The NMS provides an overview of the strategic challenges the United States is currently encountering and outlines how the United States armed forces will be employed to support the NSS. Today’s strategic environment is characterized by its complexity and quickly changing situations due to globalization, the spread of technology, and demographic shifts. In this complex strategic environment, the United States military cannot focus on one challenge and must be able to provide a full range of military options for addressing every possible security scenario.
One of the most critical objectives the NMS discussed to counter the complex and unpredictable security challenges the United States is facing is to …show more content…
First, the NMS states that the positioning of the United States military forces is critical to successful crisis response; therefore, the rebalancing of the military force to the Asia and Pacific regions, strengthening alliances with key allies such as Australia, Japan, and South Korea through military-to-military engagement, and increasing security cooperation activities with India, New Zealand, Singapore, and Malaysia are critical to the pursuit of peace in the region. Second, the NMS states that the United States military will be committed to enhancing interoperability, and improving self-defense capabilities of NATO allies and partners. Third, the NMS stated that the United States military will be dedicated to assisting vital Middle East allies and partners such Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and United Arab Emirates increase their self-defense capabilities and secure the region. Fourth, the NMS stated that the United States military will assist in strengthening institutions across the African region to promote stability, peacekeeping capacity, and defense against transregional extremists. Finally, the NMS states that the United States military will support interagency collaboration with Latin American and Caribbean states to counter transnational criminal syndicates in the …show more content…
USEUCOM welcomed the inclusion of the National Guard in the JCTP due to the belief that the reserve component will present a less aggressive posture; therefore, threatening to the new Russian Federation. Successful initial JCTP engagement by the National Guard team established the foundation for the SPP. After getting favorable response from the initial delegation visit to Baltic nations of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, the National Guard proposed a “sustaining partnership” model which laid the groundwork for the SPP structure. Having established a foundation for success through strategic planning and face-to-face contact with potential partner nations, the National Guard, with coordination with USEUCOM, established the first three state partnerships in April 1993. These state partnerships were between Latvia and Michigan, Lithuanian and Pennsylvania, and Maryland and Estonia. These relationships played a critical role in the democratic transition of these Baltic nations and laid the foundation for closer cooperation. By September 2013, five months after the start of the program, a total of 15 state partnerships were