.

The findings are surprising, and go against conventional wisdom that Saudi Arabia and Venezuela hold the world’s largest oil reserves. The U.S. Energy Information Administration, for example, pegs Venezuela’s oil reserves at 298 billion barrels, the largest in the world. Rystad Energy says that these are inflated estimates because much of those reserves are not discovered. Instead, Rystad estimates that Venezuela only has about 95 billion barrels, which includes its estimate for undiscovered oil fields.

Some analysis is less aggressive in assessing U.S. reserves, because of a matter of "proven" reserves:

Proven oil reserves are those that have a reasonable certainty of being recoverable under existing economic and political conditions, with existing technology.

Let's parse that a little. The key part of the quote being "existing economic and political conditions," which exactly what we have seen play out with the reserves unleashed by fracking and unconventional technology being applied to the oil patch - as the price of oil from outside the U.S. rose, the ability and affordability of U.S. drillers to develop fields not cost effective under lower prices also rose. Now, as experience in using such techniques has grown, that "price point" has dropped, much to the regret of OPEC, which no longer has real cartel power over oil prices. See Why OPEC can't stop the shale oil industry:

Just as a cartel benefits from cutting output to raise price, it suffers from raising output to lower price. This would not be true if it could permanently eliminate competitors by temporarily lowering prices, but that is not the case here. The shale oil industry is resilient and flexible – just as it can be pushed out of the market by very low prices, it can promptly get back into the market when prices improve. So an extended attempt by OPEC to close down the shale industry is a lose-lose situation, and as such is very unlikely to happen.

Perhaps this is a minor quibble, concerning the article, but the point I am attempting to make is that the economic impact of U.S. withdrawal from the Gulf may not be anything close to what is predicted in the article. In fact, it may further increase U.S. development of its own reserves and in alternatives (hydrogen fuels?) which may not be cost-effective in "existing economic and political conditions, with existing technology" but which may spur new technology and which would certainly increase American jobs for Americans, which, after all, is a pretty important governmental concern.

Now, let's circle back a little.

The U.S. government, in part due to the "Carter Doctrine", has maintained a very expensive presence

in the Arabian Gulf.

The authors of the article pose the right questions - "Is it still in the U.S. interest to expend any effort in guarding those oil sea lines of communication that flow out of the Arabian Gulf? In whose vital national interests is it to keep sending aircraft carriers and other ships to attempt to preserve the status quo in the Arab/Persian Middle East? Is it time for the U.S. to remove itself from the Gulf? Whose interests would be served by our doing so?"

Would Iran establish the regional hegemony it seems to so strongly desire? Would the Chinese rush in to replace the U.S.? Or would the Chinese be concerned that the U.S. might suddenly free up a large portion of its Navy to be deployed to other areas that, 36 years after Mr. Carter's speech, are now of much greater interest to the U.S.?

I would argue that the new administration should take a close look at these issues and at the issues raised by the "You broke it, you fix it" attitudes in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have thrown a lot of time, talent and money into trying to convert those states into something that looks like us. It is time to rethink our goals and leave the inhabitants of the region to sort themselves out? Are we doomed to play Sisyphus and keep trying to push uphill the burden that no one in the area seems ready to take up? Is it time for us to engage in a little "benign neglect" and back off?

Is it time to postulate a policy built more on "punitive expeditions" than on nation building? See Intervention in International Law (1921) (pdf):

When the territorial sovereign is too weak or is unwilling to enforce respect for international law, a state which is wronged may find it necessary to invade the territory and to chastise the individuals who violate its rights and threaten its security.

Had we smashed the Taliban in Afghanistan for their support of al Qaeda and then left with a stern warning that we would come back again should they continue in their evil ways, would we have been better off?

If we had gone after Saddam Hussein in 1991 and punished him for his violations of international law, would we have had to go back?

With a new administration coming, now is the time to ask such questions, and set national strategy accordingly.

Free Courses in National Security and Intelligence

Let's say you have an interest in national security and intelligence but neither the time nor the money to attend a degree or credential program covering those topics - where can you turn to get some insight into such matters?

Well, you might start with POLSC313: US Intelligence and National Security from Saylor.org

The study of United States intelligence and national security operations is an analysis of how the various branches of government work together and, as a check upon each other, how they work to protect and promote American interests at home and abroad. The purpose of this course is to provide you with an overview of national security policy analysis and the United States intelligence community. As you progress through this course, you will learn about strategic thought and strategy formulation, develop the ability to assess national security issues and threats, and cultivate an understanding of the political and military institutions involved in the formulation and execution of national security policy through diplomacy, intelligence operations, and military force. This course will examine problems and issues regarding United States national security policy. A large section of the course will deal with the major actors and institutions involved in making and creating national security policy and the intelligence community. National security is the most critical role of your government, without which, all other policies could not be created.

