US’s National Security Strategy (NSS)

GS paper 2

Syllabus: Bilateral, regional and global grouping involving India and affecting India’s interests

Context: The United States has launched its National Security Strategy (NSS).

• All U.S. Presidents are mandated by the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 to bring out their NSS and to communicate the executive’s vision of national security to the legislative.

What does NSS reflect?

• National security agenda: How the government of the day views the national security agenda.
• NSS also gives Congress an opportunity to assess the cost that the country will have to bear.
  • Also, areas of investment to achieve the nation’s security goals.
• Inform the U.S. Department of Defense’s strategy about the country’s nuclear posture and missile defence.

Biden administration’s NSS:

• Leadership: The U.S. seek to sustain U.S. leadership
• Economy: Improve the U.S. economy
• Alliances: Build on a vast network of alliances and partnerships
• Counter China as its strategic competitor and Russia as a disruptor
• BoostS. competitiveness and defend democracy.
• Tying the domestic with the international: Agenda of the Biden administration to cover a comprehensive set of transnational challenges.
  • These include:
    • climate change
    • food insecurity
    • pandemics
    • terrorism
    • energy shortages
    • inflation
  • Considerable focus on outer space security and governance.
  • Three main fulcrums of U.S. strategy: Invest; Build and Modernize
  • It seeks to invest in the “tools of American power and influence:
    • By strengthening the economy at home
    • Improving critical infrastructure
    • Investing in technologies such as microchips and semiconductors.
  • Build ‘the strongest possible coalition of nations: A recognition of both the U.S.’s ambitions as well as limitations in driving global geopolitics unilaterally.
  • Cater to the wide-ranging demands of internal and external security, simultaneously.

NSS about Russia and China:

• Joint strategy: To tackle external challenges for the U.S. by out-competing China and constraining Russia
• Asymmetrically tilted its focus on threats from China despite an active war in which Russia is involved
• Taiwan: Opposition to any unilateral change to Taiwan’s status by China
• A contested Indo-Pacific region: China on one hand and a host of democratic partners on the other.
• Downgrade the Russian economy, military, soft power and influence globally.
  • Identifies countries such as Japan and India to fill the emerging gaps.

NSS and India:

• Both as a bilateral and multilateral partner In the Indo-Pacific
• Democracy: It has kept India’s status as the largest democracy and a major defense partner.
• G7: India’s possible integration in important global forums such as the G7.

Biden’s NSS serves three broad purposes:

• Strategic vision: It completes the strategic vision by the Interim National Security Strategic Guidance released in March 2021
• Seeks to provide further clarity and direction on various policy verticals by the Biden administration
• Marks the end of political expectations about presidential doctrines in the U.S.

Way forward:

 Further reinforcing the NSS: The Biden administration also released the National Defense Strategy, the Nuclear Posture Review and the Missile Defense Review to further reinforce the central message of the NSS.

Insta Links:

India, America and the China challenge

National Security Strategy

Mains Links:

Q. India and the USA are two large democracies. Examine the basic tenets on which the two political systems are based. (UPSC 2018)