Preface<br >This book is primarily about defense and how it contributes to national<br >security.<br > The focus of this book is defense， but the range of its coverage is<br >necessarily broader. Defense is only one facet of national security， and<br >defense has value only as it contributes to that security. Nor is national<br >security itself something that can be viewed in a vacuum--it is not<br >something Americans can have once they finish deciding exactly what<br >they want. There is a world of nation-states outside our borders. That<br >world includes hostile nations with policies of their own that we<br >Americans cannot directly control but must take into account. In the<br >"game" of international relations， no one nation can always play a<br >controlling hand. So U.S. defense has to be understood within the<br >wider context of U.S. national security， just as national security has to<br >be seen within the wider context of international affairs.<br > A book focused on defense that does not do so in the context of these<br >larger considerations would have limited utility. It would look narrowly<br >at problems like weapon systems and procurement， deployments of<br >forces， Pentagon organization， and military career patterns， but it<br >would not be able to place any of these in a meaningful perspective，<br >national or global. Also， it would not do justice to the actual way in<br >which all such aspects of defense in the United States are addressed. A<br >fundamental American defense document is the secretary of defense s<br >annual report to Congress. It invariably begins with an analysis of what<br >is going on outside U.S. frontiers， especially activities of hostile or<br >unfriendly nations whose armed forces may be used against us. The<br >defense budget is framed by an administration that has one eye on<br >public opinion and what the domestic economy can afford or produce<br >and the other eye on what is happening in the international arena.<br > Defense is the output of such analyses， not the source. Because<br >defense problems must be seen in the context of that much more<br >extended perspective， this book begins with the world environment and<br >