The Emerging Global Security Environment

The global security environment of the 1990s is far more complex than in any previous era. Before the end of the decade, several additional states will have acquired formidable military arsenals containing weapons of increasing range, accuracy, and destructiveness for the conduct of high-intensity conflict, with other actors able to project military power within and even beyond their immediate region. At the same time, numerous conflict issues within and between existing states, some based on the revival of historical animosities and others of more recent origin, will fuel the potential for instability, including the possibility of civil war fought even with nuclear weapons. Therefore, the United States will face a continuing need to develop doctrines, technologies, and force structures for an unfolding security environment characterized by dramatic change and instability as well as multipolarity as we move toward and into the twenty-first century.