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The recent conclusion to the war in Afghanistan - America's longest and one of its most frustrating - serves as a vivid reminder of the unpredictability and tragedy of war. In this timely book, esteemed military expert Michael O'Hanlon examines America's major conflicts since the mid-1800s: the Civil War, the two World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. O'Hanlon addresses profound questions. How successful has the United States been when it waged these wars? Were the wars avoidable? Did America's leaders know what they were getting into when they committed to war? And what lessons does history offer for future leaders contemplating war? - including the prospects for avoiding war in the first place. Certainly, Vladimir Putin should have thought harder about some of these questions before invading Ukraine. O'Hanlon looks for overarching trends and themes, along with the lessons for the military strategists and political leaders of today and tomorrow. His main lessons include the observations that war is usually far more difficult than expected, and that its outcomes are rarely predictable.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: A Primer on the US Military Machine -- 1. Defense Budgeting and Resource Allocation -- 2. Gaming and Modeling Combat -- 3. Technological Change and Military Innovation -- 4. Space, Missile Defense, and Nuclear Weapons: Three Case Studies in the Science of War -- Notes -- Index

Russia and China are both believed to have "grand strategies" - detailed sets of national security goals backed by means, and plans, to pursue them. In the United States, policy makers have tried to articulate similar concepts but have failed to reach a widespread consensus since the Cold War ended. While the United States has been the world's prominent superpower for over a generation, much American thinking has oscillated between the extremes of isolationist agendas versus interventionist and overly assertive ones. Drawing on historical precedents and weighing issues such as Russia's resurgence, China's great rise, North Korea's nuclear machinations, and Middle East turmoil, Michael O'Hanlon presents a well‑researched, ethically sound, and politically viable vision for American national security policy. He also proposes complementing the Pentagon's set of "4+1" pre‑existing threats with a new "4+1": biological, nuclear, digital, climatic, and internal dangers.

"Russia and China are both believed to have 'grand strategies'--detailed sets of national security goals backed by means, and plans, to pursue them. In the United States, policymakers have tried to articulate similar concepts but have failed to reach a widespread consensus since the Cold War ended. While the United States has been the world's prominent superpower for over a generation, much American thinking has oscillated between the extremes of isolationist agendas versus interventionist and overly assertive ones. Drawing on historical precedents and weighing issues such as Russia's resurgence, China's great rise, North Korea's nuclear machinations, and Middle East turmoil, Michael O'Hanlon presents a well-researched, ethically sound, and politically viable vision for American national security policy. He also proposes complementing the Pentagon's set of '4+1' pre-existing threats with a new '4+1': biological, nuclear, digital, climatic, and internal dangers."--

In recent years, the Pentagon has elevated its concerns about Russia and China as potential military threats to the United States and its allies. But what issues could provoke actual conflict between the United States and either country? And how could such a conflict be contained before it took the world to the brink of thermonuclear catastrophe, as was feared during the cold war? Defense expert Michael O'Hanlon wrestles with these questions in this insightful book, setting them within the broader context of hegemonic change and today's version of great-power competition. The book examines how a local crisis could escalate into a broader and much more dangerous threat to peace. What if, for example, Russia's "little green men" seized control of a community, like Narva or an even smaller town in Estonia, now a NATO ally? Or, what if China seized one of the uninhabited Senkaku islands now claimed and administered by Japan, or imposed a partial blockade of Taiwan? Such threats are not necessarily imminent, but they are far from inconceivable. Washington could be forced to choose, in these and similar cases, between risking major war to reverse the aggression, and appeasing China or Russia in ways that could jeopardize the broader global order. O'Hanlon argues that the United States needs a better range of options for dealing with such risks to peace. He advocates "integrated deterrence," which combines military elements with economic warfare. The military components would feature strengthened forward defenses as well as, possibly, limited military options against Russian or Chinese assets in other theaters. Economic warfare would include offensive elements, notably sanctions, as well as measures to ensure the resilience of the United States and allies against possible enemy reprisal. The goal is to deter war through a credible set of responses that are more commensurate than existing policy with the stakes involved in such scenarios.

