National Security Strategy of the United States
Abstract
Throughout our history, our national security strategy has pursued broad, consistent goals. We have always sought to protect the safety of the nation, its citizens, and its way of life. We have also worked to advance the welfare of our people by contributing to an international environment of peace, freedom, and progress within which our democracy--and other free nations--can flourish. These broad goals have guided American foreign and defense policy throughout the life of the Republic. They were as much the driving force behind President Jefferson's decision to send the American Navy against the Pasha of Tripoli in 1804 as they were when President Reagan directed American naval and air forces to return to that area in 1986. They animated Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, and my initiatives in support of democracy in Eastern Europe this past year. In addition, this Nation has always felt a powerful sense of community with those other nations that shared our values. We have always believed that, although the flourishing of democracy in America did not require a completely democratic world, it could not long survive in one largely totalitarian. It is a common moral vision that holds together our alliances in Europe, East Asia, and other parts of the world--a vision shaped by the Magna Carta, our Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Helsinki Final Act. The American commitment to an alliance strategy, therefore, has a more enduring basis than simply the perception of a common enemy.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 1990
- Accession Number
- ADA533212
Entities
Organizations
- Executive Office of the President of the United States