Description
This book, first published in 1990, evaluates what future policy adjustments the US will have to make in order to successfully navigate through a national security environment radically altered from that of the past and one determined more than at any point in the post-war period by the economic performance of both superpowers. The structure of the book centres around two issues that will determine the future national security environment facing the US. Discussed are stakes of the threat, the response of the Soviet Union to the challenge of economic and related social/political decline and its implications for the Soviet national defence effort. Also studied are the resources available to the US to meet the threat, the status of the US economic performance and the magnitude of resource stress it is likely to face in the future and its probable impact on the US national defence effort.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction 2. Soviet Economic Decline and Its National Security Implications – Reasons and Responses 3. Whither the Soviet Threat? 4. Economic Constraints on US National Security Spending – Reasons and Responses 5. Taking Stock of the ‘Reagan Revolution’ 6. The Defence Investment Dilemma of the 1990s: Contemporary or Transcentury Weapons? 7. Conclusion: Expanding the Scope of US National Security Policy
