At the same time, the current dominance and superiority of American military power, unencumbered by the danger of an external peer competitor, have created a period of strategic advantage during which we have the luxury of time, perhaps measured in many years, to re-examine with a margin of safety our defense posture. On the other hand, potential adversaries cannot be expected to ignore this predominant military capability of the United States and fail to try to exploit, bypass, or counter it. In other words, faced with American military superiority in ships, tanks, aircraft, weapons and, most importantly, in competent fighting personnel, potential adversaries may try to change the terms of future conflict and make as irrelevant as possible these current U.S. advantages. We proceed at our own risk if we dismiss this possibility. Second, it is relatively clear that current U.S. military capability will shrink. Despite the pledges of the two major American political parties to maintain or expand the current level of defense capability, both the force structure and defense infrastructure are too large to be maintained at even the present levels and within the defense budgets that are likely to be approved. Unless a new menace materializes, defense is headed for "less of the same." Such reductions may have no strategic consequences. However, that is an outcome that we believe should not be left to chance. This shrinkage also means that the Pentagon's good faith strategic reviews aimed at dealing with our future security needs may be caught up in the defense budget debate over downsizing and could too easily drift into becoming advocacy or marketing documents. As the services are forced into more jealously guarding a declining force structure, the tendency to "stove-pipe" and compartmentalize technology and special programs is likely to increase, thereby complicating the problem of making full use of our extraordinary technological resources. This means that some external thinking, removed from the bureaucratic pressures and demands, may be essential to stimulating and sustaining innovation. Third, the American commercial-industrial base is undergoing profound change propelled largely by the entrepreneurial nature of the free enterprise system and the American personality. Whether in information or materials-related technology or for that matter in other areas too numerous to count, the nature of competition is driving both product breadth and improvement at rates perhaps unthinkable a decade ago. One sign of these trends is the reality that virtually all new jobs in this country are being created by small business. In the areas of commercial information and related management information systems, these changes are extraordinary and were probably unpredictable even a few years ago.