Military Power in a Multipolar World

Abstract

The intention of this volume is to examine critically the contours of military power as they present themselves a decade after the end of the Cold War. The title, The Changing Face of Military Power, emphasizes the central assumption that underpins this study, that the fundamental nature of military activity has not changed but merely its outward forms. The role of military power, defined here as the construction, deployment and use of organized armed forces to attain political objectives, remains the same. In this connection military power is assumed to be a functional phenomenon that can be exploited to serve a number of purposes. It can be employed by states and non-state social organizations alike. It can be employed to prosecute warfare, to issue threats, to maintain deterrence. It can even be utilized non-aggressively for symbolic reasons, for pageantry, for nation-building.1 But the essential function to fulfil the ends of policy never changes. The ways in which military power is exercised and the context in which it is practised does, however, evolve. It is these processes in which this book is primarily interested because it is they which affect employment of military power.KeywordsArmed ForceMilitary OperationMilitary PowerNorth Atlantic Treaty OrganizationArmed ServiceThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.