U. S. Military Policy and the Cold War Endgame

The transition from the end of the Cold War to a new world order is both promising and perilous. Security concerns are now based more on the prevention or containment of regional and civil conflicts than on fears of nuclear or Eurasian global wars. The antagonists of the Cold War will be the collaborators of the next century in seeking to stabilise the conflicts inside and outside Europe and to prevent further proliferation of nuclear weapons. Deterrence characteristics of the pre-Cold War period will in the next century again become normative.

Stephen J. Cimbala is Professor of Political Science at Pennsylvania State University.