The world is facing truly breathtaking changes, in particular from the socialist countries. The traditional rigidity of communist regimes and the preeminence of the communist parties in these countries are breaking down. Strong voices of nationalism within the Soviet Union are challenging the very integrity of the union itself. Thus, a bipolar world--where the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), led by the United States, and the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO), led by the Soviet Union, represent both .an ideological schism and a superpower confrontation--is no longer the basis or even a dominant force for threatened conflict.

The recognition is growing that such factors as economic strength, abundance of basic resources, productivity, and the health and morale of the population are in many respects stronger bases of national security than are military forces. This recognition conflicts sharply with the concept of national security as defined in the Dictionary of Military Terms (issued by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff) as "a military or defense advantage over any foreign nation or group of nations."

In view of all these developments, the realization that military power and national security are not synonymous is becoming more prevalent in the United States.  More attention is focusing on internal threats from deficiencies such as those in education, from erosion of the country's infrastructure, drugs, and problems of the environment. This attention, in turn, has deflected public concern and attention from military issues. The decreased concern not only has diminished the priority given to military preparedness but also, unfortunately, has lessened the concern with arms control.

This paper addresses the steps that the United States should take to insure the continuation of its position of influence and involvement in world commerce and geopolitics in light of the developments in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.  The developments are both positive--prodemocracy movements, lessened tensions--and negative, the latter suggesting that there may well be a period in which pent-up ethnic, ideological, and nationalistic pressures could give rise to local conflicts and regional disputes throughout the world, not just in Eastern Europe.

The national security strategy of the United States since World War II has changed frequently during the course of eight administrations and two wars. But it has also had an underlying consistency, driven by three major factors: the Cold War, the United States' position as leader of the Western world, and the economic strength of the United States. In the 1990s, however, U.S. national security strategy is likely to be very different as the Cold War abates, the United States' role with allies evolves from one of dominance to one of senior partnership, and the U.S. economy is stressed by actions to reduce the budget and trade deficits.

Though fairly stable over the past decade, the Asian-Pacific area is entering a fluid stage, heralding important changes. Whether these changes will be conducive to a more peaceful, stable, and prosperous Asia-Pacific, or ominous of the approach of new chaos and conflict
in the region, is of concern to many. This paper attempts to highlight the opportunities as well as challenges that the region will face in the next ten to fifteen years and explores the possibility of creating a more propitious strategic framework, in which the level of military confrontation between the superpowers would be reduced, economic integration and political cooperation among the Asian-Pacific states enhanced, and potential crises removed.

The strategic situation in the Asian-Pacific area can be viewed from two perspectives--from that of relations among the United States, the Soviet Union, and China, and that of the regional balance of the Asian states.  Although these two perspectives are distinct from each other, they are often overlapping and interactive.

The structural context of Soviet-ethno nationalism

In the course of five years of perestroika, the "nationality problem" of the Soviet Union emerged as the key dilemma of Soviet politics. It was entwined with, and indeed has become a metaphor for, all the major issues of reform: the dilemmas of decentralization, the scope and limits of de-Stalinization, the interdependence of domestic and foreign policy, and the tension between democratization and control. Its fate is as problematic as the future of the Soviet system as a whole.

Soviet theoreticians reject the concept of a national strategy or a grand strategy above military strategy, reasoning that the national strategy or grand strategy of the United States and other Western countries is simply their anti-Soviet stance. They further maintain that military strategy includes political, economic, scientific and technological, and moral factors. Realization of national military objectives (that is, national power) requires unification of these factors. Thus it is not necessary to have a national strategy or grand strategy beyond military strategy.

The Soviets hold that military doctrine and military policy, rather than national strategy or grand strategy, are above military strategy. In fact, the Western notion of national strategy or grand strategy and the Soviet concept of military doctrine or military policy are similar in content. The distinction derives from the fact that the Soviet Union is a Communist country, where the Party leads everything. The Party's policy is the government's policy, and the decisions and resolutions passed at a Party congress are guiding principles not only for the government, but for all spheres of daily life.

A Conference report of the Center for International Security and Arms Control. This conference report contains papers presented at a symposium sponsored by the Institute of Far Eastern Studies (IFES) of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and the International Strategic Institute at Stanford (ISIS) at Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, June 21-30, 1988.

The Korean Peninsula is one of the areas of acute political instability and conflict in the Asian-Pacific region. This is partly but not exclusively because of the unsettled problems between the two parts of Korea. The international environment could be more conducive to an inter-Korean dialogue, to national reconciliation, and to reunification. Without interfering in the internal affairs of the Korean nation, the United States and the Soviet Union, and other major powers of the region, could create more-favorable conditions settling the Korean problem, understanding always that the principal aspects of the problem are internal and must be solved by the two Korean states themselves.

The neutron bomb is a controversial weapon. Indeed, the public disclosure by the United States of its development in 1977 has provoked sharp and widespread debate that is likely to continue in the future. Although the United States has manufactured and stockpiled neutron bombs, in order to mollify public opposition in Europe it announced in 1981 that these weapons would not be deployed overseas at that time. France has developed and tested a neutron bomb successfully, but it has not yet decided whether to produce and deploy it. The Soviet Union claims that, although it has tested a neutron bomb, it has never started production of that weapon.

What about China? There is little information about the neutron bomb in open literature, yet Chinese Defense Minister Zhang Aiping said recently at a memorial service for China's leading nuclear scientist, Deng Jiaxian, that Deng made important contributions to the theory of atomic and hydrogen bombs and their successful testing as well as major breakthroughs in the principles of new nuclear weapons and their research and testing. What kind of new nuclear weapons? Do they include the neutron bomb? Minister Zhang Aiping did not mention this weapon. Maybe China is not developing the neutron bomb now, but at least we can say that China, as a nuclear country, has the ability to develop it and is interested in it. Does China need neutron bombs? This report reviews U.S. and French plans for deployment of the neutron bomb and, further, evaluates the practicality of neutron bombs for China from the perspective of China's politics, strategy, geography, and technical and economic capabilities.

The U.S. Navy's New Maritime Strategy addresses the navy's role in a nonnuclear U.S.-Soviet conflict in Europe. Rather than protecting the North Atlantic sea-lanes by bottling up the Soviet Navy, it proposes that U.S. naval forces move aggressively into the waters near the Soviet Union and seek out and destroy Soviet warships. In particular, the strategy explicitly calls for destroying Soviet nuclear-powered attack and ballistic-missile submarines (SSNs and SSBNs). It posits that the threat to the SSBNs would accomplish two goals. The first is that the Soviets would not surge their SSNs out into the Atlantic to contest U.S. control of the seas but because of the threat would stay back and protect their highly valued SSBNs. The second is that attrition of their SSBNs by U.S. attack would decrease the incentive for the Soviets to go nuclear in the European war, since the balance of forces would shift to the U.S. side. Much debate has been provoked by the prospects of this strategy's leading instead to nuclear escalation.

Congress is being told that the proposed 600-ship navy is the minimum needed to carry out this mission. The strategy is the justification for both the number and the types of ships that are in the shipbuilding program. This program includes a new class of attack submarines, called the Seawolf, which will cost about $1 billion each and are described as the counter to the increasingly quiet Soviet submarines.

This study examines whether the force structure that is being proposed has a reasonable chance of success. lt explores whether modest changes in the building program can make a significant change in the outcome and considers possible alternative approaches.