Robert Chandler, a twenty-seven-year Air Force veteran, explains how the dizzying pace of weapons proliferation is changing the face of war and placing America's Cold War-derived military strategy increasingly into jeopardy. Explaining how America's transoceanic power projection strategy is under attack, he recommends a dramatic shift in military strategy and forces to neutralize the growing threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
America's response to the Iraqi seizure of Kuwait in 1990 demonstrated the reach and superiority of U.S. military forces, and a dramatic military victory was won with far fewer casualties than expected. At the same time, however, glaring vulnerabilities in the American global strategy were exposed. Two of the most severe weaknesses were the overwhelming dependence of the U.S. transoceanic power projection strategy on time, and lots of it, to deploy military forces overseas, and, secondly, the presumption of always having available ready and unhindered access to regional seaports, airfields, and other facilities. With America's time and access dependencies exposed, contemporary WMD proliferators are working feverishly to exploit these vulnerabilities.
Robert Chandler takes the reader step-by-step through the logic of how WMD proliferation, advanced conventional weapons, and state-sponsored terrorism will make execution of the current U.S. military strategy highly risky and perhaps even unworkable early in the twenty-first century. He recommends that the United States reshape its military strategy to "mass firepower, not forces" through the creation of a Global Reconnaissance-Strike Complex built from existing military resources, ranging from intelligence and communications assets to air forces and distributed ground combat cells. Launching from bases beyond the reach of deadly WMD-tipped missiles, a balanced long-range precision strike force would immunize U.S. strategy against the effects of weapons of mass destruction.
