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NEW WORLD COMING:
AMERICAN SECURITY IN THE 21ST CENTURY
MAJOR THEMES AND IMPLICATIONS
The Phase I Report on the Emerging Global Security Environment
for the First Quarter of the 21st Century
The United States Commission on National Security/21st Century
September 15, 1999
Preface In 1947, President Harry Truman signed into law the
National Security Act, the landmark U.S. national security legislation
of the latter half of the 20th century. The 1947 legislation has
served us well. It has undergirded our diplomatic efforts, provided
the basis to establish our military capa-bilities, and focused
our intelligence assets.
But the world has changed dramatically in the last fifty years,
and particularly in the last decade. Institutions designed in
another age may or may not be appropriate for the future. It is
the mandate of the United States Commission on National Security/21st
Century to examine precisely that question. It has undertaken
to do so in three phases: the first to describe the world emerging
in the first quarter of the next century, the second to design
a national security strategy appropri-ate to that world, and the
third to propose necessary changes to the national security structure
in order to implement that strategy effectively. This paper, together
with its supporting research and analysis, fulfills the first
of these phases. As co-chairs of the Commission, we are pleased
to
present it to the American people.
Gary Hart
Warren B. Rudman
Gary Hart
Co-Chair
Anne Armstrong
Commissioner
John Dancy
Commissioner
Leslie H. Gelb
Commissioner
Lee H. Hamilton
Commissioner
Donald B. Rice
Commissioner
Harry D. Train
Commissioner
Warren B. Rudman
Co-Chair
Norman R. Augustine
Commissioner
John R. Galvin
Commissioner
Newt Gingrich
Commissioner
Lionel H. Olmer
Commissioner
James Schlesinger
Commissioner
Andrew Young
Commissioner
This paper consists of four parts: a con-textualintroduction;
an articulation of twelve basic assumptions and observations;
fourteen key conclusions about the global envi-ronment of the
next quarter century;
and a statement of their essential meaning for American national
security strategy in the 21st century.
The U.S. Commission on National
Security/21st Century will build upon this foundation to recommend
a new strategy for the advancement of American interests and values.
It will then propose, as necessary, new structures and processes
for U.S. foreign and security policies in order to implement that
strategy.
Introduction
In the next century, the spread of knowledge, the development
of new technologies, and an increasing recognition of common global
problems will present vast opportunities for economic growth,
regional integration, and global political cooperation. The size
of the world's middle class may increase many times over, lifting
literally tens of millions of people from the depredations of
poverty and disease.
Authoritarian regimes will increasingly founder as they try to
insulate their populations from a world brimming with free-flowing
information, new economic opportunities, and spreading political
freedoms. We may thus see the rise of many new democracies and
the strengthening of several older ones. However fragile this
process may be, it holds the hope of less conflict in the world
than exists today.
Realizing these possibilities, however, will require concerted
action on the part of the United States and other mature democracies
around the world. Active American engage-ment cannot prevent all
problems, but wise policies can mitigate many of them. The United
States and governments of kindred spirit must work harder to prevent
conflicts as well as respond to them after the fact. Otherwise,
the promise of the next century may never be realized, for greater
global connectedness can
lead to an increased possibility of misfortune as well as benefit.
The future is one of rising stakes. While humanity has an unprecedented
opportunity to succor its poor, heal its sick, compose its dis-agreements,
and find new purpose in common global goals, failure at these
tasks could
produce calamity on a worldwide scale. Thanks to the continuing
integration of global financial networks, economic downturns that
were once normally episodic and local may become more systemic
and fully global in their harmful effects. Isolated epidemics
could metastasize
into global pandemics. The explosion in scien-tific discoveries
now under way bears the potential of near miraculous benefit for
humanity; misused, in the hands of despots, the new science could
become a tool of genocide on an unprecedented scale. During the
next 25 years, dilemmas arising from advances in biotechnology
increasingly will force some
cultures to reexamine the very foundations of their ethical structures.
As society changes, our concept of national security will expand
and our political values will be tested. In every sphere, our
moral imaginations will be exer-cised anew.
For all that will be novel in the next century, some things will
not change. Historical principles will still apply. There will
still be great powers, and their interaction in pursuit of their
own self-interests will still matter. As ever, much will depend
on the sagacity and good character of leadership. Misunderstandings,
misjudgments, and mistakes will still occur, but so will acts
of bravery borne on the insight of exceptional men and women.
