The National Security Doctrines of the American Presidency

Book excerpt: The fundamental driver of American national security and U.S. foreign policy are the undercurrents of American grand strategy represented by presidential national security doctrines. There has been a dearth of work on all of the doctrines of the American presidency and, worse yet, an incomplete understanding of how these doctrines continue to shape policy. Further, recognition of this need for both doctrine and grand strategy can assist the United States in guiding the nation through the coming storms and tribulations. We are witness to the second presidential campaign in a row where issues of national security are rarely mentioned, with no mention of grand strategy at all. There is an economic recession, which has inclined the American electorate toward inward thinking, and they have grown fearful or resentful of what some in the media call foreign adventures. There is also naturally war weariness, primarily caused by a lack of grand strategy implementation that has prolonged conflicts that should have been resolved earlier. Iraq and Afghanistan's battlefield environment could have been long over had the United States fully utilized the historic grand strategy themes outlined in this work. The main job of the president is not jobs, or education, or social security -- it is, was, and always will be, national security.