A key component of the above course being U.S. Army War College Guide to National Security

Policy and Strategy, 2nd Edition:

This edition of the U. S. Army War College Guide to National Security Policy and Strategy reflects to some extent recent changes in the structure of the core curriculum at the War College. The college broke its traditional core course, “War, National Policy and Strategy,” into two courses: “Theory of War and Strategy” and “National Security Policy and Strategy.” The result for this book is the expansion of the block on strategic theory and the introduction of a block on specific strategic issues. Because little time has past since the publication of the most recent version of this book, this edition is largely an expansion of its predecessor rather than a major rewriting. Several chapters are new and others have undergone significant rewrites or updates, but about two-thirds of the book remains unchanged. Although this is not primarily a textbook, it does reflect both the method and manner we use to teach strategy formulation to America’s future senior leaders. The book is also not a comprehensive or exhaustive treatment of either strategy or the policymaking process. The Guide is organized in broad groups of chapters addressing general subject areas. We begin with a look at some specific issues about the general security environment—largely international. The section on strategic thought and formulation includes chapters on broad issues of strategy formulation as well as some basic strategic theory. The third section is about the elements of national power. A section on the national security policymaking process in the United States precedes the final section that deals with selected strategic issues.

While you are at it, this title from the AWC might be a good one Strategy and Grand Strategy: What Students and Practitioners Need to Know:

In this monograph, Dr. Tami Davis Biddle examines why it is so difficult to devise, implement, and sustain sound strategies and grand strategies. Her analysis begins with an examination of the meaning of the term “strategy” and a history of the ways that political actors have sought to employ strategies and grand strategies to achieve their desired political aims. She examines the reasons why the logic undergirding strategy is often lacking and why challenges of implementation (including bureaucratic politics, unforeseen events, civil-military tensions, and domestic pressures) complicate and undermine desired outcomes. This clear-headed critique, built on a broad base of literature (historical and modern; academic and policy-oriented), will serve as a valuable guide to students and policymakers alike as they seek to navigate their way through the unavoidable challenges—and inevitable twists and turns—inherent in the development and implementation of strategy.

If you can gain access, the "self-study" courses offered by The Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security might be of interest:

These courses are developed by the NPS CHDS teaching faculty and are derived from course content (lecture material and course readings) from the Center’s homeland security master’s degree curriculum. The courses, offered at no cost, are designed for homeland defense and security professionals who wish to enhance their understanding of key homeland security concepts and require the flexibility of self-paced instruction.

There are several good titles offered, including "Critical Infrastructure Protection: Transportation Security" and "Critical Infrastructure: Vulnerability Analysis and Protection" the latter course description ought to prompt some thinking all by it self:

Critical Infrastructure protection is one of the cornerstones of homeland security. While PDD-63 lists 8 sectors, the National Strategy for Protection of Critical Infrastructure and Key Assets lists 11 sectors: Water, Power & Energy, Information & Telecommunications, Chemical Industry, Transportation, Banking & Finance, Defense Industry, Postal & Shipping, Agriculture & Food, Public Health, and Emergency Services. For the purposes of this course, we have divided these into levels with Water, Power & Energy, and Information & Telecommunications forming the first – or foundational – level. Chemical Industry, Transportation, and Banking & Finance are assigned level 2, and the remaining sectors are designated level 3 infrastructures. These levels indicate dependencies – higher levels are dependent on lower levels. Thus we focus most attention on the most fundamental critical infrastructures. This course develops a network theory of vulnerability analysis and risk assessment called “model-based vulnerability analysis” used to extract the critical nodes from each sector, model the nodes’ vulnerabilities by representing them in the form of a fault-tree, and then applying fault and financial risk reduction techniques to derive the optimal strategy for protection of each sector.

Not surprisingly, YouTube has some good discussions:








The point being, there is stuff out there for the autodidacts among you.

You might not get a piece of paper at the end, but you will know what you know.

Defense Budgets - Let's Get Serious

Well, it's an election year and there is someone proposing a budget. Actually, it's Secretary of Defense Carter proposing a budget for the Defense Department, as set out here by DoD's Cheryl Pellerin (emphasis added):

Addressing diverse global challenges requires new thinking, new postures in some regions and new and enhanced capabilities, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said this morning during a preview of the Pentagon’s fiscal year 2017 budget request.

Speaking at the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., Carter said the $582.7 billion defense budget to be released next week as part of the administration’s fiscal year 2017 budget request, marks a major inflection point for the department.