Today, and in the world we see emerging, American leadership will
be of paramount importance. The American moment in world history
will not last forever; nothing wrought by man does. But for the
time being, a heavy
responsibility rests on both its power and its values. It is a
rare moment and a special opportunity in history when the acknowledged
dominant global power seeks neither territory nor political empire.
Every effort must be made to ensure that this responsibility is
discharged wisely. It is to this end that our study is ulti-mately
directed.
Our View of the Future
As we look to the future, we believe that:
1. An economically strong United States is likely to remain a
primary political, military, and cultural force through 2025,
and will thus have a significant role in shaping the international
environment.
2. The stability and direction of American society and politics
will help shape U.S. foreign policy goals and capacities, and
hence the way the United States may affect the global future.
3. Science and technology will continue to advance and become
more widely available and utilized around the world, but their
benefits will be less evenly distributed.
4. World energy supplies will remain largely based on fossil fuels.
5. While much of the world will experience economic growth, disparities
in income will increase and widespread poverty will persist.
6. The international aspects of business and commerce (trade,
transportation, telecom-munications, investment and finance, manufacturing,
and professional services) will continue to expand.
7. Non-governmental organizations (refugee aid organizations,
religious and ethnic advocacy groups, environmental and other
single-issue lobbies, international professional associations,
and others) will continue to grow in importance, numbers, and
in their international role.
8. Though it will raise important issues of sovereignty, the United
States will find it in its national interest to work with and
strengthen a variety of international organizations.
9. The United States will remain the principal military power
in the world.
10. Weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical, and biological)
and weapons of mass disruption (information warfare) will continue
to proliferate to a wider range of state and non-state actors.
Maintenance of a robust nuclear deterrent therefore remains essential
as well as investment in new forms of defense against these threats.
11. We should expect conflicts in which adversaries, because of
cultural affinities different from our own, will resort to forms
and levels of violence shocking to our sensibilities.
12. As the United States confronts a variety of complex threats,
it will often be dependent on allies; but it will find reliable
alliances more difficult to establish and sustain.
Conclusions
On the basis of the foregoing beliefs, and our understanding
of the broad context of the international security environment
that will emerge over the next quarter century, we conclude that:
1. America will become increasingly vulnerable to hostile attack
on our homeland, and our military superiority will not entirely
protect us.
The United States will be both absolutely and relatively stronger
than any other state or combination of states. Although a global
competitor to the United States is unlikely to arise over the
next 25 years, emerging powers either singly or in coalition will
increasingly constrain U.S. options regionally and limit its strategic
influence. As a result, we will remain limited in our ability
to impose our will, and we will be vulnerable to an increasing
range of threats against American forces and citizens overseas
as well as at home. American influence will increasingly be both
embraced and resented abroad, as U.S. cultural, economic, and
politi-cal power persists and perhaps spreads. States, terrorists,
and other disaffected groups will acquire weapons of mass destruction
and mass disruption, and some will use them. Americans
will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers.
2. Rapid advances in information and biotechnologies will create
new vulnerabilities for U.S. security.
Governments or groups hostile to the United States and its interests
will gain access to advanced technologies. They will seek to counter
U.S. military advantages through the possession of these technologies
and their actual use in non-traditional attacks. Moreover, as
our society becomes increasingly dependent on knowledge-based
technology for producing goods and providing services, new vulnerabili-ties
to such attacks will arise.
3. New technologies will divide the world as well as draw it together.
In the next century people around the world in both developed
and developing countries will be able to communicate with each
other almost
instantaneously. New technologies will increase productivity and
create a transnational cyberclass of people. We will see much
greater mobility and emigration among educated elites from less
to more developed societies. We will be increasingly deluged by
information, and have less time to process and interpret it. We
will learn to cure illnesses, prolong and enrich life, and routinely
clone it, but at the same time, advances in bio-technology will
create moral dilemmas. An anti-technology backlash is possible,
and even likely, as the adoption of emerging technologies creates
new moral, cultural, and economic divisions.
4. The national security of all advanced states will be increasingly
affected by the vulnerabilities of the evolving global economic
infrastructure. The economic future will be more difficult to
predict and to manage. The emergence or strengthening of significant
global economic
actors will cause realignments of economic power. Global changes
in the next quarter-century will produce opportunities and vulnerabilities.
Overall global economic growth will continue, albeit unevenly.
At the
same time, economic integration and fragmentation will co-exist.
