The United States is entering a critical period of policy transition. Beginning with the advent of the Obama administration, and continuing through the end of 2010, all of America's national security and defense planning guidance will be revised. Certainly the need for change is broadly felt by the public. And it is not difficult to understand why.
RMA narratives tend to depict today's policy struggle as pitting clear vision and foresight on one side against parochial interests and bureaucratic inertia on the other. For each of today's RMA schools the general contours of a prospective revolution seem clear. From within these perspectives, risk seems mostly associated with the prospect of failing to enact change in a timely fashion. But this view depreciates the very substantial uncertainty surrounding RMA prescriptions – not to mention the significant disagreements and discontinuities among the different transformation schools and service visions.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Education, and Government
Examines how the new planning concepts and methods adopted by the Pentagon since 1992 have led to military requirements disproportionate to real threats and have supported overweening ambitions for the application of military power. A version appeared in the March/April 1998 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists as “Inventing Threats.”
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, and Military Affairs