Schadlow’s Strategies

As Deputy U.S. National Security Advisor for strategy, Dr. Nadia Schadlow drafted the 2017 National Security Strategy – and in record time. She shares what it was like to formulate that significant document in the Trump White House and discusses what her successors kept and what they have discarded.

She explains how global chaos has increased as a consequence of America’s failure to deter Moscow, Tehran, and Beijing; why advancing Biden’s “aggressive domestic agenda” harms U.S. interests abroad; why not securing America’s southern border has national security implications; and why concern for both Ukraine’s territorial integrity and that of the U.S. is strategically consistent.

Dr. Schadlow explains why there is no good substitute for the international order Americans constructed after World War II; the harm in continuing to empower fundamentally corrupt international organizations such as the Red Cross and UN Human Rights Council; and why a 20-year investigation of an “existential threat” — climate change — is an oxymoron and not a good use of finite tax dollars.

She and Cliff also discuss whether there’s value in the “Cold War 2.0” analogy; the complications posed by America’s deep economic entanglement with China; the problem with taking only a defensive approach toward the Houthis and their patrons in Tehran; and the flaw in President Obama’s attempts to persuade Iran’s rulers to “share the neighborhood” — a strategic approach Cliff calls “less Clausewitz and more Mr. Rogers.”

Dr. Nadia Schadlow

Nadia Schadlow was the U.S. national security advisor for strategy in the Trump administration. In that capacity, she led the drafting and publication of the 2017 National Security Strategy of the United States.

She has also served in the Defense Department and with the Smith Richardson Foundation, identifying strategic issues that warranted further attention from the American policy community.

She is currently a senior fellow at Hudson Institute and a co-chair of the Hamilton Commission on Securing America’s National Security Innovation Base, and she conducts research and analysis on a range of issues at the intersection of strategy, national security, and technology.

She is the author of War and the Art of Governance: Consolidating Combat Success into Political Victory.