Toward a U.S. national security strategy for the 1990s: Assuring 21st. Century competitiveness

Abstract

Abstract Contrary to what 1980s trends appear to suggest, U.S. policy makers in the next decade will confront a daunting national security challenge, having to make critical choices over the distribution of national resources and defense sector investment policies. In a period of unusual constraints on national resources, the U.S. will have to engineer a strategy that revitalizes its economy while managing an uncertain Soviet threat with fewer resources devoted to defense. Failure to navigate this course could lead to a weakening of the U.S.’s defense mobilization base and a retreat from global security objectives by the beginning of the next century, an especially alarming result since the stakes involved in this coming test of American skill and resolve will have been raised by a looming transcentury weapons revolution that heightens the potential for destabilizing strategic asymmetries. How well the U.S. meets this test will strongly influence its competitiveness in the transcentury security environment.