The National Security Strategy: Why Citizens Must Understand It — and What They Can Do

The National Security Strategy is a legally required, publicly available document that tells you exactly how your government plans to spend your money and wield your nation's power. Most Americans have never read it. That's a problem — and not just for wonky political reasons.In Part Two of our NSS deep dive, we make the case that understanding this document is a matter of national survival. When Estonia was hit by a devastating cyberattack in 2007, the country didn't just harden its servers — it put media literacy in every classroom and treated an informed citizenry as a strategic asset. America faces the same threat. Russia, China, and Iran are actively running information operations designed to exploit our divisions, and citizens who don't understand their own government's strategy are the easiest targets.We break down the 2025 NSS's five core vital interests, show you how to use the DIME-FIL framework to cut through political noise, and explain why the budget — not the strategy document itself — tells you what the administration actually believes. Then we give you five concrete actions you can take right now: read the document, follow the money, sharpen your media literacy, and bring more signal into the conversations happening in your community.This isn't a civics lecture. It's an argument that democracy only works when citizens understand what their government is doing — and are willing to hold it accountable.If Part One was about where the NSS came from, Part Two is about what you're supposed to do with it.