Orchestrating the Instruments of Power: A Critical Examination of the U.S. National Security System

National security, a topic routinely discussed behind closed doors by Washington's political scientists and policy makers, is believed to be an insider's game. All too often this highly specialized knowledge is assumed to place issues beyond the grasp—and interest—of the American public. Author D. Robert Worley disagrees. The U.S. national security system, designed after World War II and institutionalized through a decades-long power conflict with the Soviet Union, is inadequate for the needs of the twenty-first century, and while a general consensus has emerged that the system must be transformed, a clear and direct route for a new national security strategy proves elusive. Furnishing the tools to assist in future national security reforms, Orchestrating the Instruments of Power articulates and synthesizes the concepts of America's economic, political, and military instruments of power.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations List of Abbreviations Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Part 1. Foundational Concepts and Principles 1. A Primer on Security Concepts 2. War and American Democracy 3. War Powers Part 2. National Security Strategies 4. Grand Strategy 5. Cold War Strategies 6. Post–Cold War Strategies Part 3. National Security Apparatus 7. Instruments of Power 8. Mechanisms of Power 9. National Security Council Part 4. National Security Reform 10. Major Reform Proposals 11. Strategy First Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
D. Robert Worley is a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Advanced Governmental Studies. He is the author of Shaping U.S. Military Forces: Revolution or Relevance in a Post–Cold War World.

Review :
“D. Robert Worley’s scholarly and objective work opens the arcane subject of national security policy and strategy to the general public, provides a valuable resource for students and practitioners, and demonstrates the challenges in adapting a system created for distinct eras of peace and war to modern complexities.”-John T. Hanley Jr., former director for strategy, Office of the Director of National Intelligence       “The problem of integrating all elements of national power to achieve specified goals-the problem of strategy-is rarely treated in comprehensive fashion. Robert Worley’s new volume is one of the very few that grapple with this challenge. The book’s impressive breadth of treatment and its coherent framework will be of great use to students of U.S. national security strategy. The reader will come away with a wide-ranging and rigorous education in the tools, concepts, theories, and problems at the heart of U.S. strategy.”-Michael J. Mazarr, professor of national security strategy at the U.S. National War College