Threats To America Essay

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Evaluating threats to America’s national security is a challenge that is undertaken by academics, intelligence analysts, policy-makers, and anyone else with the patience. During the Cold War, America’s biggest concern was easy to define, the only other state capable of competing with America, the Soviet Union. Today, America faces threats from states, non-state actors, domestic groups, and even economic conditions. However, two states should always be kept in mind when discussing national security, China and Russia, with China being the biggest threat. China is the most populous state in the world, with over 1.3 trillion inhabitants (Central Intelligence Agency 2010). Because of its large population base, China also has the largest military …show more content…

Economically, Russia is very competitive, yet is not growing at the same rate as America and China (Central Intelligence Agency 2010). In addition, Russia’s outdated infrastructure is Moscow-centric, which does not encourage much growth outside of the Moscow region (Encyclopedia of the Nations 2010). Despite its economic shortcomings, Russia maintains a relatively modern military, because of the Cold War arms race against America; however, the Soviet strategy of mass building cheap equipment is being replaced by the Russian strategy of designing and building new equipment that is technologically closer to America (Gutterman 2010). Once Russia completes its transformation into a more modernized fighting force, it will be the largest military threat America …show more content…

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