"In this budget we’re taking the long view," the secretary said. "We have to. Even as we fight today’s fights, we must also be prepared for the fights that might come 10, 20 or 30 years down the road.”

Five evolving challenges drive the department’s planning, he said, including Russian aggression in Europe, the rise of China in the Asia Pacific, North Korea, Iran, and the ongoing fight against terrorism, especially the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Five Challenges

The department must and will address all five challenges and across all domains, Carter said.

“Not just the usual air, land and sea, but also particularly in the areas of cyber, space and electronic warfare, where our reliance on technology has given us great strengths but also led to vulnerabilities that adversaries are eager to exploit,” he added.

Highlighting new investments in the budget to deal with the accelerated military campaign against ISIL, Carter said the department is requesting $7.5 billion, 50 percent more than in 2016.

Of that, he said $1.8 billion will go to buy more than 45,000 GPS-guided smart bombs and laser-guided rockets. The budget request also defers the A-10 final retirement until 2022, replacing it with F-35 Joint Strike Fighters squadron by squadron.

Strategic Capabilities

To support the European Reassurance Initiative, the Pentagon is requesting $3.4 billion in 2017, quadrupling the fiscal 2016 amount, the secretary said, to fund more rotational U.S. forces in Europe, more training and exercising with allies, and more prepositioned fighting gear and supporting infrastructure.

Investments in new technologies include projects being developed by the DoD Strategic Capabilities Office, which Carter created in 2012 when he was deputy defense secretary, “to reimagine existing DoD, intelligence community and commercial systems by giving them new roles and game-changing capabilities,” he said.

To drive such innovation forward, the 2017 budget request for research and development accounts is $71.4 billion.

U.S. Networked Swarm Boat

Carter said SCO efforts include projects involving advanced navigation, swarming autonomous vehicles for use in different ways and domains, self-driving networked boats, gun-based missile defense, and an arsenal plane that turns one of the department’s older planes into a flying launch pad for a range of conventional payloads.

Investing in Innovation

The budget request also drives smart and essential technological innovation, the secretary added, noting that one area is undersea capabilities for an $8.1 billion investment in 2017 and more than $40 billion over the next five years, Carter said, “to give us the most lethal undersea and anti-submarine force in the world.”

The Pentagon also is investing more in cyber, he said, requesting $7 billion in 2017 and nearly $35 billion over the next five years.

“Among other things,” Carter said, “this will help further improve DoD’s network defenses, which is critical, build more training ranges for our cyber warriors, and develop cyber tools and infrastructure needed to provide offensive cyber options.”

Cyber, Space, People

The Pentagon’s investment in space last year added more than $5 billion in new investments, and this year the department will enhance its ability to identify, attribute and negate all threatening actions in space, the secretary said.

That old budgeting magic

“With so many commercial space endeavors, he added, “we want this domain to be just like the oceans and the Internet: free and safe for all."

Carter said the Pentagon also is investing to build the force of the future, highlighting opening all remaining combat positions to women and strengthening support to military families to improve their quality of life.

Of course, the budget of the Defense Department has critics, an example of which being found in this U.S. News and World Report piece by William D. Hartung, A Golden Age for Pentagon Waste: Ridiculous Pentagon spending may be reaching historic levels:

As the Pentagon prepares for the formal release its budget next week, there is much talk within the department that the $600 billion-plus that is likely to be proposed is inadequate. In fact, rooting out billions of dollars of waste in the Pentagon budget would leave more than enough to provide a robust defense of the country without increasing spending.
***
The Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction has uncovered scandal after scandal involving U.S. aid to that country, including the creation of private villas for a small number of personnel working for a Pentagon economic development initiative and a series of costly facilities that were never or barely used. An analysis by ProPublica puts the price tag for wasteful and misguided expenditures in Afghanistan at $17 billion, a figure that is higher than the GDP of 80 nations.
***
It's not just about Afghanistan, though. Back in the United States, wasteful spending abounds. A Politico report on the Pentagon's $44 billion Defense Logistics Agency notes that it spent over $7 billion on unneeded equipment. Meanwhile, Congress is doing its part by inserting its own pet projects into the budget, whether or not they are top priorities in terms of defense needs. The most notable example is the F-35 combat aircraft, which at $1.4 trillion over its lifetime is the most expensive weapons project ever undertaken by the Pentagon. Despite the fact that the plane is far from ready for prime time, Congress stuffed 11 additional F-35s into the defense bill that was signed by the president last month.

