	Introduction

The U.S. government's national security system includes the organizations, structures, and processes that govern decision-making, budgeting, planning and execution, and congressional oversight of executive branch national security activities. In theory, these documents and review exercises are all "nested" with each other, such that guidance issued at higher levels of the executive branch, for example by the President, informs guidance issued at lower levels, for example by the Secretary of Defense, whose guidance, in turn, informs that issued by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS). In recent years, other agencies have adopted analogues to the Department of Defense's (DOD) QDR process: the Department of Homeland Security's Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR), the Department of State's Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), and the intelligence community's Quadrennial Intelligence Community Review (QICR). The Obama Administration, at the start of its first term, declared the concepts of "national security" and "homeland security" to be "indistinguishable," and it institutionalized that concept organizationally by merging the previously separate National and Homeland Security Councils. This report provides an overview of mandates, statutory and otherwise, for key national security strategic reviews and reports; assesses recent execution; and raises issues that Congress may wish to consider as it conducts future oversight activities. Why Strategy? By laying out a detailed strategic vision, it can help inform public audiences both at home and abroad about U.S. government intent. At the level of an individual agency, in turn, strategy can help locate that agency's efforts in the context of the national security efforts of the government as a whole; confirm agency priorities; clarify internal roles and missions; and provide a foundation for external communications including with Congress. Strategic Reviews and Reports with Statutory Requirements

Congress has enacted, and sometimes amended, an array of requirements for the executive branch to conduct strategic reviews and/or to publish strategy documents. Executive branch compliance with these mandates, in form and substance, has varied a great deal over time. Evaluating the effectiveness of congressional oversight of executive branch strategy-making may depend in part on how one defines "effective strategy-making." There is no separate statutory mandate for an NDS. As long as the basic premises of the defense strategy still hold, which is by no means a given, a two-year gap between adjudication of defense strategy, and assessment of the appropriateness of the assignment of roles and missions for executing that strategy, might in principle allow sufficient time to gauge the effectiveness of the division of labor. National Defense Panel (NDP)

Many practitioners and observers have suggested the value of a competition of ideas, to spur the rigor and creativity of any strategic review process. Issues for Congress

Over time, there has been no shortage of debate and commentary about the role of "strategy" in the national security system, which also includes decision-making, budgeting, planning and execution, and congressional oversight. In the defense arena of national security, Congress requires the submission of a national security strategy (NSS) at least once per year, of a national defense strategy (NDS) as part of the quadrennial defense review (QDR) report every four years, and of a national military strategy (NMS) or update every two years. In practice, review and reporting timelines have been less coherent. Strategy and Resourcing

Both in practice and in theory, the relationship between strategy-making and resourcing can be fraught. What mechanisms might help ensure that conclusions of strategic reviews and the content of strategic guidance directly shape specific policy and resourcing decisions?
Strategy—together with decision-making, planning and execution, budgeting, and congressional oversight—is a critical component of U.S. government thinking and practice in the arena of national security. In theory, effective national security strategy-making can sharpen priorities and refine approaches; provide a single shared vision for all concerned agencies; clarify the roles and responsibilities of all concerned agencies so that they may more effectively plan and resource; offer a coherent baseline for congressional oversight; and communicate U.S. government intent to key audiences at home and abroad. While there is no single shared view of the boundaries of the concept of "national security," many would include homeland security, and an array of economic, energy and/or environmental concerns, as well as traditional military affairs.
In practice, the U.S. government—at the levels of both the White House and individual agencies—conducts a wide array of strategic reviews, and issues many forms of strategic guidance. The pinnacle of the national security strategic architecture is the national security strategy, issued by the President. That effort is supported by an array of subordinate quadrennial reviews—the Quadrennial Defense Review by the Department of Defense, the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review by the Department of State, the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review issued by the Department of Homeland Security, and the Quadrennial Intelligence Community Review issued by the Office of the Director for National Intelligence—as well as a number of subordinate strategies including national defense strategy, national military strategy, national homeland security strategy, and national intelligence strategy. Yet in practice, the strategic architecture is more complex and less coherent than this synopsis might suggest, because these core strategic efforts are joined by a number of one-off strategic reviews and documents, and because timelines, content, and relationships among the various documents have all varied a great deal over time.
Congress has provided statutory mandates for many but not all U.S. government strategy-making activities. In principle, congressional oversight of Administration strategic efforts can help hold the executive branch accountable for both the content and the rigor of its thinking. To the extent that strategy actually shapes policy-making and resourcing, such strategy oversight can be a powerful tool for shaping real-world outcomes. In practice, executive branch compliance with statutory mandates—in terms of both form and content—has been mixed at best in recent history.
This report offers a brief overview of the role of strategy in conducting the business of national security; and it reviews the major statutory and non-statutory mandates for national security activities, addressing both requirements and execution to date. It analyzes key issues that may be of interest to Congress in exercising oversight of executive branch strategy-making, including the frequency of strategy updates; the synchronization of timelines and content among different strategies; the prioritization of objectives; the assignment of roles and responsibilities among relevant agencies; the links between strategy and resourcing; and the value of a competition of ideas.