Over the last 25 years, considerable scientific effort has been expend
ed in the development of quantitative models of the dynamics of Earth'
s inner magnetosphere, particularly on studies of the injection of the
storm-time ring current and of dynamic variations in the shape and si
ze of the plasmasphere. Nearly all modeling studies of ring-current in
jection agree that time-varying magnetospheric convection can produce
approximately the ion fluxes that are observed in the storm-time ring
current, but the truth of that assumption has never been demonstrated
conclusively. It is not clear that the actual variations of convection
electric fields are strong enough to explain the observed flux increa
ses in similar to 100 keV ions at the peak of the storm-time ring curr
ent. Observational comparisons are generally far from tight, primarily
due to the paucity of ring-current measurements and to basic limitati
ons of single-point observations. Also, most of the theoretical models
combine state-of-the-art treatment of some aspects of the problem wit
h highly simplified treatment of other aspects. Even the most sophisti
cated treatments of the sub-problems include substantial uncertainties
, including the following: (i) There is still considerable theoretical
and observational uncertainty about the dynamics of the large-scale e
lectric fields in the inner magnetosphere; (ii) No one has ever calcul
ated a force-balanced, time-dependent magnetic-field model consistent
with injection of the storm-time ring current; (iii) The most obvious
check on the overall realism of a ring-current injection model would b
e to compare its predicted Dst index against observations; however, th
eoretical calculations of that index usually employ the Dessler-Parker
-Sckopke relation, which was derived from the assumption of a dipole m
agnetic field and cannot be applied reliably to conditions where the p
lasma pressure significantly distorts the field; (iv) Although loss ra
tes by charge exchange and Coulomb scattering can be calculated with r
easonable accuracy, it remains unclear whether wave-induced ion precip
itation plays an important role in the decay of the ring current. Howe
ver, considerable progress could be made in the next few years. Spacec
raft that can provide images of large regions of the inner magnetosphe
re should eliminate much of the present ambiguity associated with sing
le-point measurements. On the theoretical side, it will soon be possib
le to construct models that, for the first time, will solve a complete
set of large-scale equations for the entire inner magnetosphere. The
biggest uncertainty in the calculation of the size and shape of the pl
asmasphere lies in the dynamics and structure of the electric field. I
t is still not clear how important a role interchange instability play
s in determining the shape of the plasmapause or in creating density f
ine structure.