Download Strategic Challenges: America's Global Security Agenda

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Contents:

List of Illustrations ix
Foreword xi
LIEUTENANT GENERAL FRANCES C. WILSON, USMC
Acknowledgments xiii

Chapter One The Emerging Global Security Environment 1
CHARLES D. LUTES, M. ELAINE BUNN, AND STEPHEN J. FLANAGAN

Chapter Two Countering Global Terrorism 20
JOSEPH MCMILLAN AND CHRISTOPHER CAVOLI

Chapter Three Combating WMD Threats 61
CHARLES D. LUTES

Chapter Four Protecting the American Homeland 86
THOMAS X. HAMMES, JAMES A. SCHEAR, AND JOHN A. COPE

Chapter Five Defusing Conflicts in Unstable Regions 110
JAMES A. SCHEAR

Chapter Six Engaging Other Major Powers 149
JOSEPH MCMILLAN, EUGENE B. RUMER, AND PHILLIP C. SAUNDERS

Chapter Seven Adapting Alliances and Partnerships 203
STEPHEN J. FLANAGAN, LEO G. MICHEL, JAMES J. PRZYSTUP, AND JOHN A. COPE

Chapter Eight Transforming Defense Strategy and Posture 275
CHRISTOPHER J. LAMB WITH CHARLES D. LUTES, M. ELAINE BUNN, AND CHRISTOPHER CAVOLI

Chapter Nine Securing America’s Future: Progress and Perils 314
STEPHEN J. FLANAGAN

Forward:

The past 6 years have seen dramatic shifts in America’s global security priorities. While the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath still dominate the strategic landscape, Islamist militancy and terrorist violence are far from the only challenges confronting senior leaders. The United States also faces the prospect of widening proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, rising or rebounding powers whose impact upon global stability remains unclear, the spillover effects of ethnosectarian conflict in volatile regions, and vulnerability of the homeland to natural or manmade disasters.

Dealing with these challenges has placed and will continue to place enormous demands on the U.S. Armed Forces and highlights the need for enhanced cooperation with international and interagency partners to achieve better unity of effort. This agenda will test the skill, tenacity, and imagination of U.S. policymakers well beyond the next administration.

Two years ago, the National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) undertook a study of the emerging global security environment at the request of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and in context of the then-ongoing Quadrennial Defense Review 2006. This effort assessed the interplay of key geostrategic, military-technical, and regional security trends, how catalytic intervening events might alter the future strategic landscape, and what such changes would imply for U.S. defense strategy and posture through the end of the decade.

The first chapter of this volume is a revised and updated version of that assessment, which sets the framework for analysis in subsequent chapters.

This volume presents a trenchant analysis by INSS experts of seven major national security challenges that the United States will confront in the coming decade, including countering global terrorism; combating the threats posed by the proliferation of mass destruction weapons; protecting the American homeland; defusing conflicts in unstable regions; engaging other major powers; adapting alliances and partnerships; and transforming the U.S. defense strategy and military posture.

The authors provide a cogent and balanced evaluation of the progress made, and pitfalls encountered, in addressing these challenges since 2001. They then advance a set of practical strategy and policy options for consideration by future administrations. The final chapter presents a synthesis of the entire book and integrated strategy for managing American security in this volatile period. This book offers some unique perspectives on these vexing issues, reflecting the broad policy, operational, and analytic experience of the Institute’s civilian and military fellows.

Since it was established in 1984, INSS has earned a well-deserved reputation as a source of objective, incisive analysis on a wide range of strategic policy issues facing our country. Building upon its innovative work on the implications of globalization for national security prior to 2001, INSS was ready to respond to a rising tempo of post-9/11 calls from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the unified commands, and other U.S. Government agencies to assess strategy and policy options.

Outreach is an important element of the National Defense University’s mission. Our many publications and conferences seek to inform the wider public debate on contemporary national and international security issues. I am delighted to make the insights of INSS experts available to all those who share an abiding concern about America’s security and the future of international peace and stability.

LtGen Frances C. Wilson, USMC
President, National Defense University