Biden's national security strategy: a busted flush?

This final issue of the Looking Glass for 2022 casts a critical eye over the Biden administration's National Security Strategy (NSS). Much of its general thrust had already been hinted at by the administration's statements and actions. However, coming as it does at the midpoint of President Biden's term, and amidst geopolitical conflict and complexity in Europe and Asia, more is riding on this iteration of the NSS than in the recent past.

While it deserves praise for defining key strategic problems facing America, ultimately, it fails to live up to its lofty expectations. Instead, the administration has delivered a document long on aspirational verbiage and short on actual strategy. More worryingly, it embodies a fundamental contradiction between its focus on 'competition' with China (and to a lesser degree Russia) and its rhetorical commitments to the liberal or 'rules-based' order.

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