ABSTRACT
According to security elites, revolutions in information, transport, and weapons technologies have shrunk the world, leaving the United States and its allies more vulnerable than ever to state aggressors and non-state threats like terrorism or cyberwar. That rhetoric puts a modern gloss on an argument important to U.S. security policy since World War II: because distance, time, and borders no longer protect the United States, it needs global defenses. This chapter questions that argument. While technology has sped armies, missiles, and information, geography still protects the United States. Recent advances in military technology largely enhance that protection. Using Asia as an example, the chapter shows how military technology has buttressed geographic defenses, making offensive military action more costly. The difficulty any state, including the United States and China, would have in exerting dominance in Asia undermines the rationale undergirding much of current U.S. policy there.
