The Search for Security

One of the most common criticisms of current U.S. security policy is that it lacks an overarching strategy, leading to a tendency to address problems and crises individually and in isolation as they arise. This study provides a broad description of the contemporary global security environment and an examination of U.S. security policy since the end of the Cold War. Traditional threats, such as those associated with major theater war, now coexist with newer nontraditional threats. The authors maintain that a sound strategy must support the ability of a country to hedge and adapt to a highly volatile security landscape. That, in turn, is accomplished through an executive level organizational mechanism to authoritatively integrate and execute a cogent national policy.

Understanding the key concepts of strategy and strategy formation is essential in order to place specific challenges―such as global instability and state failure―in an appropriate strategic context. The contributors outline the conceptual guidance for a relevant strategy to deal with the myriad political, economic, informational, and deterrence threats and challenges generated in today's unstable, chaotic, violent, and ambiguous global security environment. Their conclusions are unequivocal. The United States must come to grips with the fundamentally transformed nature of security challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. To do so requires a significant change in how the country develops its security strategy and how the country is organized to plan and implement that strategy.

MAX G. MANWARING is Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Dickinson College. He is the editor or co-editor of several books, including El Salvador at War: An Oral History (1989), Managing Contemporary Conflict: Pillars of Success (1996), and Toward Responsibility in the New World Disorder: Challenges and Lessons of Peace Operations (1998).

EDWIN G. CORR is a retired U.S. Foreign Service Officer and is now Director of the Energy Institute of the Americas and Associate Director of the International Programs Center at the University of Oklahoma. He has written and edited various articles and books, including Low-Intensity Conflict: Old Threats in a New World.

ROBERT H. DORFF is Chairman of the Department of National Security and Strategy and holder of the General Maxwell D. Taylor Chair at the U.S. Army War College.