Serious and unexpected economic downturns, major disparities of
wealth, volatile capital flows, increasing vul-nerabilities in
global electronic infrastructures, labor and social disruptions,
and pressures for increased protectionism will also occur. Many
countries will be simultaneously more wealthy and more insecure.
Some societies will find it difficult to develop the human capital
and social cohesion necessary to employ new tech-nologies productively.
Their frustrations will be endemic and sometimes dangerous. For
most advanced states, major threats to national security will
broaden beyond the purely military.
5. Energy will continue to have major strategic significance.
Although energy distribution and consumption patterns will shift,
we are unlikely to see dramatic changes in energy technology on
a world scale in the next quarter century. Demand for fossil fuel
will increase as major developing economies grow, increasing most
rapidly in Asia. American dependence on
foreign sources of energy will also grow over the next two decades.
In the absence of events that alter significantly the price of
oil, the stability of the world oil market will continue to depend
on an uninterrupted supply of oil from the Persian Gulf, and the
location of all key fossil fuel deposits will retain geopolitical
significance.
6. All borders will be more porous; some will bend and some will
break.
New technologies will continue to stretch and strain all existing
borders(IQ(Bphysical and social. Citizens will communicate with and
form alle-giances to individuals or movements anywhere in the
world. Traditional bonds between states and their citizens can
no longer be taken for
granted, even in the United States. Many coun-tries will have
difficulties keeping dangers out of their territories, but their
governments will
still be committed to upholding the integrity of their borders.
Global connectivity will allow "big ideas" to spread
quickly around the globe.
Some ideas may be religious in nature, some populist, some devoted
to democracy and human rights. Whatever their content, the stage
will be set for mass action to have social impact beyond the borders
and control of existing political structures.
7. The sovereignty of states will come under pressure, but will
endure.
The international system will wrestle constant-ly over the next
quarter century to establish the proper balance between fealty
to the state on
the one hand, and the impetus to build effective transnational
institutions on the other. This struggle will be played out in
the debate over international institutions to regulate financial
markets, international policing and peace-making agencies, as
well as several other shared global problems. Nevertheless, global
forces, especially economic ones, will continue to batter the
concept of national sovereignty.
The state, as we know it, will also face challenges to its sovereignty
under the mandate of evolving international law and by disaffected
groups, including terrorists and criminals. Nonetheless, the principle
of national sover-eignty will endure, albeit in changed forms.
8. Fragmentation or failure of states will occur, with destabilizing
effects on neigh-boring states.
Global and regional dynamics will normally bind states together,
but events in major coun-tries will still drive whether the world
is
peaceful or violent. States will differ in their ability to seize
technological and economic opportunities, establish the social
and political infrastructure necessary for economic growth, build
political institutions responsive to the aspirations of their
citizens, and find the lead-ership necessary to guide them through
an era of uncertainty and risk. Some important states may not
be able to manage these challenges
and could fragment or fail. The result will be an increase in
the rise of suppressed nationalisms, ethnic or religious violence,
humanitarian dis-asters, major catalytic regional crises, and
the spread of dangerous weapons.
9. Foreign crises will be replete with atroci-ties and the deliberate
terrorizing ofcivilian populations.
Interstate wars will occur over the next 25 years, but most violence
will erupt from con-flicts internal to current territorial states.
As the
desire for self-determination spreads, and many governments fail
to adapt to new economic and social realities, minorities will
be less likely to tolerate bad or prejudicial government. In con-sequence,
the number of new states, international protectorates, and zones
of autonomy will increase, and many will be born in violence.
The major powers will struggle to devise an accountable and effective
institution-al response to such crises.
10. Space will become a critical and competi-tive military environment.
The U.S. use of space for military purposes will expand, but other
countries will also learn to exploit space for both commercial
and military purposes. Many other countries will learn to launch
satellites to communicate and spy. Weapons will likely be put
in space. Space will
also become permanently manned.
11. The essence of war will not change. Despite the proliferation
of highly sophisticated and remote means of attack, the essence
of war will remain the same. There will be casualties, carnage,
and death; it will not be like a video game. What will change
will be the kinds of actors and the weapons available to them.
While some societies will attempt to limit violence and damage,
others will seek to maximize them, particularly against those
soci-eties with a lower tolerance for casualties.
12. U.S. intelligence will face more challenging adversaries,
and even excellent intelligence will not prevent all surprises.
