( Dr. Jacobson's comments are his own and not necessarily the views of Lockheed Martin Corporation. )

My survey focuses on the changing international order and the principal threats to peace and stability. I'm going to talk about where the international system has been and where it is going; recent tests of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles; the new problems of Russia; U.S. relations with China; the potential for regional conflict; and some strategic uncertainties on the horizon. [ In a way this cover slide is symbolic of change in the international order. It is a photograph of the short-range PRITHVI I short-range ballistic missile recently deployed by the Indian army. ]

THE CHANGING INTERNATIONAL ORDER

Two events are associated with the end of the Cold War: the opening of the Berlin Wall in the fall of 1989 and the eclipse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991. With these two events, the bipolar international order that began with the Allied victory in World War II came to an end. While earlier eras had experienced bipolar periods, such as between Athens and Sparta or Rome and Carthage, the bipolar period of the Twentieth Century was unique in the modern state system that dates to the peace of Westphalia in 1648 at the close of the Thirty Years War. Since that time,the normal condition of the international system has been multipolarity.

But the world didn't return to multipolarity in 1991. It shifted to another unusual constellation of international politics, namely unipolarity, or America's so-called "unipolar moment" as the world's only superpower. Unipolar periods are very rare and very brief in the history of the modern state system. Professor Christopher Layne of UCLA identifies only two such periods before the present one: France under Louis XIV (1660-1713) and Great Britain in the late Victorian era (1860-1890).

The question today is where are we headed in the early Twenty-first Century? If we assume that unipolar periods don't endure, the choices are threefold. The first is a return to bipolarity with China replacing Russia as a peer competitor of the United States. The second is an evolution toward multipolarity, perhaps a five power world of the United States, China, Russia, the Western European Union, and Japan, with a few regional powers, notably India and a unified Korea, on the way up. A third possibility, somewhat less likely than the first two, and for which there is no historical precdent, is a system of non-polarity in which sub-national, transnational, and non-state actors assume roles traditionally reserved for nation states. Each of these three possibilities could be either good or bad. A bipolar world similar to the Cold War era of the late 1980's, a multipolar world similar to that of the early Nineteenth Century, or a non-polar world in which regional and international security organizations acted to keep the peace could be stable international orders. On the other hand, a bipolar order like the Cold War of the 1950s and 1960s, a multipolar world like the Europe before World War I, or a non-polar sytem characterized by pervasive regional conflicts and arms races could be decidedly dangerous.

CREATING A STABLE WORLD ORDER

To ensure that whatever order emerges after America's unipolar moment is stable and relatively peaceful political leaders will have to deal with five challenges:

• MAINTAIN PEACEFUL RELATIONS AMONG THE LEADING POWERS, ESPECIALLY IN INCREASINGLY TURBULENT ASIA WHERE REGIONAL RIVALRIES RUN DEEP, DEFENSE SPENDING IS INCREASING, AND WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION ARE BEING DEVELOPED.
• PREVENT RISING POWERS FROM BECOMING REVISIONIST POWERS BY GIVING THEM A STAKE IN THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM.
• DETER, DEFEAT, AND PUNISH REGIONAL POWERS ARMED WITH WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION (WMD), SUCH AS IRAN, IRAQ, AND NORTH KOREA).
• MANAGE THE DIFFUSION OF MILITARY TECHNOLOGY: WMD, BALLISTIC AND CRUISE MISSILES, NEW TECHNOLOGIES.
• ENGAGE THE UNITED STATES TO PROVIDE LEADERSHIP DURING ITS UNIPOLAR MOMENT AND GUIDE TRANSITION TO A STABLE AND PEACEFUL INTERNATIONAL ORDER.

PROLIFERATION OF WMD AND MISSILE TECHNOLOGY

1998 was a very bad year on the proliferation front.

