National Security Strategy Report—2015

Abstract

In his final National Security Strategy Report released in 2015, President Obama emphasized regional and global alliances, and partnerships to respond to changing and expanding terror threats, including more diffuse networks of al-Qaida and ISIL. Violent terrorist extremists in areas of Africa including Boko Haram, ISIL, and al-Shabaab posed considerable concern to regional stability and national security interests of the USA. The president’s use of drone strikes and deployment of US Special Operations Forces in Somalia and Libya in the last year of his presidency were undertaken without any advance legislative approval, weakening Congress’s power to serve as a check on the executive with respect to counterterrorism policy.