This book is the outgrowth of a collaborative effort by a small group of national security analysts associated with the Institute forNational Strategic Studies of the National Defense University,government officials responsible for pondering defense and foreign policy issues, and academics with long experience in Middle Eastern affairs. In the past several years these scholars, policy analysts, and military planners have been focusing on the impact on U.S. goals and interests in the Middle East of three seminal events-the ending of the cold war, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the invasion of Kuwaitby Saddam Husayn and the subsequent Gulf War. The authors'individual studies have been nourished by frequent intellectual exchanges with one another and by their participation in numerous academic meetings designed to explore the future of U.S. relations with the Middle East.