ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the prospects for the decline in the role of force in international relations. It deals with the implications of the shifts in international relations and with changes in the social structure of advanced industrial societies as the affect military establishments. The chapter is concerned with the prospects of developing smaller more flexible armed forces equipped, and tasked, to deal with a far broader range of security risks than the armed forces of the Cold War period. The size of the force in being is moderate, and while larger than the mass armed force in time of peace it is smaller than the mass armed force at war. The Gulf crisis is merely a short term hiccough interrupting a deepseated process of "downsizing" and restructuring of armed forces observable throughout the Western world. The Gulf conflict has revealed the importance of having a professional and well-prepared reaction force to meet emergencies of the kind in the future.
