The 2012 Shift in U.S. National Security Strategy ─ The Context

Terrorism: Commentary on Security Documents is a series that provides primary source documents and expert commentary on various topics in the worldwide effort to combat terrorism. Among the documents collected are transcripts of Congressional testimony, reports by such federal government bodies as the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO), United Nations Security Council resolutions, reports and investigations by the United Nations Secretary-General and other dedicated UN bodies, and case law from the U.S. and around the globe covering issues related to terrorism. Most volumes carry a single theme, and inside each volume the documents appear within topic-based categories. The series also includes a subject index and other indices that guide the user through this complex area of the law.

Volume 131, The 2012 Shift in U.S. National Security Strategy: The Context, focuses on the Obama administration's general shift beyond the conflicts in the Middle East and Central Asia and towards a more Asia-Pacific national security strategy in early 2012. In this volume, Professor Douglas Lovelace, Jr., provides a context for the shift and describes its most important components: the multidimensional domestic and international security and economic threats posed by China, the North Korean threat, the rise of Southeast Asian terrorism, and U.S. geostrategic posturing throughout Asia. Professor Lovelace discusses and frames these issues through reports by the U.S. Department of Defense, Congressional Research Service, U.S. Army War College, U.S.-China Economic and Security Commission, and the U.S. General Accountability Office.

Douglas Lovelace, Jr. is the Director of the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College. Earlier in his military career, he worked on national security directives. He holds an MBA degree from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University and a JD from Widener School of Law.

Kristen E Boon is Director of International Programs at Seton Hall University School of Law. Her writings have appeared in the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law and the New York University Journal of International Law. A former clerk to the Supreme Court of Canada's Justice Ian Binnie, she holds an M.A. in Political Science from McGill University and a J.D. from New York University School of Law.