Global Strategic Assessment

Today's world is marked by the uneasy coexistence between traditional geopolitics and ever-widening globalization. A fundamental question undergirding this volume is how the United States can best use its essential and yet insufficient influence in a world marked by both rising state power centers and the devolution of power into the hands of more non-state actors. Clearly, there is no simple prescription for the problem of how the United States can best exert its influence in this dynamic security landscape. Even so, the breadth of threats, challenges, and opportunities that may surface in the coming years will require a comprehensive approach that utilizes the full continuum of power be it hard, soft, smart, dumb, or fuzzy. Thus, it is clearly evident that the United States will have to be as clever as the fox, keeping its eye on multiple challenges and taking care not to exert its finite resources on any single problem. Preparing for and dealing with such profound complexity requires particular capabilities, approaches, and proclivities: cultural, developmental, experiential, technical, organizational, political, and operational. This book attempts to bridge the gap between theory and praxis. Its overriding message is to emphasize global complexity and America's vital yet limited role in coping with that complexity.