Strategy, Revisited: Analyzing the Shift from a Threat-Based to Capabilities-Based Approach to US Strategic Planning   [open pdf - 66KB]

In contrast to the current NSS/NMS; how does a transformed capabilities based force structure impact on the development of a new National Military Strategy, and what would that then modify in the US National Security Strategy / National Policy? What are the risks or advantages inherent to these changes? This paper, then, uses the original essay question as a springboard for a broader, comprehensive discussion of what is currently wrong in the US approach to strategy and force planning, and possible ways of getting back to what strategy truly is.. A comprehensive, policy based force structuring paradigm, one that incorporates the advantages of both a threat-based and capabilities-based approaches and one that models, shapes, and sizes military forces (as well as other instruments of power) in light of national values, goals, interests, and obligations, is a paradigm most befitting of a global hegemonic power such as the United States.