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United States Strategic Plan
First Revision. Released by the Office of Resources,
For International Affairs
Plans, and Policy, U.S. Department of State,
Washington, DC, February 1999
STRATEGIC GOAL: REGIONAL STABILITY
Prevent instabilities from threatening the vital and important interests of the United States and its allies.
NATIONAL INTEREST:
Regional stability, achieved through diplomatic leadership, a strong military, and effective intelligence, is fundamental to U.S. national security. Strengthening national security is a prerequisite to all other U.S. goals.
STRATEGIES:
- Prevent the emergence of hostile nations or coalitions, while maintaining the prevailing state of non-belligerence among major powers. Strengthen and expand alliances. Emphasize opportunities for multilateral security cooperation that advance U.S. interests. Remain prepared to act unilaterally.
- Give priority to defending vital security interests in Eastern and Western Europe, East Asia, Southwest Asia, and the Persian Gulf. Protect vital interests, including access to oil supplies, freedom of navigation and commerce, and unimpeded access to outer space.
- Maintain effective relationships with key regional states through vigorous diplomacy, backed by strong U.S. and allied military capability to react to contingencies. Employ public diplomacy to build understanding and support for U.S. policies among foreign publics.
- Use multilateral and bilateral defense cooperation, including alliances, military assistance, military-to-military cooperation, defense trade controls, and arms sales, to develop stable security relations and respond to problems.
- Use preventive diplomacy and conflict resolution to prevent, manage, and resolve crises. Impose sanctions against violators of international norms when they are likely to prove effective. Decrease the potential for conflict with a range of resources, from diplomacy to military intervention, gauged to U.S. interests. Address the root causes of conflict both multilaterally and bilaterally, using development assistance and support to democracy.
- Enlist multilateral organizations and mechanisms as alternatives to direct applications of U.S. power and influence. Improve the effectiveness of international peacekeeping to include establishing the means for flexible, graduated crisis response by regional and multilateral organizations. Pay U.S. arrears to the UN.
- Forestall conventional arms races. Promote regional arms control measures to enhance transparency and confidence, limit or reduce excessive or destabilizing conventional forces, and verify compliance with conventional force agreements. Improve and apply U.S. export controls and international agreements to control trade in conventional arms and military technology.
- Build a national consensus on the global security role of the U.S., while developing more systematic and structured coordination among U.S. Government agencies.
EXTERNAL FACTORS AND ASSUMPTIONS:
- Multiple threats of a generally localized nature will continue to challenge U.S. interests, and will at times have military significance.
- A growing set of security challenges to the U.S. will come from non-state entities, involving ethnic, religious, and other forms of sub-state conflict.
- Critical flash points include, but are not limited to, the Korean Peninsula and the Persian Gulf. Russia and China present potential long-term security challenges. However, the likelihood of a direct military threat to United States vital interests is limited.
INDICATORS:
- Crises prevented, defused or solved.
- Assessments of threats to the United States.
- Status of alliances and key relations.
- Assessments of regional stability and countries in crisis.
STRATEGIC GOAL: WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
Reduce the threat to the United States and its allies from weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
NATIONAL INTEREST:
The most direct and serious threat to U.S. security is the possibility of conflict involving weapons of mass destruction. Of greatest concern are the threshold states and terrorist organizations that seek to acquire WMD and their delivery systems.
STRATEGIES:
- Prevent the proliferation of all WMD and their delivery systems to nations and groups that do not possess them. Reduce incentives to develop WMD. Support and strengthen nonproliferation norms and regimes, and take action against violators. Control trade in related technologies. Secure fissile material from diversion.
- Advance arms control and disarmament to constrain nuclear weapons development, and to reduce nuclear weapons and delivery systems among nations that possess them. Eliminate biological and chemical weapon threats. Cap production and dispose of weapons-usable fissile material. Promote defense industry conversion to non-military use. Increase the security of command and control over WMD to reduce the potential for accidental use, use in a crisis, or loss by theft or corruption.
- Protect U.S. critical infrastructure against weapons of mass effect. Reduce the likelihood of and vulnerability to attacks on critical infrastructure, including information systems, by developing global solutions, norms, and agreements. Promote an international framework for tracking and managing cyber attacks.
- Maintain an active defense posture and use diplomacy to deter the acquisition or use of WMD. Promote confidence-building measures to reduce tensions among nations that already possess or are trying to acquire WMD. Use public diplomacy to bolster international support for nonproliferation and arms control.
- Implement existing agreements and verify compliance with treaties on WMD programs and delivery systems.
- Promote peaceful science and technology cooperation and use of technologies that are less susceptible to production of WMD. Restrict the flow of scientists and intellectuals to states seeking to acquire these weapons.
EXTERNAL FACTORS AND ASSUMPTIONS:
- When the United States and its allies cannot fully deny hostile states WMD technologies, it can deter their use and retard the rate at which advanced technologies become operational.
- U.S. arms control partners will implement existing agreements.
- In the absence of concerted nonproliferation efforts as many as 20 nations will acquire WMD by 2015.
- Vulnerability to cyber attack will grow as worldwide reliance on unclassified, interconnected computer systems will increases. However, there will be some international resistance to defending against this new problem.
INDICATORS:
- Status and number of countries possessing or developing WMD.
- Assessment of WMD threats to the U.S. and its allies.
Open world markets to increase trade and free the
flow of goods, services, and capital.NATIONAL INTEREST:
The world economy continues to globalize, and U.S. economic prosperity is increasingly linked to international trade, investment, and capital flows.
STRATEGIES:
- Expand the scope of regional and multilateral trade and investment arrangements. Extend international rules, agreements, and standards in areas such as financial and other services, investment, information, intellectual property, electronic commerce, the environment, and labor.
- Integrate emerging economic powers into the world trading system through expanded World Trade Organization membership on a commercially meaningful basis. Promote more open markets for all goods and services in developing and transition economies. Help developing nations lessen the dislocations that may result from market openings.
- Enforce rules and agreements to reduce and eliminate foreign trade barriers, increase transparency, and strengthen the rule of law. Combat competitive practices that impede access to third country markets in areas such as standards, barriers related to animal or plant health, tied foreign aid, and corruption. Strengthen the capacities of national and multilateral organizations to support open market regimes.
- Unless required by statute, limit economic sanctions to those instances where the expected benefits clearly outweighs the costs to trade, investment, and capital flows, as well as other aspects of foreign relations.
- Undertake science and technology agreements, sponsor commissions, and develop international public and private sector cooperation. Mobilize public and private sector resources and build partnerships with the scientific and academic communities to devise productive applications of research.
- Inform the U.S. public of the benefits of free and fair trade. Obtain Congressional renewal of trade agreement authority, including Fast Track. Encourage partnerships between government, business, labor, and NGOs to support open market measures. Mitigate negative domestic impacts of international liberalization efforts. Build international support for free trade through public diplomacy.
EXTERNAL FACTORS AND ASSUMPTIONS:
- Major U.S. trading partners will generally share the goal of strengthening multilateral and regional trade initiatives. However, this will not always be the case when specific interests are threatened or when attempts are made to include non-trade issues.
- International economic liberalization can carry serious liabilities, creating temporary economic dislocations, and having collateral impacts on the environment.
INDICATORS:
Next section
- Country index of tariff and non-tariff barriers.
- Change in trade as a share of global GDP.
- Economic value of tariff and non-tariff barriers to U.S. exports.
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