The United States is increasingly engaging in nation-building, stability, and humanitarian efforts around the globe as its resources for such operations drop against other national priorities. At the same time, achieving success in these operations today is arguably more difficult than during the Cold War period. This book examines how the United States' extensive nation-building and stability operations will continue to evolve in the 21st century in the face of ever-growing budgetary concerns and constraints. "Stability, Security, Reconstruction, and Transition Operations: A Guide to the Issues" puts the people, places, and events crucial to nation-building and security operations through U.S. experiences under the microscope. This book focuses on the period after the Cold War, when U.S. operations proliferated, but also outlines the development of U.S. strategic decisions on nation-building and stability operations in a chronological fashion, providing documentation of these actions throughout American history. Original documents are provided and referenced to clarify concepts. With the increased attention on recent events in Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, and Libya, the United States' actions and policies of nation-building are now a key public policy discussion topic, and an understanding of these topics is critical for students, scholars, and general readers alike.

Definitions of stability, security, reconstruction, and transition operations: past and present -- Operations in the past: nineteenth and twentieth century interpretations of security, stability, reconstruction, and transition operations -- The new world order -- The Clinton administration and stability operation, 1993-2001 -- Pre and post 9/11: the Bush administration -- Now what? The Obama administration -- Conclusions.