Bill Clinton’s National Security Strategy (NSS), published in 1995, four years after the fall of the Soviet Union, was a watershed document. Entitled ‘A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement’, it unabashedly stated that “we have… initiated a process that will lead to NATO’s expansion”. Worth noting is that Russia repeatedly and vociferously objected to this expansion even before Putin took office, and that in subsequent years since the policy was adopted, none of the Republican or Democratic administrations reversed it. Based on that, it’s safe to say that both parties seem to agree on what the national security strategy should be.

The unclassified 2024 report of the Commission on the National Defense Strategy states that:

• The United States faces the most serious and challenging threats since 1945, including the potential for a near-term major war.
• China and Russia are major powers that seek to undermine U.S. influence.
• In many ways, China is outpacing the United States and has largely negated the U.S. military advantage in the Western Pacific.
• Russia will devote 29 percent of its federal budget this year on national defense.
• China and Russia’s “no-limits” partnership, formed in February 2022 has only deepened and broadened to include a military and economic partnership with Iran and North Korea, a new alignment of nations opposed to U.S. interests that creates a real risk, if not likelihood, that conflict anywhere could become a multitheater or global war.
• China (and, to a lesser extent, Russia) is fusing military, diplomatic, and industrial strength to expand worldwide and coerce its neighbors.
• The NDS names China as the “pacing challenge” and invokes the National Security Strategy finding that China 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.”
• China poses the preeminent challenge to U.S. interests and the most formidable military threat.
• China boasts the largest navy in the world (over 370 ships and submarines), the largest aviation force in the region (which is rapidly catching up to Western air forces), and the largest army in the world.
• China announced in March 2024 that its defense budget would increase by 7.2 percent for the coming year.
• If trends continue, China’s People Liberation Army will be a peer, if not superior, military competitor of the United States across domains.
• Even short of all-out war, the global economic damage from a Chinese blockade of Taiwan has been estimated to cost $5 trillion, or 5 percent of global gross domestic product.
• The cost of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is estimated at $10 trillion, or 10.2 percent of global GDP.
• Although war against China, over Taiwan or otherwise, is not inevitable, the United States should take seriously Xi Jinping’s call for the PLA to be prepared to invade Taiwan by 2027.
• The U.S. military is the largest, but not the only, component of U.S. deterrence and power.
• The United States cannot compete with China, Russia, and their partners alone –and certainly cannot win a war that way.
• The threat Russia poses is chronic – ongoing and persistent.
• Russia has brokered agreements for missiles and drones from North Korea and Iran and is receiving massive economic and dual-use support from China.
• Russia maintains the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, additional strategic assets, and world-class space and cyber capabilities.
• Russia is, directly and through affiliates such as the Wagner Group, engaged diplomatically and through defense support in Africa, Latin America, and elsewhere.
• If Russia gains control over Ukraine, its border (including Belarus) with NATO member states would stretch from the Arctic to the Black Sea, presenting significantly more demands for deployed NATO forces.
• The White House is right to make clear that any Russian use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction if Russia is losing conventionally would be met with “catastrophic consequences.”
• The Commission finds that the U.S. defense industrial base (DIB) is unable to meet the equipment, technology, and munitions needs of the United States and its allies and partners.
• Congress, the Department of Defense, and other agencies will need to rewrite laws and regulations.
• The consequences of an all-out war with a peer or near peer would be devastating. Such a war would not only yield massive personnel and military costs but would also likely feature cyberattacks on U.S. critical infrastructure and a global economic recession from disruptions to supply chains, manufacturing, and trade.
• The U.S. public have not internalized the costs of the United States losing its position as a world superpower.
• The Commission proposes a Multiple Theater Force Construct, the military backbone of a comprehensive approach.
• The Commission believes that the partnership encompassing Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea increases the likelihood that a conflict with one would expand to multiple fronts, causing simultaneous demands on U.S. and allied resources.
• The United States must engage globally with a presence –military, diplomatic, and economic – to maintain stability and preserve influence worldwide, including across the Global South, where China and Russia are extending their reach.
• The Commission finds that the Joint Force must leverage technology, expertise, and allies across domains to maintain existing and develop new asymmetric advantages against U.S. adversaries rather than seeking to match them platform-to-platform.
• The Commission recommends that the Joint Force be sized and structured to lead the effort, with meaningful allied contribution, to deter China from territorial aggression in the Western Pacific – and fight and win if needed.
• Lead NATO planning and force structure to deter and, if necessary, defeat Russian aggression.
• Sustain capabilities, along with U.S. partners in the Middle East, to defend against Iranian malign activities.
• The Nation must also consider the possibility that future conflict could overwhelm the capacity of the active-duty force and should plan now to better prepare the reserve components and, potentially, a broader mobilization.
• Congress should pass a supplemental appropriation immediately to begin a multiyear investment in the national security innovation and industrial base. Funding should support U.S. allies at war; expand industrial capacity, including infrastructure for shipbuilding and the ability to surge munitions production; increase and accelerate military construction to expand and harden facilities in Asia; secure access to critical minerals; and invest in a digital and industrial workforce.
• Congress should revoke or override the caps in the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act that serve as the basis for the FY 2025 budget request.
• Given the severity of the threats, the FY 2027 and later budgets for all elements of national power will require spending that puts defense and other components of national security on a glide path to support efforts commensurate with the U.S. national effort seen during the Cold War.

The ballooning U.S. deficit also poses national security risks. Therefore, increased security spending should be accompanied by additional taxes and reforms to entitlement spending.

The latter implies that the U.S. economy must be able to afford the proposed arms build-up without bankrupting itself.