DSS 700 Resources
These are the core texts and supplemental readings for my course on Strategy and Defense Policy
Primers
- Congressional Budget Office. The U.S. Military’s Force Structure: A Primer, 2016.
- Congressional Budget Office. The U.S. Military’s Force Structure: A Primer - Update, 2021.
- Department of Defense 101. National Defense University, 2024.
- Heffington, Stephen, Adam Oler, and David Tretler, eds. A National Security Strategy Primer. Washington, DC: National Defense University Press 2019.
- Naval Postgraduate School. Major Strategy and Policy Documents.
- Congressional Research Service. Defense Primer: Budgeting for National and Defense Intelligence, 2025.
- O'Hanlon, Michael. Defense 101: Understanding the Military of Today and Tomorrow. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2021.
Books
- Bartholomees, J. Boone, ed. U.S. Army War College Guide to National Security Policy and Strategy, 2nd Edition. US Army War College Press, 2006.
- Builder, Carl H. The Masks of War: American Military Styles in Strategy and Analysis. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989
- Clausewitz, Carl von. On War, Indexed Edition. Michael Howard and Peter Paret, editors. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989.
- Demarest, Heidi B. US Defense Budget Outcomes: Volatility and Predictability in Army Weapons Funding. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2017.
- Enthoven, Alain C. and K. Wayne Smith. How Much Is Enough? Shaping the Defense Program, 1961-1969. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 1971.
- Gray, Colin. Modern Strategy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
- Gray, Colin. The Strategy Bridge: Theory for Practice. Oxford University Press, 2016.
- Gray, Colin. Strategy and Defence Planning: Meeting the Challenge of Uncertainty. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
- Kennedy, Paul, ed. Grand Strategies in War and Peace. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991.
- Krepinvech, Andrew and Barry Watts. Regaining Strategic Competence. Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2009.
- Kriege, Miriam, Lynne Chandler Garcia, John Riley, and Will Atkins. American Defense Policy, Ninth Edition. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2021.
- Lord, Carnes. The Presidency and the Management of National Security. New York: Free Press, 1988.
- Luttwak, Edward. The Pentagon and the Art of War: The Question of Military Reform. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985.
- Murray, Williamson. War, Strategy, and Military Effectiveness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
- Murray, Williamson and Allan Millett. Military Innovation in the Interwar Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
- Murray, Williamson and Richard Hart Sinnreich, Successful Strategies: Triumphing in War and Peace from Antiquity to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
- Schweizer, Peter. Victory: The Reagan Administration's Secret Strategy that Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1994.
Useful References
- The Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, required the President to submit the US National Security Strategy to Congress each year. Those that were produced can be found here.
- National Defense Strategy is produced by the Secretary of Defense to describe how the Department of Defense will contribute to the execution of the President’s National Security Strategy. Strategies from 2018 to 2005 are located here.
- National Military Strategy is produced by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to describe how the military will contribute to the execution of the President’s National Security Strategy and the Secretary of Defense’s National Defense Strategy. NMS from 1992 to 2018 are located here.
- The Quadrennial Defense Review was required by Section 923 of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY1997 (Public Law 104-201). The QDR was produced every four years from 1997 to 2014 by the Secretary of Defense in consultation with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. These can be found here.
- The Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller) includes historical detail on defense spending here.
- The Congressional Budget Office hosts detailed studies and data on defense and national security budgets and future projections here.
- The Congressional Research Services provides excellent primers and backgrounders here.
- The Secretaries of Defense historical series produced by the OSD Historian recounts major debates and policy decisions of the Defense Department through 1985. These can be found here.
- The OSD Historian provides Secretary of Defense Reports to Congress from 1969 to 2005 here.
- US Defense Department's Nuclear Matters Handbook, 2020.
- The Defense Acquisition University Acquipedia, which provides background and definitions for planning and acquisition-related terms.
Podcasts and Other Media
- Naval War College Profiles in Strategy - https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/profiles-in-strategy/
- Shield of the Republic – https://www.shieldoftherepublic.com
- School of War – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/school-of-war/id1589160645
- Secrets of Statecraft – https://www.hoover.org/publications/secrets-statecraft-andrew-roberts
- War on the Rocks – https://warontherocks.com/category/podcasts/war-on-the-rocks/
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