- The Oxford Handbook of U.S. National Security
- About the Editors
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword: U.S. National Security for the Twenty-First Century
- Introduction: Shape and Scope of U.S. National Security
- America’s Foreign Policy Traditions
- National Interests and Grand Strategy
- U.S. Foreign Policymaking and National Security
- Civil-Military Relations
- The Presidency and Decision Making
- The National Security Council: Is It Effective, or Is It Broken?
- The National Security Process
- Intelligence and National Security Decision Making
- Congress and National Security
- Diplomacy, the State Department, and National Security
- Development Assistance: Rationale and Applications
- Understanding and Improving U.S. Financial Sanctions
- The Political Economy of Security
- Budgeting for National Security
- Military Force Planning and National Security
- Military Operations and the Defense Department
- Alliances, Military Basing, and Logistics
- Homeland Security
- The United States and Iran: Challenges of Deterrence and Compellence
- U.S. Nuclear Strategy: The Search for Meaning
- International Cyber Conflict and National Security
- Encryption Wars: Who Should Yield?
- Space and National Security
- Human (In)Security
- Climate Change and Environmental Security
- Political Violence
- Women’s Participation in Political Violence
- International Terrorism
- Threats and Dangers in the Twenty-First Century
- International Rivalry and National Security
- Interstate Rivalry in East Asia
- The Transatlantic Security Landscape in Europe
- U.S. National Security in the Western Hemisphere
- Epilogue: Five Lessons for National Security Policymakers
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
It is axiomatic that the foreign policy decisions of any country, including those of the United States, should be derived and based upon an understanding of the “national interest.” Yet there is no single, overarching conception of what constitutes the national interest or what should be considered as national interests. We see the idea of the national interest as an important starting point—a concept that enables national security policymakers to articulate what matters to the country and how a nation should set its priorities. National interests are enduring, such as protecting the integrity of the state and promoting economic prosperity. The domestic political system, international system, and organizational interests within the national security bureaucracy also shape national interests.
Keywords: national interests, grand strategy, U.S. foreign policy, hegemony, international security
Derek S. Reveron is a Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College. He specializes in strategy development, non-state security challenges, and defense policy. He has authored or edited eleven books and is a faculty affiliate at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School. His recent books include: Exporting Security: International Engagement, Security Cooperation, and the Changing Face of the US Military and Human and National Security: Transnational Challenges. He teaches courses on grand strategy, foreign policy analysis, human security, and cybersecurity. He received an M.A. in Political Science and a Ph.D. in Public Policy Analysis from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Nikolas K. Gvosdev is Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and the Jerome E. Levy Chair for Economic Geography. He was the Editor of The National Interest magazine and a Senior Fellow of Strategic Studies at The Nixon Center in Washington, DC. He was also associate director of the J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies at Baylor University and has served as an adjunct professor at Georgetown, George Washington, and Brown Universities. Dr. Gvosdev is the author or editor of a number of books, including, most recently, Communitarian Foreign Policy: Amitai Etzioni’s Vision, co-author of US Foreign Policy and Defense Strategy: The Rise of an Incidental Superpower, and co-author of Russian Foreign Policy: Interests, Vectors and Sectors. He received his doctorate from St Antony's College, Oxford University, where he studied on a Rhodes Scholarship.
Access to the complete content on Oxford Handbooks Online requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter without a subscription.
Please subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.
For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can''t find the answer there, please contact us.
- The Oxford Handbook of U.S. National Security
- About the Editors
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword: U.S. National Security for the Twenty-First Century
- Introduction: Shape and Scope of U.S. National Security
- America’s Foreign Policy Traditions
- National Interests and Grand Strategy
- U.S. Foreign Policymaking and National Security
- Civil-Military Relations
- The Presidency and Decision Making
- The National Security Council: Is It Effective, or Is It Broken?
- The National Security Process
- Intelligence and National Security Decision Making
- Congress and National Security
- Diplomacy, the State Department, and National Security
- Development Assistance: Rationale and Applications
- Understanding and Improving U.S. Financial Sanctions
- The Political Economy of Security
- Budgeting for National Security
- Military Force Planning and National Security
- Military Operations and the Defense Department
- Alliances, Military Basing, and Logistics
- Homeland Security
- The United States and Iran: Challenges of Deterrence and Compellence
- U.S. Nuclear Strategy: The Search for Meaning
- International Cyber Conflict and National Security
- Encryption Wars: Who Should Yield?
- Space and National Security
- Human (In)Security
- Climate Change and Environmental Security
- Political Violence
- Women’s Participation in Political Violence
- International Terrorism
- Threats and Dangers in the Twenty-First Century
- International Rivalry and National Security
- Interstate Rivalry in East Asia
- The Transatlantic Security Landscape in Europe
- U.S. National Security in the Western Hemisphere
- Epilogue: Five Lessons for National Security Policymakers
- Index