Future Visions for U.S. Defense Policy, a revised and updated Council Policy Initiative, explores alternatives to U.S. defense policy through four mock-presidential speeches. This book is required reading for all members of the new administration and anyone else concerned with America's national security.
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Though threats to American security have changed dramatically in the last decade, U.S. defense policy and military forces look a lot like they did during the closing days of the Cold War - only smaller. Are the policies and the forces about right to deal with a wide range of threats and uncertaintiesfrom resurgent big powers to civil/ethnic wars to Persian Gulf-like wars to terrorism and weapons of mass destruction - or should they be redesigned before it's too late? That question drives this book.Council on Foreign Relations staff, joined by a wide range of other experts, offer four choices: First, meet present threats seriously, that is, by building up forces with a 10 percent spending increase; second, anticipate breakthroughs in military technology by possible future adversaries and concentrate now on U.S. technological superiority at about present spending levels: third, focus more on low-level but serious threats from terrorists and civil/ethnic wars and answer with greater reliance on our allies and international organizations, like NATO or the United Nations, and cut expenditures by 15 to 20 percent; or fourth, maintain present capabilities and hold spending at about $250 billion yearly.The book presents these choices as "Presidential" speeches, so that they can be read and understood by interested Americans.
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