National Security Strategy

The foreign policy of states determines the way they behave in the international arena. Accurate analysis of official foreign policy documents of a country is helpful in that it shows what the international priorities of a country are at specific periods. This article reviews the U.S. National Security Strategy documents published in 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2015 from the perspective of the perception of threats to the U.S. security and perception of the U.S. role in the world. It tries to study the differences and similarities between the Bush and Obama administrations in this regard using a Neoclassical Realist framework. The results show that the Obama administration identified a wider range of threat sources to U.S. national security while providing less detailed solutions to them. Also, as democracy promotion abroad ceased to be a priority in 2015, compared to 2002 and 2006, counterterrorism continues to be at the top of U.S. security agenda. In line with Neoclassical Realism, creation of an international order under U.S. leadership is an important priority mentioned in the NSS of 2015.

The inefficiency of the national security system is one of the biggest threats to Ukraine's national security. The strategic planning in the field of security and defense has designed to identify the means, including the future structure of forces, that would allow the institutions of the defense and security sector to effectively deal with potential future threats. The purpose of this study is development of theoretical and practical measures to increase the effectiveness of strategic management of national security processes on the basis of goal setting, forecasting and planning in the context of informatization of society. The relevance of this study is due to the needlegal regulation and improvement of the state system of strategic planning of national security of Ukraine. To achieve the goal of the study was used special scientific methods of legal knowledge. The results of the analysis showedwhat in the basis ensuring national security must rely on the principle of systematization, which means that the security and defense sector of Ukraine is considered as a single object of forecasting and planning. This study substantiates the main directions systemic reform of the security and defense sector, which has carried out in Ukraine to ensure the protection of the constitutional order, sovereignty, territorial integrity of the state in the face of armed aggression. The priorities should be implemented through key tasks, such as the establishment of a comprehensive strategic analysis of military threats to Ukraine's national security, coordination of intelligence activities, development of joint intelligence capabilities of the defense forces in order to obtain complete and reliable warning information for timely decision-making guaranteeing the military security of the state.