All Possible Wars? Toward a Consensus View of the Future Security Environment, 2001-2025

Abstract

Foreword This survey is a product of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) 2001 Working Group, a project of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. Sponsored by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the working group is an independent, honest-broker effort intended to build intellectual capital for the upcoming QDR. More specifically, it aims to frame issues, develop options, and provide insights for the Chairman, the services, and the next administration in three areas: defense strategy, criteria for sizing conventional forces, and force structure for 2005-2010. One of the group's initial tasks was to assess the future security environment to the year 2025. This was pursued by surveying the available literature to identify areas of consensus and debate. The goal was to conduct an assessment that would be far more comprehensive than any single research project or group effort could possibly produce. This survey documents major areas of agreement and disagreement across a range of studies completed since the last QDR in 1997. Because it distills a variety of sources and organizes and compares divergent views, this volume makes a unique contribution to the literature. It also provides a particularly strong set of insights and assumptions on which both strategists and force planners can draw in the next Quadrennial Defense Review. Michele A. Flournoy Project Director Introduction There was a legend in ancient Rome about a fabulous set of nine books which contained a predestined history of the Roman people and--in particular--details of all future wars and crises which would beset them. These oracles, the property of Amalthaea--the sibyl or prophetess of Cumae--were proffered to the Roman government. In a tale of greed, chauvinism, and intrigue worthy of a melodrama, the Romans decided not to pay the sibyl's price for the books and to bargain for a better deal. Upon learning of their decision, an angry and incredulous Amalthaea threw the first three books into a fire where they burnt to ashes. She thereupon asked for the exact same price for the remaining six books. Again the Romans, wanting a view of the future on the cheap, refused her price and made a lower offer. An angrier Amalthaea burned three more books, and again asked the same price for the last three. Now desperate, the Roman government acceded, and purchased what came to be known as the Sibylline Books. Because six books were destroyed, there could be no consensus among the Romans on interpreting the three surviving books. Despite sifting through the Sibylline ashes, they were unable to find the threads of meaning that could turn disconnected prophecies into a coherent view of the future. The books hinted that Rome would someday be a great power, dominating and bringing order to the known world. But the fragmented verses seemed to provide no basis for policy. Years later, a frustrated Caesar Augustus destroyed some 2,000 verses as spurious; they warned of things that seemed implausible or could not be understood. (1) Today, the United States is the dominant world power. We strain to bring what we understand to be order to an apparently chaotic world. Many dream of a future age of freedom, justice, and peace for all humanity. In the meanwhile, all of us wish to bequeath to our children a nation free from the threats and dangers that beset far-off lands and, potentially, our own: wars, poverty, oppressive ideologies, and ethnic hatreds. We want to know what particular dangers the future will bring. We want to be able to craft policies to protect and defend ourselves against those who would be our enemies, and, where possible, to bring peace to those whom we would aid. There is no sibyl to offer us a complete set of reliable predictions and thorough explanations of the future threats we will face. There is no predestined chronology or policy which we can follow like a road map. …