The Search for Security - by Max Manwaring & Edwin Corr & Robert Dorff (Hardcover)

About the Book

One of the most common criticisms of current U.S. security policy is that it lacks an overarching strategy, leading to a tendency to address problems and crises individually and in isolation as they arise. This study provides a broad description of the contemporary global security environment and an examination of U.S. security policy since the end of the Cold War. Traditional threats, such as those associated with major theater war, now coexist with newer nontraditional threats. The authors maintain that a sound strategy must support the ability of a country to hedge and adapt to a highly volatile security landscape. That, in turn, is accomplished through an executive level organizational mechanism to authoritatively integrate and execute a cogent national policy.

Understanding the key concepts of strategy and strategy formation is essential in order to place specific challenges--such as global instability and state failure--in an appropriate strategic context. The contributors outline the conceptual guidance for a relevant strategy to deal with the myriad political, economic, informational, and deterrence threats and challenges generated in today's unstable, chaotic, violent, and ambiguous global security environment. Their conclusions are unequivocal. The United States must come to grips with the fundamentally transformed nature of security challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. To do so requires a significant change in how the country develops its security strategy and how the country is organized to plan and implement that strategy.

Book Synopsis

One of the most common criticisms of current U.S. security policy is that it lacks an overarching strategy, leading to a tendency to address problems and crises individually and in isolation as they arise. This study provides a broad description of the contemporary global security environment and an examination of U.S. security policy since the end of the Cold War. Traditional threats, such as those associated with major theater war, now coexist with newer nontraditional threats. The authors maintain that a sound strategy must support the ability of a country to hedge and adapt to a highly volatile security landscape. That, in turn, is accomplished through an executive level organizational mechanism to authoritatively integrate and execute a cogent national policy.

Understanding the key concepts of strategy and strategy formation is essential in order to place specific challenges--such as global instability and state failure--in an appropriate strategic context. The contributors outline the conceptual guidance for a relevant strategy to deal with the myriad political, economic, informational, and deterrence threats and challenges generated in today's unstable, chaotic, violent, and ambiguous global security environment. Their conclusions are unequivocal. The United States must come to grips with the fundamentally transformed nature of security challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. To do so requires a significant change in how the country develops its security strategy and how the country is organized to plan and implement that strategy.

Review Quotes

"These three seasoned experts and sound thinkers offer a readable and well-reasoned contribution to the on-going search for a new paradigm for American national security and foreign policy. The book is must reading for those interested in the formulation and implementation of national security policy in today's evolving and dangerous world."-Admiral William J. Crowe Jr. (Ret.) Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Ambassador to the United Kingdom

"This book provides incisive guidance for developing a relevant, effective grand strategy for the 21st century. It will make a significant contribution to the literature and be useful to both academics and practitioners in the security and defense fields."-Robert L. Wendzel Merrill Professor of Political Science Utah State University

"This book will prove a valuable addition to the libraries of practitioners and academics alike. The authors present a novel and more forward-looking approach to strategic focus, that of state failure, in their relatively comprehensive review of national strategy dilemmas and characteristics. Grand strategy in the age of mass interdependent societies needs such a focus and such analysis to be effective."-Chris Demchak Associate Professor, University of Arizona

"This new, serious and solid book is a good guide for the perplexed on national strategies for the 21st Century. It is a "must read" for all serious students and practitioners of American strategy. A cut well above the usual conference-produced book, it focuses on the need to establish strategy on sound, long-range principles, not short-term problem solving, and on the need for good governance at home and abroad. It suggests a reorganization at home to make it happen and ends with the solid home truth that we will certainly be undone if we do nothing."-Thomas R. Pickering, Senior Vice President International Relations, The Boeing Company former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs and U.S. Ambassador to Jordan, Nigeria, El Salvador, Israel, India, Russia, and the United States

"This volume is a timely effort by three experts in the field of national security to revitalize strategic thinking. The authors make a special contribution to the understanding necessary for the formulation and implementation of effective foreign policy in a world changed by the end of the cold war, the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the United States, a technical/informatic revolution, and globalization."-General Dennis J. Reimer (Ret.) Director, Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, former Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army

About the Author

MAX G. MANWARING is Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Dickinson College. He is the editor or co-editor of several books, including El Salvador at War: An Oral History (1989), Managing Contemporary Conflict: Pillars of Success (1996), and Toward Responsibility in the New World Disorder: Challenges and Lessons of Peace Operations (1998).

EDWIN G. CORR is a retired U.S. Foreign Service Officer and is now Director of the Energy Institute of the Americas and Associate Director of the International Programs Center at the University of Oklahoma. He has written and edited various articles and books, including Low-Intensity Conflict: Old Threats in a New World.

ROBERT H. DORFF is Chairman of the Department of National Security and Strategy and holder of the General Maxwell D. Taylor Chair at the U.S. Army War College.