• In April Pakistan tested its newest ABD Best missile, the GHAURI, based on the North Korean No Dong, with a range of 1,300 kilometers (km) sufficient to strike virtually any Indian city.
• Indian officials cited this test as the immediate cause of their five underground nuclear tests on 11 and 13 May. Pakistan responded with five tests of its own on 28 May. while Western seismologists now claim that both countries exaggerated the number and size of the weapons they detonated, the tests demonstrate the failure of U.S and Western diplomacy to check proliferation on the subcontinent.
• Another significant development this summer was Israel's acquisition of three large submarines from Germany in July. These submarines, armed with nuclear tipped cruise missiles will provide Israel with a deterrent to strikes against its vulnerable nuclear arenal.
• In July Iran tested its Shahab-3 missile, another version of the North Korean No Dong. While the test was only partly successful, U.S. intelligence estimates that Iran will be the next declared nuclear state in the next three to ten years.
• In August Iraq refused further cooperation with UNSCOM inspectors, a clear signal that Saddam Hussein will not abandon the search for WMD and ballistic missiles. Many observers believe Iraq has managed to conceal about 40 SCUD missiles and their conventional, chemical, and biological warheads.

THE NORTH KOREAN BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT

On 31 August, North Korea fired a three-stage Taepo Dong-1 missile that immediately increased tensions in Northeast Asia. The first stage fell into the Sea of Japan about 180 miles south of Vladivostok, while the second stage flew over Honshu, Japan's main island, to land a few hundred miles off its Pacific coast. The missile, a developmental system with a range of 1,500-2,000 km was carrying a satellite that failed to go into orbit. The missile test attracted special concern, especially in Japan because North Korea is believed to have some nuclear weapons (though probably not small enough to be delivered on its missiles) as well as chemical weapons. The test firing demonstrates that North Korea will soon be able to strike the Tokyo area and U.S. forces in Okinawa.

During the Cold War, American defense planners worried about the military strength of the Soviet Union. Now in the post-Cold War era, a major international problem is Russian weakness. As the war in Chechnya demonstrated, Russian conventional arms are a mere shadow of what they were when Ronald Reagan took office in 1981. Russia lacks the resources to modernize its conventional forces or its nuclear forces. Although the strategic rocket forces still control the Russian nuclear arsenal, Washington is concerned that some of these weapons may reach rogue states through Russian organized crime. The United States is assisting Russia in dismantling and destroying nuclear weapons through Nunn-Lugar funding.

President Boris Yeltsin, who has suffered several heart attacks, remains totally incapacitated. The prime minister, Yevgenny Primakov is trying to put together a recovery plan based on printing paper money and a partial return to state capitalism. The international monetary fund is witholding bailout funds from Russia until basic reforms are in place. Investors, fearing hyper inflation, are reluctant to sink money into Russian projects, especially the oil and gas reserves of the Caspian Basin. In short the outlook for Russia is grim. Political reform and economic recovery may be years away.

CHINA AND ITS NEIGHBORS

China represents a huge imponderable of the coming century. While not yet a power capable of challenging the United States on a worldwide basis, its strategic reach is growing. Specialists who view China as a rising regional hegemon emphasize Beijing's missile testing intimidation of Taiwan during that country's 1996 presidential election, its aggressive claims to the oil and gas reserves of the South China Sea, its assistance to the Pakistani nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and its stepped-up conventional arms sales to russia.

Other experts view China as primarily a Third World country, plagued with a huge population, uneven economic development, and a primitive physical infrastructure. They point to Chinese dependence on imported food, energy, and investment capital. Such dependencies, they argue, must temper Chinese regional ambitions, particularly as the People's Liberation Army (PLA), despite the recent acquisition of new russian weapons, is largely a military museum of outdated weapons and equipment.

Regardless of one's view of China, the country must be seen as a powewrful regional actor in the next century. Whether or not China elects to emphasize military modernization and a high profile foreign policy, its regional impact will be immense because of its size, population, and economic potential. It is also true that if China embarks on expansion, it can only be checked by the United States working in concert with Japan and its other Asian allies.

A key to U.S.-China relations is Taiwan. China resents U.S. hegemony in world affairs following the demise of the Soviet Union, particularly its continuing support for Taiwan, which the mainland leadership regards as a rebellious province. The centrality of the Taiwan issue in Chinese thinking is evident in a 27 July defense white paper released by the defense ministry. The white paper attacked "U.S. hegemonism and power politics in the Asia Pacific region," and warned that Taiwan is an internal Chinese matter not subject to foreign intervention.

U.S. defense planning recognizes that "for the foreseeable future the united states, in concert with regional allies, must remain able to deter credibly and defeat large-scale, cross border aggression in two different theaters in overlapping time frames." This requirement has appeared in official government publications since the beginning of the Clinton presidency. the two regional conflicts described are one on the Korean peninsula against the north and a second in Southwest Asia, probably against Iraq in a reprise of the Gulf War.

