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Throughout history, technology has exerted an important, if not decisive, influence on military strategy, tactics, and operational art. It has been demonstrated to increase the options available to states as they consider their strategic requirements and their force posture needs. Only by understanding the implications of new technologies can we begin to utilize them in preparing for and deterring future conflict. The utilization of advanced technologies within an appropriate strategic concept forms a central element of U.S. defense policy planning. Moreover, given the tendency in peacetime to cut defense spending, the force-multiplying effect that new and emerging technologies promise to have in the future may, as it did in the Persian Gulf war, serve to offset force posture deficiencies, while providing for a lower level of collateral damage and casualty figures. While it is not possible to conclude whether new technologies will favor the offense or the defense or how they will affect the future conduct of war, it can be stated with great certainty that the relationship between strategy and technology will grow in importance in the years ahead.

In October 1979 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization adopted a resolution that recommended modernization of NATO's long-range theater-nuclear forces. Based upon the deployment in Western Europe of 108 Pershing II missile and 464 ground-launched cruise missile launchers, the NATO decision was widely regraded as an essential step in redressing the deteriorating military balance in Europe. The perceived erosion of the European balance is rooted in the momentum of programs undertaken by the Soviet Union both in nuclear and nonnuclear forces. From a European perspective, however, the most worrisome aspect of Soviet modernization programs relates to improvements in theater-nuclear systems which, when juxtaposed with the development of a potential counterforce capability (against U.S. ICBMs), have reinforced doubts about the ability of the Alliance to ensure deterrence by means of the agreed strategy of Flexible Response, with its attendant concepts of defensive planning and graduated response providing for conventional and nuclear options. To enhance the deterrence posture of NATO and to provide for a contingency in which the actual use of NATO's nuclear-capable systems might become necestheater-nuclear forces and, at the same time, revitalize its tactical planning options.

"This volume is based on the assumption that Iran will soon obtain nuclear weapons, and Jacquelyn K. Davis and Robert L. Pfaltzgraff Jr. develop alternative models for assessing the challenges of a nuclear Iran for U.S. security. Through three scenario models, the book explores the political, strategic, and operational challenges facing the United States in a post--Cold War world. The authors concentrate on the type of nuclear capability Iran might develop; the conditions under which Iran might resort to threatened or actual weapons use; the extent to which Iran's military strategy and declaratory policy might embolden Iran and its proxies to pursue more aggressive policies in the region and vis-à-vis the United States; and Iran's ability to transfer nuclear materials to others within and outside the region, possibly sparking a nuclear cascade. Drawing on recent post--Cold War deterrence theory, the authors consider Iran's nuclear ambitions as they relate to its foreign policy objectives, domestic politics, and role in the Islamic world, and they suggest specific approaches to improve U.S. defense and deterrence planning."--Publisher's description