Improving the Practice of National Security Strategy: A just discovered Approach for the Post-Cold War World by means of Clark A.

Improving the Practice of National Security Strategy: A just discovered Approach for the Post-Cold War World by means of Clark A. Murdock, principal author. Center for Strategic and International Studies (http:// www.csis.org), 1800 K road NW, Washington, DC 20006, 2004 196 pages, $2195

Like other think tanks in the Washington, DC area, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) abouts studies and papers of interest to policy makers. Clark Murdock--senior peer in the CSIS International Security Program, who previously worked in policy planning in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and as a policy advisor to the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee--has assembled six contributors from academe, the military, and conduct to discuss aspects of improving the formulation of national security strategy (NSS) Part single covers methods of analysis, while part couple includes case studies of Somalia, Kosovo and other conflicts that exhibitioned America's policy makers. (Dr. Andrew Marshall, director of clear assessment at the Office of the Secretary of Defense who has exhausted a lifetime pushing the wrapper of strategic thinking within the Department of Defense arranged for the trading of this study)

The main division opens with a historical examine at how a formal statement of strategy has become as it is a commonly accepted practice that Congres mandates the publication of an NS yearly and a review of defense strategy at the beginning of each administration. The 9/11 Commission reaffirms this practice, writing glowingly of the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act, which codified this requirement as well as others. Improving the Practice of National Security Strategy then digs into the basics of by what means an NSS that orchestrates proper spheres of national power (diplomatic, economic, and military) supports the national interest.

Murdock argues that hierarchical strategic thinking--for example, the "strategies-to-task" prototype pioneered by Lt Gen Glenn Kent USAF, retired--dominates the US military and that at war corporations the ends, ways, and means approach to formulating strategy has become a mantra. Although these tools make trial of useful for debate in classrooms, the formulation of an NS is not at any time quite that simple--witness Andrew Marshall's account of the Eisenhower administration's frame Solarium, a superclassified endeavor designed to prioritize the nation's grand strategies, and the fact that the Clinton administration had no fewer than three draft documents of the NS in wide circulation.

A section onward the do's and don'ts of exercising US power provides an eminent look into how strategies many times emerge from the unfolding of events; it also exhibits valuable tips on the difficulties of converting words into actions and decisions. The book culminates with a checklist that focuses forward seven basic questions a policy maker must answer before embarking forward a new endeavor: (1) What is the United States trying to achieve in this particular instance? (2) Will the means beneath consideration ensure success? (3) Are the splendors of achieving the desired efficiencys worth the benefits? (4) Are there satisfactory answers for the three what-if questions? (5) What if we do nothing? (6) in what way will the stakes change if the United States becomes involved? (7) What if something unexpect happens? The consideration then applies these inherently subjective questions, designed to elicit different answers from policy makers, to 11 case studies to illustrate their use in analyzing a conflict.

Improving the Practice of National Security Strategy is an of the best quality book for individuals who wish to expand immediately after what they learned in a staff-college course onward national security decision making. It can also help as an excellent refresher for officers with orders to the Joint Staff or the Office of the Secretary of Defense

LCDR Youssef H Aboul-Enein, MSC USN

Gaithersburg, Maryland

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