Facilitating a Dialogue among Senior-Level DoD Officials on National Security Priorities: A Methodological Note

This report details a one-off experimental methodology for facilitating a dialogue on national security priorities among senior-level Department of Defense officials (with some U.S. Government-wide participation) in an effort to provide front-end guidance to the 2009 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). The report is followed by a lengthy appendix entitled “Painting the National Security Landscape,” and another appendix, “Building Alternative U.S. Military Postures.” The first appendix is a collection of visual representations of the future security environment (“posters”), along with outlines of the content depicted on the posters (“scripts”), and substantial essays (with extensive reference notes). Combined, this appendix provides enough information to those who use the methodology described in the report to create a different poster than the one provided by the Beyond Goldwater-Nichols study team. This appendix is organized around five critical national security missions:

• Maintain Global and Regional Stability: Ensure Stability, Security, and Economic Prosperity in an Era of Globalization
• Provide Homeland Security: Provide Active, Layered Defense with Readiness to Support Incident Management
• Mitigate Proliferation Threats: Prevent the Development, Acquisition, Trafficking, and Use of Nuclear, Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Weapons and Materials
• Prevail in the Struggle against Radical Islamists: Undertake a Multidimensional Campaign against the Globalizing Islamist Insurgency and Religious Terrorism
• Promote E3 Security and Human Rights: Promote Economic, Environmental, and Energy Security, as Well as Good Governance, Internal Stability, and Human Rights

For more information on this report and to download the posters please go to the  Senior-Level Dialogue on National Security Priorities webpage.