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America’s global leadership, and its role
as the guarantor of the current great-power
peace, relies upon the safety of the
American homeland; the preservation of a
favorable balance of power in Europe, the
Middle East and surrounding energyproducing
region, and East Asia; and the
general stability of the international system
of nation-states relative to terrorists,
organized crime, and other non-state
actors. The relative importance of these
elements, and the threats to U.S. interests,
may rise and fall over time. Europe, for
example, is now extraordinarily peaceful
and stable, despite the turmoil in the
Balkans. Conversely, East Asia appears to
be entering a period with increased potential
for instability and competition. In the Gulf,
American power and presence has achieved
relative external security for U.S. allies, but
the longer-term prospects are murkier.
Generally, American strategy for the coming
decades should seek to consolidate the great
victories won in the 20th century which
have made Germany and Japan into stable
democracies, for example maintain
stability in the Middle East, while setting the
conditions for 21st-century successes,
especially in East Asia. A retreat from any one of these
requirements would call America’s status as
the world’s leading power into question. As
we have seen, even a small failure like that
in Somalia or a halting and incomplete
triumph as in the Balkans can cast doubt on
American credibility. The failure to define a
coherent global security and military
strategy during the post-Cold-War period
has invited challenges; states seeking to
establish regional hegemony continue to
probe for the limits of the American security
perimeter. None of the defense reviews of
the past decade has weighed fully the range
of missions demanded by U.S. global
leadership: defending the homeland,
fighting and inning multiple arge-scale wars,
conducting onstabulary issions which
preserve the urrent peace, and
transforming the U.S. armed forces to exploit the
“revolution in ilitary affairs. Nor have they
adequately quantified the
forces an resources
necessary to execute these
missions separately and
successfully. While much
further detailed
analysis would be required, it is the purpose
of this study to outline the large, fullspectrum
forces that are necessary to
conduct the varied tasks demanded by a
strategy of American preeminence for today
and tomorrow.
HOMELAND DEFENSE. America must defend its homeland. During the Cold War,
nuclear deterrence was the key element in homeland defense; it remains essential. But the
new century has brought with it new challenges. While reconfiguring its nuclear force, the
United States also must counteract the effects of the proliferation of ballistic missiles and
weapons of mass destruction that may soon allow lesser states to deter U.S. military action
by threatening U.S. allies and the American homeland itself. Of all the new and current
missions for U.S. armed forces, this must have priority.
LARGE WARS. Second, the United States must retain sufficient forces able to rapidly
deploy and win multiple simultaneous large-scale wars and also to be able to respond to
unanticipated contingencies in regions where it does not maintain forward-based forces.
This resembles the two-war standard that has been the basis of U.S. force planning over
the past decade. Yet this standard needs to be updated to account for new realities and
potential new conflicts.
CONSTABULARY DUTIES. Third, the Pentagon must retain forces to preserve the
current peace in ways that fall short of conduction major theater campaigns. A decade’s
experience and the policies of two administrations have shown that such forces must be
expanded to meet the needs of the new, long-term NATO mission in the Balkans, the
continuing no-fly-zone and other missions in Southwest Asia, and other presence missions in
vital regions of East Asia. These duties are today’s most frequent missions, requiring forces
configured for combat but capable of long-term, independent constabulary operations.
TRANSFORM U.S. ARMED FORCES. Finally, the Pentagon must begin now to exploit the socalled revolution in military affairs, sparked by the introduction of advanced technologies
into military systems; this must be regarded as a separate and critical mission worthy of a
share of force structure and defense budgets.
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