ABSTRACT
The world is increasingly complex; the balance of power therein is changing; and security is increasingly uncertain, even for a major power such as the United States. Nations are not yet truly interdependent, but purely national solutions to national security problems may no longer be feasible in some instances. The considerations highlight the continued importance of security concerns, broadly defined, to the United States in the coming years. They also tend to underscore the continuing importance of the quest for effective collective defense to offset those concerns. Good alliances and reliable allies are important to American security. For better or worse, those alliances are predicated on the existence of security threats from at least one of the principal communist powers or their proxies. Success, however, may provide that measure of unity and reciprocity that would be the hallmarks of a revitalized Western security community whose creation would contribute to a more stable international order and a more secure United States.
