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.

The political practice of declaring victory and coming home has provided a false and dangerous domestic impression of great success for U.S. unilateral and multilateral interventions in failing and failed states around the world. The reality of such irresponsibility is that the root causes and the violent consequences of contemporary "intranational" conflict are left to smolder and reignite at a later date with the accompanying human and physical waste. This book discusses why it is incumbent on the international community and individual powers involved in dealing with the chaos of the post-Cold War world to understand that such action requires a long-term, holistic, and strategic approach.

The intent of such an approach is to create and establish the proven internal conditions that can lead to a mandated peace and stability--with justice. The key elements that define those conditions at the strategic level include: (1) the physical establishment of order and the rule of law; (2) the isolation of belligerents; (3) the regeneration of the economy; (4) the shaping of political consent; (5) fostering peaceful conflict resolution processes; (6) achieving a complete unity of effort toward stability; and (7) establishment and maintenance of a legitimate civil society. These essential dimensions of contemporary global security and stability requirements comprise a new paradigm that will, hopefully, initiate the process of rethinking both problem and response.