Any discussion of military strategy must start with the distinction between the varying levels of strategy. At the highest level is grand strategy. Grand strategy, or national security strategy, concerns controlling and using all of the resources of a nation to promote and secure the nation's vital interests. National military strategy involves the employment of military power in times of peace and war. Thus, military strategy is a tool used to advance grand strategy (Owens, 1998, pp. 22-23).
The basic purpose of the national military strategy is to support the directives of the national security strategy by establishing a strategy and a defense program which will promote the achievement of the objectives of the national security strategy. Consequently, the national military strategy is one of the means, or concepts, which is integral to the national security strategy (Cohen, 1998, p. 5).
From the end of the Second World War until the end of the Cold War, the national security strategy of the United States was based upon the containment of Soviet influence throughout the world. Consequently, the military strategy of the United States, "flexible response," was based upon forward defense. This entailed the deployment of heavy land forces and air forces in threatened theaters, backed by rapid reinforcement forces. Most importantly, the U.S. relied upon nuclear weapons to offset the superior Soviet conventional forces (Owens, 1998, pp. 24-25).
This strategy became obsolescent in the early 1990s with the demise of the Soviet Union. The U.S. no longer faced a superpower which could dominate the Eurasian landmass. Although the basis for the U.S. strategy for the last forty years had disappeared, U.S. leaders were presented the positive opportunity to develop a different national security strategy, one based upon a smaller commitment of resources to respond to potential regional hegemons which threatened regional U.S. intere...