Publication

This paper discusses defense planning decisions to improve combat readiness and the quality of life for US troops, following the 1995 budget expansion by President Bill Clinton's administration. The author shows that modernization should be approached cautiously given the pace of technological change, and with a clear examination of US armed forces and modernization priorities. He argues that a capacity for large-scale, interstate and conventional combat is indispensable to US national security, but that the US should be selective in its military modernization and pursuit of defense technologies, from conceptualization to development and prototyping, to production and deployment.