1997 National Military Strategy Any dis

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.

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01-102). President Clinton's national security strategy called for more flexible criteria for intervention. This drew criticism because it created the possibility of vague and open-ended commitments. The criticism sharpened after the failure of the U.N. mission in Somalia and the uncertain objectives of the U.N. and NATO missions in Haiti, Rwanda, Macedonia, and Bosnia. However, such flexible criteria was necessary to advance the overall strategy of enlargement and engagement, which advocated a more pro-active role for the United States in a world devoid of a superpower competitor (Hillen, 1996, pp. 103-104). The 1997 National Military Strategy (NMS) is based upon two objectives: to promote peace and stability and to defeat adversaries. The ways, or concepts, by which these objectives are to be achieved are threefold: (1) apply military power to help shape the international environment; (2) apply military power to respond to the full spectrum of crises; and (3) prepare now for an uncertain future (Shalikashvili, 1997, p. 2). In order to support the national security strategy, the NMS has articulated two objectives to be sought: promote peace and stability and defeat adversaries. The objective of promoting peace and stabili
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Approximate Word count = 1715
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)