These examples of waste and abuse spark memories of past Pentagon spending binges.
***
The common thread uniting the C-5 scandal of the 1960s, the spare parts scandal of the 1980s and today's array of wasteful expenditures is that they all came on the heels of major military buildups. When there is too much money to go around and no one is minding the store, spending discipline goes out the window. As then Pentagon procurement chief Ashton Carter said in a 2011 hearing, in the decade of increasing Pentagon budgets that kicked off the 2000s, it was always possible to reach for more money, "so it's natural that some fat crept into all of our activities during that time period."
***
But the best management tool is to put the Pentagon on a tighter budget, so it is forced to make some tough choices. No one, hawk or dove, should sit still for the waste of tens of billions of tax dollars. Waste doesn't defend us. On the contrary, spending too much on the Pentagon just subsidizes bad choices. It's time for Congress, the president and the presidential candidates of both parties to speak out about Pentagon waste, and put forward concrete plans for reining it in. Otherwise, our era may have the dubious distinction of being the golden age of Pentagon waste.

"William D. Hartung is the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy." The Center for International Policy, an entity whose mission statement includes: "We advocate policies that advance international cooperation, demilitarization, respect for human rights and action to alleviate climate change and stop illicit financial flows." I invite you to visit his biography here. As we used to ponder in sociology classes - can he be "value free" in his approach to defense spending? I don't know who chose the "ridiculous Pentagon spending" part of the headline.

In any event, let's give Mr. Hartung his due. There is waste in defense spending.

Lots of it.

Probably enough to pay for a couple of Ford-class carriers, though there are those whose argue that these new, big carriers are akin to the battleships of early WWII - an expensive idea whose time has mostly passed. See Dr. Jerry Hendrix's Stop the Navy's carrier plan: The Navy's plan to modernize its largest ships would just make them obsolete. Here's how to fix it.. Jerry's solution? Build cheaper, smaller carriers and add boatloads (literally) of unmanned aircraft. If there's enough waste to cover a couple of Fords, there is certainly enough to cover several smaller carriers and, probably, all those drones. We touched on this in our recent Midrats show here about "naval presence." Dr. Hendrix suggests the need for a fleet of 350 ships - many of which could be paid for with savings on big carriers,  too, I assume.

But the waste? A great deal of it involves the way in which defense spending is authorized by Congress. Want to close a base that's no longer needed? You can be sure that a couple of members of Congress will be fighting you all the way as the impact of the loss of federal dollars in their state and district become clear. In short, Congress, not the Pentagon owns a big chunk of the waste problem.

Should we  declare some programs as too wasteful to allow to live - perhaps the F-35? Maybe the Littoral Combat Ship/Frigate? Call all the expenditure so far "sunk costs? Then answer the question of what will the U.S do for the future, when the current inventory of ships and aircraft grow too long in the tooth or too small to meet the national strategy? What if the F-35 ultimately meets the great expectations placed on it? What if the LCS/Frigate becomes a not-so-overnight success?

 Want to rein in the Pentagon slush fund - the Overseas Contingency Operations budget? Perhaps we could fold money into the "regular" budget to handle little things like small wars?

It is good to recall some earlier words of Secretary Carter from May 2015:

Slashed budgets and high worldwide demand for U.S. military forces have created an unbalanced defense program that is taking on increasingly greater risks, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told a Senate panel this morning.

The secretary testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee on the Defense Department’s fiscal year 2016 budget request. Joining him was Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“Over the past three fiscal years the Defense Department has taken more than three-quarters of a trillion dollars in cuts to its future-years defense spending,” Carter said.

The frequently sudden and unpredictable timing and nature of the cuts and continued uncertainty over sequestration have made the stresses greater, he added, forcing DoD to make a series of incremental, inefficient decisions.
***
We’ve been forced to prioritize force structure and readiness over modernization, taking on risks in capabilities and infrastructure that are far too great,” he added.

“High demands on smaller force structure mean the equipment and capabilities of too many components of the military are growing too old, too fast -- from our nuclear deterrent to our tactical forces,” Carter told the panel.
***
The secretary said that in recent weeks some in Congress have tried to give DoD its full fiscal year 2016 budget request by transferring funds from the base budget into DoD accounts for overseas contingency operations, or OCO –- funds that are meant to fund the incremental, temporary costs of overseas conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.

“While this approach clearly recognizes that the budget total we’ve requested is needed, the avenue it takes is just as clearly a road to nowhere,” Carter said, explaining that President Barack Obama has said he won’t accept a budget that locks in sequestration going forward, as this approach does.
***
“The Joint Chiefs and I are concerned that if our congressional committees continue to advance this idea and don’t explore alternatives we’ll all be left holding the bag,” Carter said, adding that the OCO approach does nothing to reduce the deficit.