Today I will talk briefly about two regional trouble spots that defense planners are currently devoting very little thought to, but are likely to become critical in the early years of the next century.

KASHMIR

The root cause of tensions between India and Pakistan is the region of Kashmir which is currently divided between these two countries. some 600,000 Indian troops (the largest concentration of troops anywhere) are deployed in the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir to engage the Kashmiri Mujahadin and their Islamic allies. India and Pakistan have fought three wars and narrowly avoided a fourth in 1991 since gaining independence from Britain in 1947. Since 1984 Indian and Pakistani forces have been fighting on Kashmir's Siachen Glacier, the world's largest outside the polar regions. In August, cross border shelling between Indian and Pakistani soldiers lasted for five days and killed dozens of civilians. This fighting following the nuclear tests conducted by both countries led the two sides to the negotiating table in October. Although the talks cover a broad agenda, Kashmir will remain the central issue. This region has been a flash point for nearly half a century, but is now a flashpoint for two nuclear powers.

THE CASPIAN BASIN

The Caspian Basin represents large potential oil and gas reserves in an energy dependent world. Industrialization in Asia will place new demands on finite resources. Western companies are planning pipelines and other development projects, but have put such plans on hold because of the economic chaos in Russia, the lack of security in former Soviet republics in the Caspian area, the glut of oil on world markets, and recent dry holes drilled in the South Caspian off Azerbaijan. The demand for new sources of oil and gas, however, will keep interest keen in the Caspian. From a geopolitical perspective, one can see continuing conflict potential in the region. Russia will be anxious to re-establish a sphere of influence over its "near abroad." Turkey, Iran, and western oil interests will also seek ties with the former Soviet republics bordering on the Caspian.

STRATEGIC UNCERTAINTIES ON THE HORIZON

I will conclude this presentation with a brief discussion of five uncertainties that may move onto center stage in the next 10-15 years:

ENERGY	The conventional view of world energy is that prices will remain low for the foreseeable future because reserves of oil have been increasing, especially with the discovery of oil outside the OPEC countries. Actually the discovery of new reserves is failing to keep up with production. The only new basin is in Africa's Gulf of Guinea. The current era of low cost oil and gas could well vanish within a decade, especially in light of China's economic development. Even if China's vast population fails to motorize, construction and industrial development there will place a huge demand on world oil supplies.
WATER	Although water is the world's most abundant resource, fresh water is scarce in the Middle East and North Africa. The rivers in these arid regions are also severely affected by salinity and pollution. Israel, for example, has serious water disputes with Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and the Palestinian authority. Syria and Iraq together are locked in a bitter dispute with Turkey that has actually led to talk of war. Fights over dams and riparian rights are almost cetain to intensify in the Middle East, the world's most volatile region.
MILITANT ISLAM	Militant islam has grown steadily since 1979 and may become even stronger along the fault lines of civilization in Africa, Central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. It is not clear how militant Islam will shape the next century, but it is now a strong force in countries where it was only marginal a decade ago, such as Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Algeria, and Egypt.
THE CRISIS OF AFRICA	The African states have suffered from ethnic conflict, dictatorships, economic depression, declining foreign aid, drought, and disease for at least two decades. But now nearly a third of sub-Saharan Africa's 42 countries are engaged interstate and civil wars. If these wars become linked, they may split the continent from top to bottom. We have already heard voices in Congress urging the government to negotiate an end to the conflict in the Congo, which involves six countries. We may soon witness a massive effort by the developed world to restore order and alleviate human suffering in africa.
THE FUTURE OF ARMS CONTROL	The Soviet Duma may finally be moving to ratify the start ii treaty, which is a ray of hope to arms control advocates. elsewhere arms control prospects are not good. The nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) is under fire from advocates of ballistic missile defense in the United States. The missile technology control regime (MTCR), a creation of the G-7 countries, has proved to be a weak instrument for controlling the spread of ballistic missiles in the light of the missile tests conducted by North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan. Finally the future of the comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT) is uncertain in the wake of the South Asian nuclear tests. While it remains unlikely, the possibility exists that one or more arms control regimes could collapse in the next few years. If this happens, global tensions are likely to rise.