2 Redefining security: Richard Ullman

S I N C E T H E O N S E T of the Cold War in the late 1940s, every administration in Washington has defi ned American national security in excessively narrow and excessively military terms. Politicians have found it easier to focus the attention of an inattentive public on military dangers, real or imagined, than on nonmilitary ones; political leaders have found it easier to build a consensus on military solutions to foreign policy problems than to get agreement on the use (and, therefore, the adequate funding) of the other means of infl uence that the United States can bring to bear beyond its frontiers.