“Most importantly,” he added, “because it doesn’t provide a stable multi-year budget horizon, this one-year approach is managerially unsound and unfairly dispiriting to our force. Our military personnel and their families deserve to know their future more than just one year at a time -- and not just them.”

Defense industry partners also need stability and longer-term plans to be efficient and cutting-edge, Carter said, “[and] … as a nation we need to base our defense budgeting on a long-term military strategy, and that’s not a one-year project.”

Such a funding approach reflects a narrow way of looking at national security, the secretary said.

Ignoring Vital Contributions

Year-to-year funding “ignores the vital contributions made by the State Department, the Justice Department, the Treasury Department and the Homeland Security Department,” he said.

And it disregards the enduring long-term connection between the nation’s security and factors like supporting the U.S. technological edge with scientific research and development, educating a future all-volunteer military force, and bolstering the general economic strength of the nation, Carter said.

“Finally, the secretary added, “I’m also concerned that how we deal with the budget is being watched by the rest of the world -– by our friends and potential foes alike. It could give a misleadingly diminished picture of America’s great strength and resolve.”
***
To create a better solution than the one now being considered, he said, “I hope we can come together for a longer-term, multi-year agreement that provides the budget stability we need by locking in defense and nondefense budget levels consistent with the president’s request.”

Carter pledged his personal support and that of the department to this effort, and, he told the panel, “I would like to work with each of you, as well as other leaders and members of Congress, to this end.”

I high-lighted that part about "the whole world is watching" because it is so important. That and the idea that the current world situation is exceptionally complex - hence the overuse of our personnel and equipment.

To add to your thinking, consider this report, NATO's Nightmare: Russian Sub Activity Rises to Cold War Levels You think the potential "bad guys" aren't looking to exploit weakness?

Oh, and as seen here, I like that "arsenal plane" idea. We need to keep on the innovation path. Being static invites defeat.

Blowing the Middle East Scenario

Small Wars Journal has it in a headline: Obama Claims His Critics Forced Him to Make a Mess of Syria, quoting Jennifer Rubin at the WaPo:

In what surely is the most cringe-worthy excuse offered by a commander-in-chief, President Obama last week complained that his critics — whom he routinely ignored and scorned — forced him to make a mess of Syria. To say it is unbecoming of a president to whine that he was only following what critics told him to do, understates just how dishonest the president is and how morally repugnant is his approach to a war that has claimed more than 200,000 lives, created millions of refugees and provided the Islamic State with a base of operations.

Well, Surprise, Surprise, Surprise.

Air war alone? Not so much, as noted here a year ago:

"Pretty adaptive" ain't going to cut it - the OODA loop is getting away from us because of self-imposed limitations on engagement. Being a "one trick pony" makes it easier on the enemy who gets a vote on how to respond to your threat.

If we are going to "beat" these guys, we need to hear the sound of boots on the ground and see the ISIS logistics flow of people, money and weapons disrupted big time.

Oh, yes, and "cooked intel" designed to give the "boss" what he wants to hear rather than what he needs to hear:

The situation is serious. The term “mass uprising” has been heard in espionage circles and we now know that more than fifty analysts in Tampa, a high percentage of those assessing the Islamic State, have blown the whistle on politically skewed analysis.

Recent reports paint a disturbing picture of a badly distorted intelligence process at CENTCOM headquarters, with senior officers directly pressuring analysts to change their assessments to fit the administration’s optimistic take on the war against the Islamic State. Senior military officers like to toe the official line—you get promoted for “speaking truth to power” in the movies, not in the U.S. military—and clashes with intelligence analysts, especially when they are civilians, are commonplace.

Hmm. I wonder if anyone warned the Boss that the Russians might make a move into Syria? Or was it another "Surprise?"

Take a look at that map above. How many reasons can you see that Russia/Putin might see the advantage of a Russian "friend" in Syria? Warm water port on the Mediterranean? Another border with old rival Turkey?

UPDATE: See Government Report Is Compelling Indictment of Obama’s ISIS Strategy.

Russia - #1 with a bullet

I seem to remember certain people yukking it up back in the last presidential election because of this:



Well, the prospective Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs today says Russia is top U.S. national security threat:

Russia presents the greatest threat to U.S. national security and its behavior is "nothing short of alarming," Marine General Joseph Dunford told lawmakers on Thursday as they weighed his nomination to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Dunford also added his voice to those Pentagon officials who have supported providing lethal arms to Ukraine to help it defend itself from Russia-backed separatists, a step that President Barack Obama has so far resisted.

"My assessment today, Senator, is that Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security," said Dunford, the Marine Corps commandant, who is expected to swiftly win Senate confirmation to become the top U.S. military officer.