Front Cover -- Front Flap -- Title Page -- Copyright Information -- Table Contents -- Foreword -- An Agenda for America -- Part I: The Pulse of America -- Are American Better Off than They Were a Decade or Two Ago? -- Unhappiness in America: Desperation in White Towns, Resilience and Diversity in the Cities -- Time for Justice: Tackling Race Inequalities in Health and Housing -- Health Policy Issues and the 2016 Presidential Election -- A Government-Wide Reform Agenda for the Next Administration -- Part II: Growing the Economy -- Recommendations for Federal Budget Policy -- The Most Important Non-Issue in the 2016 Campaign -- Infrastructure Issues and Options for the Trump Administration -- Short- and Long-Term Strategies to Renew American Infrastructure -- Productivity and the Trump Administration -- Major Tax Issues in 2017 -- The Future of U.S.-China Economic Relations -- The Case for Trade and the Trans-Pacific Partnership -- Maximizing the Local Economic Impact of Federal R&D -- Why Cities and Metros Must Lead in Trump's America -- Climate Change and the Next Administration -- Energy and Climate: Moving beyond Symbolism -- Creating Opportunity for the Forgotten Americans -- Making U.S. Develoment Fit for the 21st Century -- Securing the Future of Driverless Cars -- Part III: Security at Home and Abroad -- America's Awesome Military -- Countering Violent Extremism in America -- Criminal Justice Reform -- Lawful Hacking and the Case for a Strategic Approach to Going Dark -- To Preserve an Important U.S. Intelligence Tool, Trump Needs to Set a Different Tone -- Part IV: Foreign Challenges and Opportunities -- America's Role in a Turbulent World -- The Twilight of the Liberal World Order -- You've Got a Friend in Me: Why U.S. Alliances Make America Safer -- U.S. Leadership in Global Education: The Time Is Now.

What happens if we bet too heavily on unmanned systems, cyber warfare, and special operations in our defense?In today's U.S. defense policy debates, big land wars are out. Drones, cyber weapons, special forces, and space weapons are in. Accordingly, Pentagon budget cuts have honed in on the army and ground forces: this, after the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, seems like an appealing idea. No one really wants American boots on the ground in bloody conflicts abroad. But it is not so easy to simply declare an end to messy land wars. A survey of the world's trouble spots suggests that land war.

President Barack Obama survived a tenuous economy and a toxic political environment to win re-election in 2012, but the bitter partisan divide in Washington survived as well. So did the country's huge fiscal deficit. in this, the latest in a long line of Brookings Institution analyses of the defense budget, Michael O'Hanlon considers how best to balance national security and fiscal responsibility during a period of prolonged economic stress and political acrimony --even as the world remains unsettled, from Afghanistan to Iran to Syria to the western Pacific region. O'Hanlon explains why the large defense cuts that would result from prolonged sequestration or from deficit-reduction projects such as the Bowles-Simpson plan are too deep. But the bulk of his book represents an effort to look for greater savings than the Obama administration's 2012 proposals would allow

"Offers pragmatic policy recommendations for strengthening the U.S. military's ability to respond to international crises, with engagement or deterrence, and protect American citizens while maintaining fiscal responsibility, by expanding ground forces yet containing spending, modernizing weaponry, implementing privatization and reform, and encouraging burden sharing with allies"--Provided by publisher

"An endorsement for nuclear disarmament, especially the dismantling of existing bomb inventories, but with caveats relating to threats posed by nations or groups inside the agreement framework who do not abide by it and those outside who have never allied themselves with those advocating a nuclear-free world"--Provided by publisher

"Discussion and solutions to pressing policy challenges are presented to help presidential candidates, political observers, and the informed public focus on critical issues facing the nation leading up to the 2008 elections. Tackles a broad range of issues, organized under three categories: Our World, Our Society, and Our Prosperity"--Provided by publisher

"Lays out the issues and relative costs facing the new president: prioritizing among competing demands for defense spending, homeland-security investment, diplomacy, and security assistance; determining how much money will be needed, available, and allocated. Suggests a path for the new White House in its resource-allocation decisions affecting U.S. national security"--Provided by publisher