This edited volume explores and analyses strategic thinking, military reform and adaptation in an era of Asian growth, European austerity and US rebalancing. A significant shift in policy, strategy and military affairs is underway in both Asia and Europe, with the former gaining increasing prominence in the domain of global security. At the same time, the world’s powers are now faced with an array of diverse challenges. The resurgence of great power politics in both Europe and Asia, along with the long term threats of terrorism, piracy and sustained geopolitical instability has placed great strain on militaries and security institutions operating with constrained budgets and wary public support. The volume covers a wide range of case studies, including the transformation of China’s military in the 21st century, the internal and external challenges facing India, Russia’s military modernization program and the USA’s reassessment of its strategic interests. In doing so, the book provides the reader with the opportunity to conceptualize how strategic thinking, military reform, operational adaptation and technological integration have interacted with the challenges outlined above. With contributions by leading scholars and practitioners from Europe and Asia, this book provides a valuable contribution to the understanding of strategic and operational thinking and adjustment across the world. This book will be of much interest to students of military and strategic studies, security studies, defence studies, Asian politics, Russian politics, US foreign policy and IR in general.

"This book, written by members of the Chief of Staff of the Army's Strategic Studies Group, takes an innovative approach to determining how the United States can counter extremist groups and engage in great power competition in the twenty first century. After proposing that the answer lies in switching the focus of current US strategy from the physical domain on which conflict occurs to the social, political, and cultural networks that comprise the human domain in which it occurs, it develops a new operating concept for conducting operations within that domain. This is an important book for those in security studies and international relations."--Provided by publisher.

Military Strategy of Middle Powers explores to what degree twenty-first-century middle powers adjust their military strategies due to changes in the international order, such as the decline in US power. The overarching objective of the book is to explain continuity and change in the strategies of a group of middle powers during the twenty-first century. These strategies are described, compared, and explained through the lens of Realism. In order to find potential explanations for change or continuity within the cases, as well as for similarities and differences between the cases, the strategies of 11 ‘middle’ powers are analysed (Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, India, Japan, and South Korea). This group of countries are considered similar in several important aspects, primarily regarding relative power capacity. When searching for potential explanations for different strategic behaviours among the middle powers, their unique regional characteristics are a key focus and, consequently, the impact of the structure and polarity, as well as the patterns of amity and enmity, of the regional context are analysed. The empirical investigation is focused on security strategies used since the terrorist attacks 9/11 2001, which was one of the first major challenges to US hegemony. This book will be of much interest to students of military and strategic studies, foreign policy, and International Relations in general.

National secuirty strategy is a vast subject involving a daunting array of interrelated subelements woven in intricate, sometimes vague, and ever-changing patterns. Its processes are often irregular and confusing and are always based on difficult decisions laden with serious risks. In short, it is a subject understood by few and confusing to most. It is, at the same time, a subject of overwhelming importance to the fate of the United States and civilization itself. Col. Dennis M. Drew and Dr. Donald M. Snow have done a considerable service by drawing together many of the diverse threads of national security strategy into a coherent whole. They consider political and military strategy elements as part of a larger decisionmaking process influenced by economic, technological, cultural, and historical factors. I know of no other recent volume that addresses the entire national security milieu in such a logical manner and yet also manages to address current concerns so thoroughly. It is equally remarkable that they have addressed so many contentious problems in such an evenhanded manner. Although the title suggests that this is an introductory volume - and it is - I am convinced that experienced practitioners in the field of national security strategy would benefit greatly from a close examination of this excellent book. Sidney J. Wise Colonel, United States Air Force Commander, Center for Aerospace Doctrine, Research and Education

The Oxford Handbook of U.S. National Security frames the context, institutions, and processes the U.S. government uses to advance national interests through foreign policy, government institutions, and grand strategy. Contributors examine contemporary national security challenges and the processes and tools used to improve national security.

William J. Perry and Ashton B. Carter, two of the world's foremost defense authorities, draw on their experience as leaders of the U.S. Defense Department to propose a new American security strategy for the twenty-first century. After a century in which aggression had to be defeated in two world wars and then deterred through a prolonged cold war, the authors argue for a strategy centered on prevention. Now that the cold war is over, it is necessary to rethink the risks to U.S. security. The A list--threats to U.S. survival--is empty today. The B list--the two major regional contingencies in the Persian Gulf and on the Korean peninsula that dominate Pentagon planning and budgeting--pose imminent threats to U.S. interests but not to survival. And the C list--such headline-grabbing places as Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda, and Haiti--includes important contingencies that indirectly affect U.S. security but do not directly threaten U.S. interests. Thus the United States is enjoying a period of unprecedented peace and influence; but foreign policy and defense leaders cannot afford to be complacent. The authors' preventive defense strategy concentrates on the dangers that, if mismanaged, have the potential to grow into true A-list threats to U.S. survival in the next century. These include Weimar Russia: failure to establish a self-respecting place for the new Russia in the post-cold war world, allowing it to descend into chaos, isolation, and aggression as Germany did after World War I; Loose Nukes: failure to reduce and secure the deadly legacy of the cold war--nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons in Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union; A Rising China Turned Hostile: failure to shape China's rise to Asian superpower status so that it emerges as a partner rather than an adversary; Proliferation: spread of weapons of mass destruction; and Catastrophic Terrorism: increase in the scope and intensity of transnational terrorism.They also argue for

This book argues that Europe, through the European Union (EU), should act as a great power in the 21st century. The course of world politics is determined by the interaction between great powers. Those powers are the US, the established power; Russia, the declining power; China, the rising power; and the EU, the power that doesn’t know whether it wants to be a power. If the EU does not just want to undergo the policies of the other powers it will have to become one itself, but it should differ in its strategy. In this book, Sven Biscop seeks to demonstrate that the EU has the means to pursue a distinctive great power strategy, a middle way between dreamy idealism and unprincipled pragmatism, and can play a crucial stabilizing role in this increasingly unstable world. Written by a leading scholar, this book will be of much interest to students of European security, EU policy, strategic studies and international relations.

Military Strategy in the 21st Century explores military strategy and the new challenges facing Western democracies in the twenty- first century, including strategy in cyber operations and peacekeeping, challenges for civil-military relations, and the strategic choices of great powers and small states. The volume contributes to a better understanding of military strategy in the twenty- first century, through exploring strategy from three perspectives: first, the study of strategy, and how our understanding of strategy has changed over time; second, new areas for strategic theory, such as peacekeeping and cyberspace; and third, the makers of strategy, and why states choose suboptimal strategies. With the increasing number of threats challenging strategy makers, such as great power rivalry, terrorism, intrastate wars, and transnational criminal organisations, Military Strategy in the 21st Century will be of great value to scholars of IR, Security Studies, Strategic Studies, and War Studies as well as policymakers and practitioners working with military strategy in particular and international security and war in general. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Strategic Studies.