(HTML version) by Charles Knight, PDA Commentary, adapted from a panel presentation at the Council on Foreign Relations, N.Y.C, 14 June 2000. When seeking to explain why defense budgets are growing again, it is often said that U.S. policy-makers have not yet moved beyond the Cold War frame and are preparing for the proverbial “last war.” Such a vantage glosses over an important change that has taken place in the last decade. The new national defense policy is not simply a lesser version of the old policy. Rather, its security goals are very much more ambitious than during the Cold War and these ambitions drive budgets higher.
