Re-imagining the American community: myth, metaphor, and narrative in national security

• Main Author: Shevin, Michelle G.
• Other Authors: Roberts, Nancy
• Published: Monterey, California: Naval Postgraduate School 2014
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10945/44001

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited === In 2011, two defense strategists premiered their argument for a new national strategic narrative. Geared toward national security but intended to guide policymaking across government, this narrative has yet to receive official endorsement by the Defense Department or at the executive level. This thesis will explore if/why a new narrative is necessary, using an interdisciplinary historical and analytic approach. Consulting scholarship from ecology, sociology, economics, chaos theory, cybernetics, and other fields, the author will attempt to elucidate unobvious shifts occurring at multiple levels of the U.S. strategic realm. Shifting paradigms provide a good lens through which to view the narrative fragmentation that has arguably rendered much of U.S. strategy and policymaking ineffective over the last two decades. Ultimately, the author will argue that the U.S. government (and population) would reap long-term security and prosperity benefits from a revamped overall national strategic narrative to guide whole-of-government strategy in the coming decades.