Toward A Dangerous World: U.S. National Security Strategy for the Coming Turbulence,
Abstract
This study examines the foreign policy and national security implications of a single dominant hypothesis: A dangerous world may lie ahead, a world of greater turbulence than today. After the Cold War, many observers felt optimistic that an enduring era of peace lay ahead. The recent past however,has brought troubling events abroad and mounting worry among governments and security experts everywhere. This study offers scenarios of how certain trends may play out and puts forth ideas about how U.S. and Western policies will need to be altered over the coming decade or two. But its message is more fundamental. It asserts that a dangerous world will be far more complex than the menacing but comfortably clearcut situation faced by the Western world during the Cold War. The United States will no longer confront a single hegemonic threat in a bipolar setting with many close allies at its side. Indeed, the era ahead may offer precisely the opposite of these features. The United States will need to learn not only how to act differently than during the Cold War but how to think very differently as well. The looming prospect of a dangerous world means that before the United States starts to act, it had best think deeply about precisely what confronts it, what options are at its disposal, and what it is trying to achieve. Many powerful factors are at work, and they are interacting in ways that magnify their negative consequences. Moreover, in varying ways and with varying magnitudes nearly all regions are being affected, and trends in one region are influencing those in another. The result is an often silent, but global drift toward instability.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1994
- Accession Number
- ADA291939
Entities
People
- Richard L. Kugler
Organizations
- RAND Corporation