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These essays examine several aspects of the nature of the emerging strategic environment and how this situation affects thinking about U.S. strategy in the 21st century. The United States and its Allies currently confront a number of major trouble spots around the world. In addition, the stability and defense policies of U.S. Allies represent an increasingly important factor in the making of U.S. foreign policy. How well the American military is adjusting to the post-Cold War world with the threats of declining defense budgets and rapid changes in technology, will be a determining factor in the course of the coming decade. Here, the discussion of an impending joint military culture and service cultures out of touch with the harsh realities of the emerging strategic environment combine in a dramatic prediction of 21st century foreign strategies.
The Balkans, the Middle East, and Russia all present considerable defense planning difficulties with no obvious solutions. The Balkans represent the clearest immediate danger, as the weight of history and current political ambitions threaten to destabilize Europe's southeastern flank. In the mid-term range are Middle Eastern concerns such as water shortages, border disputes, and new rivalries, all of which unbalance an area whose oil reserves fuel the world economy. Finally, the Russian military collapse suggests that the future Russian threat may result more from national weakness than from strength.
List of contents
Introduction by Williamson Murray
The Balkans: Of What Is Past, or Passing, or to Come by Brian Sullivan
The Middle East Predicament by Michael Handel
Crisis and Reform in the Russian Military by Christopher Donnelley
British Defense Policy: Beyond 2000 by Jonathan Bailey
Germany's Defense Policy and Europe by Jörk Reschke
A Revolution for the Millennium by Robert Gaskin
Goldwater-Nichols after a Decade by Frank Hoffman
American Air Power by Barry D. Watts
The Marine Corps in the Next Century by Bernard E. Trainor
The Navy by Charles C. Pease
Decisive Victory in the Information Age? by Timothy Kilvert-Jones
Index
About the author
WILLIAMSON MURRAY is Professor Emeritus from The Ohio State University and is presently the Harold Johnson Professor of Military History at the Army War College. He has been a visiting professor at the London School of Economics, the Naval War College, and the United States Military Academy. His books include The Change in the European Balance of Power, 1938-1939, Luftwaffe, The War in the Persian Gulf, and IGerman Military Effectiveness.