Relations between Moscow and the West have plunged to a post-Cold War low since Russia's intervention in Ukraine upended assumptions about the security of NATO's eastern flank.

"If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I'd have to point to Russia. And if you look at their behavior, it's nothing short of alarming," he said.

Give Putin some foam #1 finger thingies.

National Security and Poverty: Part 1

I have been researching poverty in the U.S. with an eye toward looking at how the U.S. approach to fighting the "War on Poverty" is impacting its ability to modernize its military to deal with "war" that involves the employment of violence to achieve state aims, especially self-defense.

In order to look poverty, it is useful to have a discussion about what poverty looks like in places other than the U.S. In the following Midrats interview, Alexander Martin, working with Nuru International, "a nonprofit organization whose mission is to end extreme poverty in remote rural areas," in Kenya gives a great description of what physical poverty means in that place and in this time. The pertinent discussion begins about 20 minutes in, but I recommend listening to the whole show. Poverty limits choices in life " . . . because you just can't make any choice past that choice of just trying to feed yourself . . ."

Check Out Military Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Midrats on BlogTalkRadio

Somewhere in the interview I mentioned an African economist who has suggested that "foreign aid" as it is constituted is not helping Africa climb out of poverty. That man is a Kenyan, James Shikwati. An interview with him in the German magazine Der Spiegel from 2005 can be found here:

SPIEGEL:

Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa...

Shikwati: ... for God's sake, please just stop.

SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty.

Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.

SPIEGEL: Do you have an explanation for this paradox?

Shikwati: Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.

SPIEGEL: Even in a country like Kenya, people are starving to death each year. Someone has got to help them.

Shikwati: But it has to be the Kenyans themselves who help these people. When there's a drought in a region of Kenya, our corrupt politicians reflexively cry out for more help. This call then reaches the United Nations World Food Program -- which is a massive agency of apparatchiks who are in the absurd situation of, on the one hand, being dedicated to the fight against hunger while, on the other hand, being faced with unemployment were hunger actually eliminated. It's only natural that they willingly accept the plea for more help. And it's not uncommon that they demand a little more money than the respective African government originally requested. They then forward that request to their headquarters, and before long, several thousands tons of corn are shipped to Africa ...

SPIEGEL: ... corn that predominantly comes from highly-subsidized European and American farmers ...

Shikwati: ... and at some point, this corn ends up in the harbor of Mombasa. A portion of the corn often goes directly into the hands of unsrupulous politicians who then pass it on to their own tribe to boost their next election campaign. Another portion of the shipment ends up on the black market where the corn is dumped at extremely low prices. Local farmers may as well put down their hoes right away; no one can compete with the UN's World Food Program. And because the farmers go under in the face of this pressure, Kenya would have no reserves to draw on if there actually were a famine next year. It's a simple but fatal cycle.

This video should roll into parts 2 and 3 automatically.

UPDATE: See also:
Poverty Inc website here.

UPDATE2: Fixed the last video embed.

President Obama's 2015 National Security Strategy

President Obama's 2015 National Security Strategy by lawofsea

What the White House says about it, "President Obama's National Security Strategy in 2015: Strong and Sustainable American Leadership":

Here are the 4 key ways we will advance a strong and sustained American leadership:
1. We will advance the security of the United States, its citizens, and U.S. allies and partners by:
- Maintaining a national defense that is the best trained, equipped, and led force in the world
- Reinforcing our homeland security to protect Americans from terrorist attacks and natural hazards
- Striving for a world without nuclear weapons and ensuring nuclear materials don't fall into the wrong hands
- Developing a global capacity to prevent, detect, and rapidly respond to biological threats like Ebola through the Global Health Security Agenda
***
2. We will advance a strong, innovative, and growing U.S. economy in an open international economic system by:
- Strengthening American energy security and increasing global access to reliable and  affordable energy to bolster economic growth and development worldwide
- Advancing a trade agenda -- including the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Transatlantic  Trade and Investment Partnership -- that creates good American jobs and shared prosperity
- Leading efforts to reduce extreme poverty, food insecurity, and preventable deaths with initiatives such as Feed the Future and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief
***
3. We will advance respect for universal values at home and around the world by:
- Holding ourselves to the highest possible standard by living our values at home even as we do what is necessary to keep our people safe and our allies secure
- Leading the way in confronting the corruption by promoting adherence to standards of accountable and transparent governance
- Leading the international community to prevent and respond to human rights abuses and mass atrocities as well as gender-based violence and discrimination against LGBT persons
4. We will advance an international order that promotes peace, security, and oppor­tunity through stronger cooperation by:
- Strengthening and growing our global alliances and partnerships, forging diverse coalitions, and leading at the United Nations and other multilateral organizations
- Pursuing a stable Middle East and North Africa by countering terrorism, preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and reducing the underlying sources of conflict
- Promoting a prosperous, secure, and democratic Western Hemisphere by expanding integration and leveraging a new opening to Cuba to expand our engagement

