Military Technology: New Challenges for US National Security Strategy

Abstract

Abstract : In early 1991, the United States successfully fought a mid-level conventional war using a force structure with high technology weapons developed to counter the Soviet Union, our old Cold War adversary. However, the opponent in the Gulf War was Iraq, a heavily armed Third World state with an aggressive nuclear weapons program, not the Soviet Union. By the end of 1991, the Soviet Union had disintegrated; and the Cold War abruptly ended. These stunning events precipitated an intense review of a United States' national security strategy and military force structure overwhelmingly based on containing communism and nuclear deterrence. As demonstrated during the Gulf War, advanced military technology plays an important role in both our strategy and current force structure. The war also underscored the need to address the growing proliferation of weapons technology in the Third World. In March 1991, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney highlighted the technology issue in stating we are on the verge of a revolutionary period in military technology, with leading nations achieving major breakthroughs and smaller nations gathering access to weapons of mass destruction.? This paper will focus on the current role of technology in US strategy technology issues from the Gulf War, and future military technology challenges for the United States.