U.S. Strategic Alternatives in a Changing Pacific
Abstract
This report summarizes a RAND review of U.S. strategic planning issues in the Pacific basin. The review include discussion of widely varying visions of the region and of the U.S. role over the next 25 years. The focus was on future security strategies and alternative security arrangements in a period of a diminishing Soviet threat, increasing questions about the U.S. willingness to invest in the security of Asia, rising nationalism and economic prosperity in the region, and increasingly troublesome U.S.-Japanese economic competition. Within this focus, the report attempts to bridge the separate worlds of the regional specialist and the defense planner. The authors conclude that the United States will continue to play a critical regional security role in the future, albeit a changing one. Instead of containment, the United States will focus more on maintaining its presence and stability in the region. The United States should seek to fulfill this role in a constructive and realistic manner while retaining and consolidating its status as the key military power in balancing competing regional interests. In concert with various regional states, the United States should set about defining a security role that is sustainable over the longer term.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 1990
- Accession Number
- ADA258043
Entities
People
- James A. Winnefeld
- Jonathan D. Pollack
Organizations
- RAND Corporation