Ryan Neuhard
Background
On October 12, 2022, the US government published a new National Security Strategy (NSS). The White House issues the unclassified NSS to define the overall strategic priorities and guidelines for all US government agencies and to serve as a foundation for agency-specific strategic documents, like the classified National Defense Strategy (NDS) and the not-yet updated National Military Strategy (NMS).
The NSS must cover a comprehensive range of topics and as a result there is a lot of nuanced information packed into the document. Analysts will be dissecting each section and drawing many conclusions in the coming days and weeks. However, here are at least four key points that stand out:
Prioritizing China and Russia
When triaging the challenges posed by other nations, the NSS explicitly prioritizes China, then Russia, followed by all others. In the section that defines the strategy by region, the Indo-Pacific is addressed first, followed immediately by Europe, then all other regions. For example, the NSS states:
… this strategy recognizes that the PRC presents America’s most consequential geopolitical challenge. Although the Indo-Pacific is where its outcomes will be most acutely shaped, there are significant global dimensions to this challenge. Russia poses an immediate and ongoing threat to the regional security order in Europe and it is a source of disruption and instability globally but it lacks the across the spectrum capabilities of the PRC. We also recognize that other smaller autocratic powers are also acting in aggressive and destabilizing ways. … (p.11)
Russia and the PRC pose different challenges. Russia poses an immediate threat to the free and open international system, recklessly flouting the basic laws of the international order today, as its brutal war of aggression against Ukraine has shown. The PRC, by contrast, is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to advance that objective. (p. 8)
This mirrors the updated National Defense Strategy which emphasizes the same prioritization. That is important both for the sake of informing how government agencies should divide their focus and resources when forced to choose, and for the sake of reassuring any allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific who may harbor doubts about US commitment and staying power.
The continued emphasis on the Indo-Pacific and on China throughout the NSS (and NDS) appears to be a signal that—while the US government will continue mobilizing support to Europe in response to the war in Ukraine and to other critical regions around the world—the US government will not allow other crises to derail the strategic prioritization of the Indo-Pacific and competition with China.
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