What Foreign Policy's Shadow Government blog says in "Patience Isn’t Always a Virtue":

The central conceit of the document, though, is the concept of “strategic patience.” By this the Obama administration means not doing too much in the world, seeing how things develop before acting, using our powers in limited ways that will accrue large effects over time. They see it as “influencing the trajectory of major shifts in the security landscape today in order to secure our national interests in the future.”

And to an extent, they’re right. The United States often insists on immediate results, in international affairs as in so many other aspects of government activity. Smart strategies take into account cost-effectivness, and immediate effects are often extremely costly (their emphasis on cost does not extend to considering the national debt as a security risk, however).

But patience has its costs, too. Our “patience” in Syria has cost 230,000 lives and 5 million refugees, an expansion of Iran’s influence in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, destabilization of friendly countries in the region to include Jordan and Turkey, and the spread of horrific tortures and war crimes on a large scale. President Obama’s patience is the Syrian peoples’ tragedy.

What a New York Times opinion piece by Peter Baker and David E. Sanger says in "Security Strategy Recognizes U.S. Limits":

“The question is never whether America should lead, but how we should lead,” Mr. Obama writes in an introduction to the document, a report that seems to mix legacy with strategy. In taking on terrorists, he argues that the United States should avoid the deployment of large ground forces like those sent more than a decade ago to Iraq and Afghanistan. In spreading democratic values, he says, America should fight corruption and reach out to young people.

“On all these fronts, America leads from a position of strength,” he writes. “But this does not mean we can or should attempt to dictate the trajectory of all unfolding events around the world. As powerful as we are and will remain, our resources and influence are not infinite. And in a complex world, many of the security problems we face do not lend themselves to quick and easy fixes.”
***
Over all, it reflects a president who is more seasoned and scarred than the one who last released a formal national security strategy in 2010. At the time, Mr. Obama’s main goals were ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, rebuilding ties with Russia and reviving a world economy reeling from financial collapse.

Now the economy is on the rebound, and the vast majority of troops have been brought home. But the Russian rapprochement is dead, spinoffs of Al Qaeda are on the rise, and the implosions of several Arab states have upended a strategy for the region that Mr. Obama laid out in the first years of his presidency.

The strategy lists eight top strategic risks to the United States, starting with a catastrophic attack at home but including threats like climate change, disruptions in the energy market and significant problems caused by weak or failing states.

What the International Business Times' Amy Nordrum sees:

Overall, though, Obama communicated a reluctance to commit military forces to combat threats in unfocused wars like those which he entered into during his early presidency, saying the U.S. should be careful not to try to "dictate the trajectory of all unfolding events around the world."

“The United States will always defend our interests and uphold our commitments to allies and partners. But, we have to make hard choices among many competing priorities, and we must always resist the over-reach that comes when we make decisions based upon fear,” he wrote in his introductory letter to the strategy.

To that end, the president’s top priorities will also be attacking nebulous threats that are more closely tied to public health, inequality and a faltering global economy. He lists finding secure sources of affordable energy, ending poverty, exploiting new markets for American goods and fighting for LGBT rights as chief among them. LGBT stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. The strategy also gives a nod to efforts to fend off Ebola and the need to address “the urgent crisis of climate change.”

UPDATE: From James Joyner at The National Interest:

The Obama administration’s long-overdue update to the National Security Strategy hit the streets Friday morning. It is in many ways a remarkable document, lucidly describing the foreign (and domestic) policy vision of the only global power, nodding to an enormous number of allies, partners and stakeholders. It is, however, only loosely about national security. More importantly, it’s decidedly not a strategy.
***
Taken in microcosm, the dozens of unprioritized priorities of the 2015 NSS are banal. There’s little over which to disagree on a point-by-point basis. Indeed, like most of its predecessors, it reads like a summary of recent issues of publications like Foreign Affairs and The National Interest written by junior bureaucrats on the National Security Staff that’s then been edited by the president’s domestic-policy advisors—which, in fairness, is pretty much what it is.

You can decide for yourselves. It might help to look at exactly what "strategic planning" is, which is well set out here:

The underlying assumption of strategy from a national perspective is that states and other competitive entities have interests that they will pursue to the best of their abilities. Interests are desired end states such as survival, economic well-being, and enduring national values. The national elements of power are the resources used to promote or advance national interests. Strategy is the pursuit, protection, or advancement of these interests through the application of the instruments of power. Strategy is fundamentally a choice; it reflects a preference for a future state or condition. In doing so, strategy confronts adversaries and some things simply remain beyond control or unforeseen.

