Biden's National Security Strategy: A vision more aspirational than realistic

The Biden administration's updated National Security Strategy reflects the changes in the international environment that have taken place since the White House released its Interim National Security Strategic Guidance in March 2021. The new document rightly points out that "the post-Cold War era is definitively over ... Democracies and autocracies are engaged in a contest to show which system of governance can best deliver for their people and the world." In addition, while continuing to identify China as the longer-term, pacing threat, the strategy devotes considerable attention to Russia in light of its invasion of Ukraine. Moreover, it recognizes that…