Regional Threats and Security Strategy: The Troubling Case of Today's Middle East

Abstract

Like the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War of 1967, the U.S. invasion of Iraq is fundamentally reordering regional politics and security in ways that will be felt for a generation, if not longer. The Pandora's Box opened by the United States in Iraq adds a new level of unwelcome complexity to an already strained regional fabric. Threats to regional security stem from global, interstate, and intrastate sources. The complicated, multidimensional, and interrelated natures of these threats suggest that the United States must reassess strategy and policy if it is to protect and further its regional interests. The objective of this monograph is threefold: (1) deconstruct the threats to regional security and stability in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion, (2) determine whether U.S. strategy is tailored to the threat environment, and (3) suggest steps that can be taken to bring strategy and the environment into closer alignment. Such a process runs counter to the current defense planning methodology paradigm used by the Defense Department. Both the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review and its predecessor released just after the September 11, 2001 (9/11) attacks called for the divorce of U.S. strategy and defense planning from specific regional threats and contingencies. Instead, the planning documents called for the development of "capabilities portfolios" to enable U.S. military forces to fight in a series of different operational environments: irregular warfare against nonstate actors, traditional interstate warfare, catastrophic attacks using weapons of mass destruction, and disruptive attacks from adversaries using cyber-warfare or other advanced technologies. This monograph argues that the United States needs to reconnect its strategy, policy, and defense planning to regional environments if it is to have any hope of mitigating threats to its interests, not just in the Middle East, but around the world.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 01, 2007
Accession Number
ADA474480

Entities

People

  • James A. Russell

Organizations

  • United States Army War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Counter WMD
  • Cyber
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Air Force Facilities
  • Governments
  • International Security
  • Middle East
  • Military Equipment
  • Military Facilities
  • National Politics
  • National Security
  • Nuclear Energy
  • Security
  • Terrorism
  • Terrorists
  • United States
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare
  • Weapons Of Mass Destruction

Readers

  • Strategic Security Studies

Technology Areas

  • Cyber