THE EVOLUTION OF AMERICAN NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY SINCE THE END OF SECOND WORLD WAR

capable of: (1) nuclear deterrence; (2) rapid deployment; (3) technology; and (4) better intelligence.

As president, Clinton directed Secretary of Defense Les Aspin to conduct a review of military requirements. In September 1, 1993, the Clinton administration’s first defense planning document named “Bottom-Up Review” (BUR) was announced. The BUR identifies four major sources of danger to US security: (1) aggression instigated by major regional powers; (2) the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; (3) the failure of former communist states to make a succesful transition to democracy; (4) a failure to maintain a strong and growing US economic base. (Recently, one more danger has been added: “transnational threats.” The BUR offers a force structure oriented around three general missions: (1) waging two “nearly simultaneous” major regional conflicts (the two-MRC requirement); (2) conducting peace operations; and (3) maintaining forward presence in areas where the US has vital interests. The BUR accords significant weight to maintaining the overseas military presence of US forces in sizing America’s post-Cold War force structure. The plan is to retain roughly 100,000 troops in Europe and some 98,000 troops in East Asia.

The BUR received a lot of criticims since it was announced. “There is no logical flow from the “top” - political guidance based on the imperative to protect US interests in a new security environment - to the “bottom”, i.e., planned forces.” The other problem that “there are grounds for suspecting that the force structure selected for the late 1990s is geared more to meet fiscal goals than strategic ones.”

So, it is obvious that the end of the Cold War was not the end of the threats for US national security , and not the end of the problems for the US defense planners. More, it seems that it was easier to deal with one big threat rather than with a complex of relatively small threats.

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