Micro-sensors and electronic communications will continue to expand
intelligence collection capabilities around the world. As a result
of the
proliferation of other technologies, however, many countries and
disaffected groups will develop techniques of denial and deception
in
an attempt to thwart U.S. intelligence efforts(IQ(B despite U.S. technological
superiority. In any event, the United States will continue to
confront strategic shocks, as intelligence analysis and human
judgments will fail to detect all dangers in an ever-changing
world.
13. The United States will be called upon frequently to intervene
militarily in a time of uncertain alliances and with the prospect
of fewer forward-deployed forces.
Political changes abroad, economic considera-tions, and the increased
vulnerability of U.S. bases around the world will increase pressures
on the United States to reduce substantially its forward military
presence in Europe and Asia.
In dealing with security crises, the 21st century will be characterized
more by episodic "posses of the willing" than the traditional
World War
II-style alliance systems. The United States will increasingly
find itself wishing to form coalitions but increasingly unable
to find partners
willing and able to carry out combined military operations.
14. The emerging security environment in the next quarter century
will require different military and other national capabilities.
The United States must act together with its allies to shape the
future of the international environment, using all the instruments
of American diplomatic, economic, and military power. The type
of conflict in which this country will generally engage in the
first quarter of the 21st century will require sus-tainable military
capabilities characterized by stealth, speed, range, unprecedented
accuracy, lethality, strategic mobility,
superior intelligence, and the overall will and ability to prevail.
It is essential to maintain U.S. technological superiority, despite
the unavoidable tension between acquisition of advanced capabilities
and the maintenance of current capabilities. The mix and effectiveness
of overall American capabilities need to be rethought and adjusted,
and substantial
changes in non-military national capabilities will also be needed.
Discriminating and hard choices will be required.
Seeking an American National Security Strategy
In many respects, the world ahead seems amenable to basic American
interests and values. A world pried open by the information revolution
is a world less hospitable to tyranny and more friendly to human
liberty. A more prosperous world is, on balance, a world more
conducive to democracy and less tolerant of fatalism and the dour
dogmas that often attend it. A less socially rigid, freer, and
self-regulating world also accords with our deepest political
beliefs and our central political metaphors(IQ(Bthe checks and balances
of our Constitution, the invisible hand of the market, our social
creed of E Pluribus Unum, and the concept of federalism itself.
Nevertheless, a world amenable to our interests and values will
not come into being by itself. Much of the world will resent and
oppose us, if not for the simple fact of our preeminence, then
for the fact that others often perceive the United States as exercising
its power with arrogance
and self-absorption. There will also be much apprehension and
confusion as the world changes. National leaderships will have
their hands full, and some will make mistakes.
As a result, for many years to come Americans will become increasingly
less secure, and much less secure than they now believe themselves
to be. That is because many of the threats emerging in our future
will differ
significantly from those of the past, not only in their physical
but also in their psychological effects. While conventional conflicts
will still be
possible, the most serious threat to our security may consist
of unannounced attacks on American cities by sub-national groups
using
genetically engineered pathogens. Another may be a well-planned
cyber-attack on the air traffic control system on the East Coast
of the United
States, as some 200 commercial aircraft are trying to land safely
in a morning(IU(Bs rain and fog. Other threats may inhere in assaults
against an increasingly integrated and complex, but highly vulnerable,
international economic infrastructure whose operation lies beyond
the control of any
single body. Threats may also loom from an unraveling of the fabric
of national identity itself, and the consequent failure or collapse
of several
major countries.
Taken together, the evidence suggests that threats to American
security will be more diffuse, harder to anticipate, and more
difficult to neutralize than ever before. Deterrence will not
work as it once did; in many cases it may not work at all.
There will be a blurring of boundaries: between homeland defense
and foreign policy; between sovereign states and a plethora of
protectorates
and autonomous zones; between the pull of national loyalties on
individual citizens and the pull of loyalties both more local
and more global in nature.
While the likelihood of major conflicts between powerful states
will decrease, conflict itself will likely increase. The world
that lies in
store for us over the next 25 years will surely challenge our
received wisdom about how to protect American interests and advance
American values.
In such an environment the United States needs a sure understanding
of its objectives, and a coherent strategy to deal with both the
dangers
and the opportunities ahead. It is from the Phase I Report --
both this document and the research and analytical study from
which it is drawn -- that this Commission will seek to develop
that understand-ing, and build that strategy, in Phase II. We
will unveil that strategy in April 2000.
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