Preaching after the Devil's death: Shaping American military capabilities in the post-Cold War era

The end of the Cold War removed the Soviet threat that had been the defining element of U.S. national security policy and the dominant rationale for the force structure and doctrine of American armed forces. Almost a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, the force structure and doctrine of United States armed forces have changed very little. It is a smaller but essentially similar force to the one prepared for large scale conventional war with the U.S.S.R.; This dissertation provides a description and explanation of defense policy decision making regarding the selection of military capabilities in the post-Cold War era. This dissertation also provides an evaluation of these choices in light of the substantially different military challenges created by peace operations and by the revolution in military affairs (RMA).; The explanation for this lack of restructuring is relatively simple and somewhat unsurprising: The military leadership of the United States' armed forces---Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force---have been united in their support for incremental reduction of the armed forces while avoiding dramatic changes to doctrine or force structure. The military is a very large, powerful and popular institution that has defended its preferred position successfully during a series of post-Cold War American defense policy reviews (the 1990 Base Force, 1993 Bottom Up Review, 1995 Commission on Roles and Missions, and the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review). The military leadership's preferences have been accepted by civilian leaders in the executive branch and Congress. This inertia has also been permitted by the general lack of public concern about defense issues since the Cold War.; The dissertation evaluates this inertia as a negative outcome for two main reasons. First, such Cold War forces are not well designed for use in the many peace operations that have been more common in the post-Cold War era. Second, given the technological advancements that represent the RMA, failure to adequately adapt force structure and doctrine means that United States armed forces may be largely unprepared for the next war.