Conclusion

Today, the United States faces an unprecedented array of traditional and new security threats. From the global pandemic and climate change to resurgent domestic violent extremism and a crisis of racial injustice at home, these crises interact with each other to present a threat matrix that cannot be solely addressed either at the international or the domestic policy level or by simply reverting to old paradigms and theories. As the Biden administration’s Interim National Security Strategic Guidance states, “We cannot pretend the world can simply be restored to the way it was 75, 30, or even four years ago. We cannot just return to the way things were before. In foreign policy and national security, just as in domestic policy, we have to chart a new course.”¹ Instead, we will need to develop new ways of thinking about national security, and the policy tools we can bring to bear on these problems.