Strategy is all about how (way or concept) leadership will use the power (means or resources) available to the state to exercise control over sets of circumstances and geographic locations to achieve objectives (ends) that support state interests. Strategy provides direction for the coercive or persuasive use of this power to achieve specified objectives. This direction is by nature proactive. It seeks to control the environment as opposed to reacting to it. Strategy is not crisis management. It is its antithesis. Crisis management occurs when there is no strategy or the strategy fails. Thus, the first premise of a theory of strategy is that strategy is proactive and anticipatory.

A second premise of a theory of strategy is that the strategist must know what is to be accomplished--that is, he must know the end state that he is trying to achieve. Only by analyzing and understanding the desired end state in the context of the internal and external environment can the strategist develop appropriate objectives leading to the desired end state.

A third premise of a theory of strategy is that the strategy must identify an appropriate balance among the objectives sought, the methods to pursue the objectives, and the resources available. In formulating a strategy the ends, ways, and means are part of an integral whole and if one is discussing a strategy at the national (grand)level with a national level end, the ways and means would similarly refer to national level concepts and resources. That is ends, ways, and means must be consistent. Thus a National Security Strategy end could be supported by concepts based on all the instruments of power and the associated resources. For the military element of power, the National Military Strategy would identify appropriate ends for the military to be accomplished through national military concepts with national military resources. In a similar manner a Theater or Regional Commander in Chief (CINC) would have specific theater level objectives for which he would develop theater concepts and use resources allocated to his theater. In some cases these might include other than military instruments of power if those resources are available. The levels of strategy are distinct, but interrelated because of the hierarchical and comprehensive nature of strategy.

A fourth premise of strategy is that political purpose must dominate all strategy; thus, Clausewitz’ famous dictum, "War is merely the continuation of policy by other means." Political purpose is stated in policy. Policy is the expression of the desired end state sought by the government. In its finest form it is clear articulation of guidance for the employment of the instruments of power towards the attainment of one or more end states. In practice it tends to be much vaguer. Nonetheless policy dominates strategy by its articulation of the end state and its guidance. The analysis of the end state and guidance yields objectives leading to the desired end state. Objectives provide purpose, focus, and justification for the actions embodied in a strategy. National strategy is concerned with a hierarchy of objectives that is determined by the political purpose of the state. Policy insures that strategy pursues appropriate aims.

A fifth premise is that strategy is hierarchical. Foster argues that true strategy is the purview of the leader and is a "weltanschauung" (world view) that represents both national consensus and comprehensive direction. In the cosmic scheme of things Foster may well be right, but reality requires more than a "weltanschauung." Political leadership insures and maintains its control and influence through the hierarchical nature of state strategy. Strategy cascades from the national level down to the lower levels. Generally strategy emerges at the top as a consequence of policy statements and a stated National Security Strategy (sometimes referred to as Grand Strategy). National Security Strategy lays out broad objectives and direction for the use of all the instruments of power. From this National Security Strategy the major activities and departments develop subordinate strategies. For the military this is the National Military Strategy. In turn, the National Military Strategy leads to lower strategies appropriate to the various levels of war.

A sixth premise is that strategy is comprehensive. That is to say, while the strategist may be devising a strategy from a particular perspective, he must consider the whole of the strategic environment in his analysis to arrive at a proper strategy to serve his purpose at his level. He is concerned with external and internal factors at all levels. On the other hand, in formulating a strategy, the strategist must also be cognizant that each aspect--objectives, concepts, and resources--has effects on the environment around him. Thus, the strategist must have a comprehensive knowledge of what else is happening and the potential first, second, third, etc., order effects of his own choices on the efforts of those above, below, and on his same level. The strategist’s efforts must be fully integrated with the strategies or efforts of senior, co-equal, and subordinate elements. Strategists must think holistically--that is comprehensively. They must be cognizant of both the "big picture," their own institution’s capabilities and resources, and the impact of their actions on the whole of the environment. Good strategy is never developed in isolation.

A seventh premise is that strategy is developed from a thorough analysis and knowledge of the strategic situation/environment. The purpose of this analysis is to highlight the internal and external factors that help define or may affect the specific objectives, concepts, and resources of the strategy.

The last premise of a theory of strategy is that some risk is inherent to all strategy and the best any strategy can offer is a favorable balance against failure. Failure can be either the failure to achieve one’s own objectives and/or providing a significant advantage to one’s adversaries.