Adjusting to Post-Cold War Strategic Realities
Abstract
Classic national military strategy formulation begins with analysis of broad security objectives and potential threats to those objectives arising from the unfolding international environment. For present purposes, however, let us begin simply with the proposition that while fundamental US security objectives remain largely constant, the global arena in which these aims find their context is undergoing such a profound transformation that virtually all of the givens that have shaped our national military strategy for four decades have been called into question. As President Bush recently reminded the nation, "Our task today is to shape our defense capabilities to these changing strategic circumstances....We know that our forces can be smaller," he acknowledges, but we "would be ill-served by forces that represent nothing more than a scaled-back or a shrunken-down version of the ones we possess.... What we need are not merely reductions-but restructuring." I am keenly aware that a number of serious-minded critics have questioned whether any in the defense establishment really believe in the desirability of significant force reductions and are prepared to deal constructively on the issue. They can rest easy on that score. Obviously, the war in Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia has put a hold on many aspects of our military draw-down and strategic reorientation, but sooner or later the Gulf situation will be resolved and the nation will resume its long-term response to the end of the Cold War. Energized from the topmost rung of government, the defense establishment has been laboring mightily to produce the framework for a new national military strategy and its supporting policy tenets. My purpose in this essay is to sketch my own appreciation of this brave new world which has so challenged the nation's military planners, strategists, and policymakers.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 1991
- Accession Number
- ADA527976
Entities
People
- George L. Butler
Organizations
- United States Army War College