how the national security strategy does not adequately handle threats that Russia poses to the United States

how the national security strategy does not adequately handle threats that Russia poses to the United States

The United States conceptualizes and actualizes a National Security Strategy on an annual basis to realize its goals of protecting the American people, the homeland, and the American way of life. The threats that this national security strategy does not address range from the global to regional threats. Some of the global dangers include cyber-attacks, terrorism online-based influence on governmental and civil operations, election interference, and counter-intelligence, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, international organized crime, and economically disruptive technologies. Regional threats are those that are posed by specific countries or emanate from a particular part of the world. Generally, the national security strategy is bedeviled by various inadequacies that make it ineffective in handling threats that are posed to the United States by external forces. In this paper, we will look into how the national security strategy does not adequately handle threats that Russia poses to the United States.

Historically, Russia, in the form of the former Soviet Union, posed as a threat to the existence of the United States since the days of the cold war. The antagonism between these two powers almost resulted in a catastrophic nuclear Armageddon during the nuclear crisis of Cuba. Fortunately, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the consequent end of the Cold War meant that the U.S. did not have other competitors that were at par with its strengths, both militarily and economically. Hence, there was a need for the U.S. to remodel its security and align it with the emerging risks. The national security strategy had to shift from focusing on the “A list” of threats to the U.S. in the form and scale of the Soviet Union witnessed during the cold war to the “B list” of looming threats to U.S. interests that are posed by major regional powers such as countries of the Persian Gulf and the Korean peninsula (Bluth, 2019).

However, with time, other powers have arisen in the form of Russia and China and are almost assuming the “A list” position of global powers threatening the survival of the United States. Hence the U.S. government needs to take a leaf from the cold war era and re-focus its national security strategy onto these emerging threats. For instance, for the past decade to date, Russia has had ambitions to expand its influence globally, a reality that the National Security Strategy does not adequately address. Moscow is continually pursuing several goals geared at expanding its reach and thus undermines the liberal global order which the U.S. leads. Such pursuits will enable Russia to split the political and security entities of Europe and demonstrate Russia’s ability to shape the global agenda and allow it to assert its influence (Trump, 2017).

To realize its global influence, Russia is entering into arms deals with allies and adversaries of the U.S. without inhibition. It has also flexed its military muscles in Asia, particularly in Syria, recently where it has dramatically helped restore Asad’s regime into power and wants to assert its power in the Red and Mediterranean seas(Trump, 2017). Using its military prowess and its intelligence service, Russia intends to spread its information collecting operations into Europe and other dominant global powers such as the U.S. The leverage it has gained in the past conflicts it has engaged in has given Moscow the confidence to engage in conflict mediation processes, for example in the Afghanistan reconciliation endeavor (Kulesa & Shetty, 2017).

Moscow is expanding its commercial and energy footprint on a global scale, thus posing challenges to the US-driven market sanctions, an occurrence that is not addressed by the National Security Strategy (Ikenberry, 2017). For instance, Russia still honors trade agreements with Iran despite the economic sanctions that other global powers such as the U.S. and E.U. have imposed on Tehran. This defiance shows that Russia is undeterred by the actions of other global players when it comes to the pursuit of her ambitions and the protection of her interests. Additionally, Moscow is improving on an already existing strategic relationship with Beijing and growing its profile in countries throughout the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This is all to edge out the U.S. influence in these regions (Smith, 2019).

Moscow has the view that its military is critical in safeguarding its interests and supporting its foreign policy. The Russian military has become highly modernized and has improved its capability across all domains. Also, it maintains the largest stockpile of operational nuclear weapons in the world. To add, Russia has increased its defense budget to over 5% of its GDP in the past four years. This increased military expenditure has enabled its military to make massive progress in air defenses and attacks, develop advanced submarine systems, and heighten its electronic warfare abilities. Also, the Russian government has employed its military force in fighting and winning the Georgian war and annexing the Crimea peninsula with no intervention of any other country (Kulesa & Shetty, 2017). This illustrates the power of Russia in preventing other countries from getting involved in her affairs.

Moreover, the Kremlin seeks to maintain and expand Russia’s influence throughout the former Soviet Union states, which she believes they ought to be under its sphere of influence. Moscow used military, political, and economic destabilization techniques to prevent some former Soviet countries such as Moldova and Ukraine, from integrating with the European Union. In line with this ideology, Russia continually presses Central Asian countries to support the economic and security initiatives that it leads while asking them to reduce their engagements in the U.S. (Weisburd, Watts & Berger, 2016).

In light of these threats, the U.S. has to adopt mandatory solutions such as deepening its collaborations with her European allies and partners to counter the forces that aim at undermining their shared values, vision, and security ambitions. The U.S. also needs to draft and actualize impartial trade practices E.U. states and the U.K. and remove obstacles that hinder economic growth. Lastly, the military collaboration between the U.S. and her European needs to be maintained with increased defense budgets being set aside to meet the emerging security needs. Also, the eastern flank of NATO needs to be strengthened to act as a deterrence and defense against foreign and unwanted attacks, in whatever forms. The improvement of existing defense systems capabilities and increased counter-terrorism efforts on this front will enable the NATO members to defend themselves from external aggression (Trump, 2017).

In conclusion, Russia has morphed into a modern threat to the interests and survival of the global legacy of the United States. Thus, to guarantee its continued dominance on a global scale, the U.S. must fine-tune her national security strategy and align it with the post-modern national threats and also adopt the suggested solutions to these dangers.