It is still easy to underestimate how much the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War?--and then the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001?--transformed the task of American foreign and defense policymaking. In place of predictability (if a sometimes terrifying predictability), the world is now very unpredictable. In place of a single overriding threat and benchmark by which all else could be measured, a number of possible threats have arisen, not all of them states. In place of force-on-force engagements, U.S. defense planners have to assume "asymmetric" threats?--ways not to defeat U.S. power but to render it irrelevant. This book frames the challenges for defense policy that the transformed world engenders, and it sketches new tools for dealing with those challenges?--from new techniques in modeling and gaming, to planning based on capabilities rather than threats, to personnel planning and making use of "best practices" from the private sector.
The U.S. military is ill-equipped to strike at extremists who hide in populations. Using deadly force against them can harm and alienate the very people whose cooperation U.S. forces are trying to earn. To solve this problem, a new RAND study proposes a "continuum of force"--a suite of capabilities that includes sound, light, lasers, cell phones, and video cameras. These technologies are available but have received insufficient attention.
The defense budget has declined by some 40 percent since its Cold War peak and has leveled off for now. There is little difference between the Administration and the Congressional Republican leadership over total defense spending. Full recapitalization of the existing force structure will require an increase in the procurement account to some $60 billion per year. Two relatively new concepts are emerging as ways to preserve military capability despite tight budgets: expanding joint perspectives in the Pentagon's planning, capitalizing on opportunities offered by technology, especially information technologies.
Recent military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq were characterized by the rapid defeat of enemy military forces, by relatively small deployments of American forces, and by a very limited destruction of the critical civilian infrastructure. This success can be credited in large part to the ongoing transformation of the U.S. military evident in its effective use of information superiority, precision strike, and rapid maneuver on the battlefield.
Bog om sikkerhedspolitik, som analyserer USAs evne til militært at støtte udenrigspolitikken over for lande i Nordøstasien på baggrund af spændingerne mellem de to Korea'er, de to Kina'er og mellem Kina og Sovjet. Med tabeller over omfang af landes væbnede styrker.
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RAND analysts posit that the ongoing pressure to reduce the federal budget deficit may result in further reductions in the Defense Department budget and suggest starting from a strategy basis in determining the reductions, prioritizing challenges, and identifying where to accept more risk. The report demonstrates this approach using three illustrative strategic directions.