Carl E. Vuono

The chief of staff of the US Army explains how the USA should allocate its defence resources to deal with the threats of the post-Cold War world: "the critical issue is how to shape US conventional forces". Given the inevitable down-sizing forced by harsh economic reality, the US military must retain four qualities essential to national security -- versatility, deployability, lethality and expansibility. Provides an analysis of these terms, and of the budget and procurement commitments that they imply. Concludes with an assessment of the summary defeat of Iraq, in which these four factors were "the keys to the US response".