The National Military Strategy is periodically published to enunciate the overarching goals and objectives for the Department of Defense (DOD). Based on a changing and challenging geopolitical environment, this document outlines the military’s missions in the broadest terms. That directly impacts force structure, or how the DOD is organized. In the latest two versions an egocentric addition has emerged–universal values. Portending hubris, that concept is both wrong and potentially dangerous to our position in the world. It is wrong because there are no agreed upon “universal values” and dangerous because it reinforces concerns professed by many people around the world that the United States holds itself to be the supreme judge of moral authority and arbiter of global power.

The current version of the strategy is dated June 2015 and it is the first change since 2011. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s foreword realistically notes, “Global disorder has significantly increased while some of our comparative military advantage has begun to erode. We now face multiple, simultaneous security challenges from traditional state actors and transregional networks of sub-state groups — all taking advantage of rapid technological change. Future conflicts will come more rapidly, last longer, […]