ABSTRACT
The United States confronts a situation only modestly comparable to the one it encountered in the early days of the Cold War. American security planners must account for a minor rogue nuclear power, North Korea, whose arsenal appears to be expanding at an alarming rate. The maturation of the precision-strike regime seems certain to raise the costs of the U. S. military in waging various forms of irregular warfare. The U. S. military's ability to project and sustain power far from America's shores enables its participation in the global economy. Both require access to the global commons—the seas, airspace, space and cyberspace. As with the Internet, seabed infrastructure developers assumed a benign geopolitical environment, or that the government would protect the infrastructure. The policy and strategy challenges that emerge from these geopolitical and military-technical trends are truly formidable. When President Eisenhower ruled out preventive war against the Soviet Union, U. S. national security strategy became increasingly anchored to deterrence.
