Tracing the transformation of NATO in the aftermath of the Cold War, this volume assesses NATO's current accomplishments, continuing challenges and political pitfalls. International scholars and policy-makers explore three key themes influencing NATO's future: transatlantic relations, the debate over enlargement and the organization's new functions. Weighing the fate of an alliance poised for renewal or decline, the contributors offer analysis and discussion of an organization that has changed profoundly over the past five years and continues to evolve in the face of an uncertain global environment.

This paper calls for a new NATO strategic concept and a new transatlantic compact, and envisions crafting them in tandem. Both are needed because they are intended to perform separate but interdependent functions. Whereas a new strategic concept would help energize NATO, a new transatlantic compact would help energize the overall U.S.-European partnership. Together, they would have a compounding effect, because each would reinforce and amplify the other.

In the face of growing difficulties for U.S. regime change policies in the Middle East, analysts and policy makers are considering the viability of returning to a set of policies with a greater emphasis on the status quo. A great deal of thought must be given to determining exactly how these two imperatives are to be blended together in the interests not only of overall policy coherence, but also to actually achieve the goals being sought. Serious analysis, rather than reliance on simplistic formulas, is needed. Without pretending to solve the myriad foreign policy dilemmas facing the United States and its allies, this paper offers a framework for how this analysis can be conducted, and where it can lead. The perspective is global, but along the way, insights are offered on the Middle East.

Operation Anaconda, conducted in the Shahikot Valley of Afghanistan during early March 2002, was a complex battle fought in rugged mountainous terrain under difficult conditions. The battle ended as an American victory at the cost of eight U.S. military personnel killed and more than 50 wounded. But the difficult early stages of the battle provide insights for thinking about how to organize, train, and equip U.S. forces for future joint expeditionary operations and how to pursue transformation.

This paper assesses key issues in U.S. defense spending in the next decade and is intended to serve as a guide to analyzing the fiscal year 2006 budget submission. Wartime expenses aside, the big spending increases of recent years seem unlikely to be repeated far into the future. Persistent federal deficits and growing domestic entitlement programs will constrain the amount of money that can be spent on military preparedness. The defense budget may level off just as it should rise to accommodate high operating costs and mounting requirements for military transformation. If so, budget constraints will compel a concerted effort to spend available defense funds as wisely as possible. Spending patterns and priorities will change, and tradeoffs will be necessary. If pressures on the defense budget increase, the biggest challenge facing the Department of Defense (DOD) will be determining how best to pursue two key transformation goals. The first goal is strengthening ground forces and related joint capabilities for expeditionary operations along the "southern arc of instability" in the near to mid term. The second goal is enhancing strategic dominance over future peer adversaries over the long term through acquisition of new platforms, space systems, and similar high-tech assets. Within this framework, DOD will need to address other weighty issues. Should investments in ground forces increase? If so, what priorities should be pursued? Can savings be extracted from support programs and from the operations and maintenance (O&M) budget to help fund investments? If so, how? Should spending on basic research increase? If so, can development of new technologies be accelerated while controlling costs? How should scarce procurement funds be allocated among new weapons emerging from research, development, testing, and evaluation? What is the best budget strategy for the long haul? Should the U.S. government create an overall national security budget for the interagency community? Careful analysis of each of these issues is necessary, individually and collectively. The budget and program decisions flowing from the analysis will have major implications for future U.S. forces. This study recommends focusing on enhancing expeditionary warfare capabilities, while not denuding long-term transformation. In particular, it argues that, if DOD is to pursue ambitious transformation plans for both goals, it will need to find savings elsewhere.

This paper examines the idea of creating an American-led extended deterrence regime in the Middle East to address potential Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons and missiles. It does not focus on how to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear-armed power. Instead it addresses how the U.S. Government can act to deter Iran in a future setting where it already possesses these weapons and is trying to employ them to geopolitical advantage. Developing a coherent strategy can less en the risk that the United States will be surprised, compelled to improvise, and unable to lead effectively in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Every new Presidential administration seeks to implement its policy objectives rapidly, but in the vast organization of the U.S. Government, such changes take time. The Quadrennial defense Review (QDR) of 2001 offers the new Bush administration an important opportunity, as well as a great responsibility, to reexamine America's defense priorities in a comprehensive, top-to-bottom, strategy-to-program approach and provide early guidance for change. This is a gargantuan task. Current legislation requires the final report of QDR 2001 to be provided to Congress in September 2001. Even with early Senate confirmation of top defense officials, completing such a thorough review in just eight months is a daunting charge. One of the lessons learned during QDR 1997 was the advance efforts to identify key issues for the review process can be critical to success. Fortunately for the incoming administration, an independent effort to develop intellectual capital for QDR 2001 was started in the autumn of 1999. This effort consisted of a small working group which was chartered by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and established in the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. Leading the group was Michele A. Flournoy, a veteran of the QDR 1997 effort and the former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Threat Reduction. This volume is a product of the group's work as well as contributions from outside experts associated with the project. A major conference on the project was held at NDU in November 2000, at which a final report was issued. This book provides the intellectual underpinnings of that report. To some extent this book is very much like the results of screening at an archeological dig. The issues in the book are not new; they are already part of the defense policy debate of our great democracy. But the authors carefully unearthed insights and options in a systematic manner, placing the issues in context. No defense issue lives in isolation; all are part of the process of priority-setting that is required to craft a successful strategy in the context of a finite budget. To help the new administration set its priorities, the working group and outside contributors have outlined a series of integrated paths that lead from strategy alternatives to force-sizing criteria to force structure and other programmatic issues, and they identify the forks in each path and the signposts along the way. This valuable book provides a unique service to the Department of Defense and the Nation, whether the new administration uses the QDR or some other review process as its primary vehicle for setting defense priorities. It represents an effort to transcend both the tyranny of the urgent and the bureaucratic rivalries that tend to dominate the analyses conducted within the Pentagon. It does so in a practical, logical, and supportive manner. It does not provide solutions but instead offers options form which the Bush administration can craft a new defense policy. In a sense this book represents a consummate menu of choices: an outside view that only knowledgeable insiders can provide. There are options identified in this book that some might support enthusiastically, and others might oppose. But no one can fail to be impressed by the fairness of this effort and the professional skill with which it was completed. This book represents a service to the Department of Defense and the new administration with few parallels. It provides an excellent starting point for a review of defense strategy, policies and programs.

This book is intended to help fill a void in the literature while making a contribution to public awareness. Most books on national security affairs focus on substantive issues, such as nuclear proliferation, arguing in favor of one policy or another. This book addresses something more basic: how to conduct policy analysis in the field of national security, including foreign policy and defense strategy. It illuminates how key methods of analysis can be employed, by experts and nonexperts, to focus widely, address small details, or do both at the same time. To my knowledge, there is no other book quite like it.

What is the current state of the global security system, and where is it headed? What challenges and opportunities do we face, and what dangers are emerging? How will various regions of the world be affected? How can the United States best act to help shape the future while protecting its security, interests, and values? How can the United States deal with the threats of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction? An intellectual history of U.S. national security thinking since the end of the fall of the Soviet Union, Seeing the Elephant is an attempt to see the evolving international security system and America’s role in it through the eyes of more than fifty perceptive authors who have analyzed key aspects of the unfolding post–Cold War drama. Its premise is that, like the blind men in the Buddhist fable who each feels a different part of an elephant, these authors and their assessments, taken together, can give us a better view of where the world is headed.