Addressing the constraints and opportunities the U.S. Army faces in designing policy and strategic options for the post-INF era, a select group of scholars, military officers, and policymakers outline the current strategic posture of the army, the challenges of the future, and the steps needed to meet those challenges.

Analyzes the history, evolution, and processes of national security policies This text examines national security from two fundamental fault lines-the end of the Cold War and the 9/11 terrorist attacks-and considers how the resulting era of globalization and geopolitics guides policy. Placing this trend in conceptual and historical context and following it through military, semi-military, and non-military concerns, National Security for a New Era treats its subject as a nuanced and subtle phenomenon that encompasses everything from the nation to the individual.

Grappling with the constraints and opportunities the US Army faces in designing policy and strategic options for the post-INF era, the contributors to this book outline the current strategic posture of the army, the challenges of the future and the steps needed to meet those challenges.

Confronting insurgent violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military has recognized the need to “re-learn” counterinsurgency. But how has the Department of Defense with its mixed efforts responded to this new strategic environment? Has it learned anything from past failures? In The New Counterinsurgency Era, David Ucko examines DoD’s institutional obstacles and initially slow response to a changing strategic reality. Ucko also suggests how the military can better prepare for the unique challenges of modern warfare, where it is charged with everything from providing security to supporting reconstruction to establishing basic governance—all while stabilizing conquered territory and engaging with local populations. After briefly surveying the history of American counterinsurgency operations, Ucko focuses on measures the military has taken since 2001 to relearn old lessons about counterinsurgency, to improve its ability to conduct stability operations, to change the institutional bias against counterinsurgency, and to account for successes gained from the learning process. Given the effectiveness of insurgent tactics, the frequency of operations aimed at building local capacity, and the danger of ungoverned spaces acting as havens for hostile groups, the military must acquire new skills to confront irregular threats in future wars. Ucko clearly shows that the opportunity to come to grips with counterinsurgency is matched in magnitude only by the cost of failing to do so.

This book investigates how states in both the West and Asia have responded to multi-dimensional security challenges since the end of the Cold War, focusing on military transformation. Looking at a cross-section of different countries, this volume assesses how their armed forces have responded to a changing international security context. The book investigates two main themes. First, how the process of military ‘transformation’- in terms of technological advances and new ways of conducting warfare - has impacted on the militaries of various countries. These technologies are hugely expensive and the extent to which different states can afford them, and the ability of these states to utilise these technologies, differs greatly. Second, the volume investigates the social dimensions of military transformation. It reveals the expanding breadth of tasks that contemporary armed forces have been required to address. This includes the need for military forces to work with other actors, such as non-governmental agencies and humanitarian organisations, and the ability of armed forces to fight asymmetric opponents and conduct post-conflict reconstruction tasks. The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan exemplified how important the relationship between technological and social transformation has become. This book will be of much interest to students of strategic studies, military innovation, Asian politics, security studies and International Relations.

essays collected from issues of the Washington Quarterly focus on important questions posed by the end of the Cold War, a changed Soviet Union, changing alliances, regional instabilities, and new security challenges These essays collected from recent issues of the Washington Quarterly focus on important questions posed by the end of the Cold War, a changed Soviet Union, changing alliances, regional instabilities, and new security challenges. The twenty-eight chapters are divided into sections that cover U.S. security in the 1990s, peacetime defense policy, security in Europe, international security, and proliferation and arms control. Brad Roberts is a Research Fellow in International Security Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

This paper focuses on the formulation of doctrine since World War II. In no comparable period in history have the dimensions of the battlefield been so altered by rapid technological changes. The need for the tactical doctrines of the Army to remain correspondingly abreast of these changes is thus more pressing than ever before. Future conflicts are not likely to develop in the leisurely fashions of the past where tactical doctrines could be refined on the battlefield itself. It is, therefore, imperative that we apprehend future problems with as much accuracy as possible. One means of doing so is to pay particular attention to the business of how the Army's doctrine has developed historically, with a view to improving methods of future development.