The Evolving Strategic Environment.
Abstract
As one scans the horizon of probable futures, it is often possible to identify certain factors which may be termed strategic. These factors serve both to offer opportunities for national policy decisions and to delineate limits of possible national action. In the view of the authors, six prominent trends are likely to have a significant impact on the structure and functioning of the international system and on the ability of the United States to influence the course of events in the world arena. These trends are: (1) growing scarcity of resources; (2) increasing population pressures; (3) widening of the gap between have and have-not nations; (4) acceleration and proliferation of technological developments; (5) declining utility of great power strategic nuclear weapons; and, (6) expanding military capabilities. As a result of these trends, there will be a continuing diffusion of power in the international system, a de facto polycentrism, a growth of nationalism, a decline in the relevance of ideology, and a concomitant development of political congruences and discontinuities which will defy interpretation in terms of previous bipolar or multipolar constructs. In aggregate, the impacts of these trends suggest that we are entering an age when almost any state with a modicum of political, economic, or military strength can play power politics. It is within this context that policy alternatives must be sought which protect the interests and values of the United States and its allies. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 15, 1979
- Accession Number
- ADA072021
Entities
People
- Daniel S. Papp
- Robert T. Kennedy
Organizations
- United States Army War College