The Crisis In Western Security PDF Download

This document was prepared in 1981 as the result of a review of the changing strategic context for national security policy and posture as it affects the cooperative arrangements between the U.S. and our principal allies. Western cohesion and the effectiveness of Western policies have been affected by the broad as well as the specific choices made as a result of the interplay of technology, budgets and bureaucratic or economic interests. The future cooperation to secure the freedom and independence of the countries of Western Europe and Japan is now in serious question. Problems have developed as a consequence of the shift in the actual and perceived balance of military power between the Soviet Union and The United States. Two of these problems which raise fundamental questions about the continued usefulness of a Western country's alliance with the U.S. in dealing with the threat posed by the Soviet Union are discussed. The first problem is diminished confidence by Western countries in the guarantee that the United States would respond with its full range of forces, including nuclear weapons if necessary, to Soviet attack on Western Europe or Japan. The second is the growth of the threat to vital Western interests in continued access to oil supplies from the Persian Gulf region, a threat beyond the scope of formal Western security treaties.