Three Key Takeaways from the Biden Administration’s National Security Strategy

While an unclassified version of the National Defense Strategy has not been released yet, Pentagon officials — including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a statement on the NSS made earlier today —have made clear that a cornerstone of the NDS will be a concept called “integrated deterrence,” which calls for the US military to work with other US government agencies as well as international partners to impose whole-of-government penalties on an enemy.

“We will rely on integrated deterrence, as detailed in the Department’s National Defense Strategy, which will soon be released in unclassified form,” Austin said in the statement, defining the concept as “seamlessly combin[ing] our capabilities to convince potential adversaries that the costs of their hostile activities far outweigh any possible benefits—in all theaters, in all domains, and across the spectrum of potential conflict

But while “integrated deterrence” was mentioned in the NSS, it is cited only in a section on US military modernization, which could point to it being a Defense Department concept that won’t be widely adopted by other government agencies, said Stacie Pettyjohn, director of the defense program at the Center for a New American Security.

“Integrated deterrence, in my view, always made the most sense as a centerpiece of the National Security Strategy where the DoD part focuses on the high-end deterrence,” she told Breaking Defense.

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