Conflict Trends in the 21st Century

Abstract

As the Cold War was coming to a close, most of the world had never heard of the small Yugoslavian provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina or Kosovo, let alone believed they would demand global attention. Nor would the world have believed that a state such as North Korea, deemed a "basket case" in many fundamental functions of government, would acquire nuclear weapons and maintain chemical and biological capabilities. A global network of extremists based on the perversion of one of the world's great religions that was willing to resort to sustained acts of violence resulting in the deaths of thousands of civilians was a scenario worthy only of a movie script. The identification of U.S. national security priorities as waging a "global war on terror" and the deployment of tens of thousands of U.S. troops to preempt a "gathering" threat to the Nation's security-troops who would then become engaged in a protracted attempt to create a democratic nation-state in the midst of a civil war-were on no one?s radar.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2009
Accession Number
ADA515966

Entities

People

  • Michael Moodie

Organizations

  • National Defense University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Biological Sciences
  • Biological Weapons
  • Civilian Personnel
  • Climate Change
  • Directed Energy Weapons
  • Environment
  • Governments
  • Medical Personnel
  • Military Organizations
  • National Security
  • Nuclear Weapons
  • Security
  • Terrorists
  • Two Dimensional
  • United States
  • Urban Areas
  • War Colleges

Fields of Study

  • History

Readers

  • International Relations and Conflict Resolution
  • Political Violence and Terrorism Studies.
  • Strategic Security Studies