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http://www.defense.gov//News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=59384
National Security Advisor Describes New Strategy
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, May 28, 2010 – The new U.S. National Security Strategy is one of renewal and global leadership that advances U.S. interests by building the sources of American strength and influence and shaping a more peaceful and more prosperous world, President Barack Obama’s national security advisor said yesterday.
James L. Jones Jr. spoke about the strategy during a news conference at the Foreign Press Center here.
“This is a time of sweeping change,” he said. “Two decades since the end of the Cold War, the free flow of information, people and trade continues to accelerate at an unprecedented pace. Events far beyond our nation’s shores now impact our safety, our security and prosperity, and that of our allies and friends alike, in ways that we could not have imagined just a few years ago.”
This globalization of information and goods promises great benefits, Jones said, but it also can be used against the United States.
“This interconnection also comes with the perils of global challenges that do not respect borders: global networks of terrorists and criminals, threats in space and cyberspace, a degrading climate and technologies with increasing destructive power,” the retired Marine Corps general said. “In addition, the international architecture of the 20th century, designed for another time, is buckling under the weight of these new threats. As a consequence, it has been difficult to forge the cooperative approaches necessary to prevent states from flouting international norms and agreements.”
The United States must be strong economically to be a power internationally, Jones said, and part of the strategy recognizes the importance of economics and growth.
“American innovation must be the foundation of American power,” he said, “because at no time in human history has a nation of diminished economic vitality maintained its military and political primacy.”
Engaging with allies and friends is key to the strategy, Jones noted, adding that Obama has stressed that no one nation can solve the problems of the world.
“We will pursue comprehensive engagement around the world,” Jones said. “We will strengthen old alliances, we will build new partnerships with emerging centers of influence in every region, and we will push for institutions that are more capable of responding to the challenges of our time.”
Ensuring international rule of law and enforcing rights and responsibilities also are important aspects of the strategy, the national security advisor said, along with strengthening and integrating national capabilities.
“Going forward, there should be no doubt the United States of America will continue to underwrite global security,” Jones said. “We will do so through our military advantage and we will do so through our wide-ranging commitments to allies, partners and institutions.”
Still, Jones said, it is better, by far, for nations to provide security, maintain order and enforce the rule of law inside their own borders, and the United States will continue to aid nations to do just that.
The strategy calls for a “whole-of-government” approach to security strategy.
“Our diplomacy and development capabilities must be modernized, and our civilian expeditionary capacity strengthened, to support the full breadth of our priorities,” Jones said. “And our intelligence and homeland-security efforts must be integrated with our national-security priorities and those of our allies, our friends and our partners.”
The American military will continue to underwrite security around the world, said he added.
The strategy has a number of detailed goals, Jones said. The first is to end the war in Iraq through a responsible transition to Iraqi government. “That is on track,” he said. Overall, he continued, the strategy seeks to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida and its extremist affiliates in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere in the world and to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction and secure vulnerable nuclear materials.
The U.S. government must come up with a strategy “to secure and protect against the full range of threats and hazards to our communities and to enhance our resilience as a nation,” Jones said. The greater Middle East remains a flashpoint, he added, and the United States will remain actively involved in finding the paths to peace in the region.
Jones also said the strategy also looks to protect and secure cyberspace while safeguarding privacy and civil liberties.
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James L. Jones Jr.
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http://www.defense.gov//News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=59397
Biden: Strategy Pillars Will Ensure America’s Security
By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
ANNAPOLIS, Md., May 28, 2010 – The new U.S. National Security Strategy, unveiled yesterday, recognizes that America’s strength is based on all elements of national power, and the power of its example to the world, Vice President Joe Biden said today at the U.S. Naval Academy here.
Speaking to the 2010 graduating class, Biden said the four pillars of the new strategy are designed to “guarantee America’s continued ascendency in the 21st century [and] to guarantee our security.”
Biden outlined these four basic principles: strengthening the U.S. economy; marshalling non-military as well as military capabilities; building and strengthening U.S. alliances and partnerships around the world; and remaining true to America’s foundational values.
“A strong economy is the only foundation on which we can build a guarantee for our national security,” he said, citing broad economic initiatives under way. “Our strength and influence all depends on our economic prosperity and elevation.”
Biden reiterated President Barack Obama’s recognition during his graduation address last week at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.: “At no time in human history has a nation of diminished economic vitality maintained its military or political primacy.”
The new security strategy also recognizes the importance of using “all the arrows in the quiver” – applying all instruments of U.S. national power — to maintain security, he noted.
“Our military capacity is absolutely necessary, but not in and of itself sufficient to guarantee our security,” he told the graduates.
Diplomacy, development, education, and economic, intelligence and law enforcement initiatives also are key in addressing challenges before they escalate, he explained.
“Although we reserve the right to act preemptively,” he said, “we will strive to stop crises before they start, to avoid whenever we can the choice of last resort of the danger in action.”
The strategy seeks to build on a long history of establishing strong military alliances and effective international organizations that Biden called critical to dealing with global challenges.
“The threats we face, from pandemic disease to terrorism, … have no respect for borders,” he said. “To defeat them requires responsible nations to set down rules of conduct for the 21st century… [and to] insist that other nations, along with us, enforce those rules of conduct.”
In its pursuit of national security, the United States can’t lose sight of its values that have sustained it since its founding, Biden emphasized.
“Our own strength lies not in the example of our power, but the power of our example,” he told the graduating class.
Biden rejected the notion that the United States has to choose between its safety and its ideals in the face of those who seek to threaten its way of life. “If we yield on our ideals, they will have already won,” he said.
The vice president noted that the vast majority of the world looks to the United States for inspiration. “That is why we cannot undermine our strength by compromising those values in the name of security,” he said. “They ultimately are our security.
“In the broad struggle against extremism, upholding our values makes us stronger,” he continued. “Compromising them is what makes us weaker and yielding.”
Biden recognized the values instilled at the Naval Academy – honor, courage and commitment – and said they’re the same ideals that define America.
“Our ideals are what make us the greatest nation in the history of mankind,” he said. “And ultimately, they are a powerful incentive for the world to respond.”
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