Constructing The Future In The USA

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In order to prepare the United States (US) for future conflicts, I feel adding three additional guiding principles could greatly increase the outcome of any future conflicts. First, our military leaders would need to incorporate changes that go along with the changes in how our adversaries are fighting, such as reassessing how to define “war” in today’s technology-driven age by developing new training scenarios. Along the same lines as changing the way, we fight, using the current operational situation to foster change is just as important. To bring the two fore mentioned principles together new strategic concepts would also need to be incorporated.

As part of its next force planning construct, DoD could adopt planning scenarios that account for long-term competitions between the United States and rising or resurgent authoritarian military powers such as China, Russia, and possibly Iran.4 These scenarios would require the services to conduct assessments of technology trends around the world, with a focus on our most likely rivels1. By identifying key military competitions along with potential areas of U.S. advantage and the weakness of our rivals, these assessments could help refine priorities for DoD’s science and technology investments, leading to the fielding of future weapons systems that will sustain the U.S. military’s technical edge.2 An answer to this potential scenario could be the creation of separate counter-terrorism forces, a corps of trainers/advisors for foreign internal defense, a larger Special Operations Force, a force for protracted counterinsurgencies. Highly ready expeditionary forces, more robust homeland security means, a new cyber force with battalions of cyber warriors.3

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After twelve years of war against violent extremist groups, the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) presents an opportunity for DoD to take a much broader look at the emerging strategic environment. Today, the U.S. military is facing challenges that may be both far greater in scale and different in form from those it has encountered in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001. While DoD will likely continue counter-terrorism operations well into the indefinite future, it is not planning on conducting another major stability operation any time soon. Instead, the Pentagon is confronted with the need to prepare for new challenges such as the emergence of A2/AD networks and the proliferation of nuclear weapons that could pose serious threats to future U.S. power-projection operations. Yet DoD has not developed new, mature operational concepts and doctrine that address these challenges, let alone use new concepts to significantly alter the defense program. The Service-created Air-Sea Battle concept may be a good start, but continuing defense budget reductions could crowd out new thinking and program adjustments that are badly needed. Furthermore, if Air-Sea Battle and other operational concepts devolve into narratives that are used to defend existing programs against cuts, they could lose much of their value as tools to foster change and improve DoD’s ability to project forces “in smarter, more cost-effective ways.”6 Finally, as the Defense Department develops operational concepts that explore alternative ways and means of countering emerging threats, they should be reconciled with theater war plans that are created by its geographic combatant commanders. Major disconnects between the two could force choices between investing in current capabilities to meet combatant commanders’ immediate operational needs and new capabilities that could provide future commanders with a competitive edge.

Ideally, a strategic concept provides a joining purpose for a Service’s organizing, training, and equipping activities by describing “how, when, and where the military service expects to protect the nation against some threat to its security.”95 Today, the development of new Service strategic concepts is complicated by the fact that the United States lacks as clear-cut of a threat to its security interests as it had in 1954 or even in 1993. The Pentagon does not need to prepare for a global conflict with the Soviet Union, and the threat of two nearly-simultaneous, cross-border invasions as described by the Bottom-Up Review has greatly diminished following the invasion of Iraq. Drawing on Huntington’s methodology, one approach for developing new Service strategic concepts could begin by acknowledging that the threats to our nation’s security are growing in scale as well as shifting in form. A number of existing and prospective enemies appear intent on acquiring PGMs and WMD, as well as the ability to threaten U.S. interests in “new” domains such as cyberspace and space. These developments, along with the planned substantial cuts in U.S. defense spending, suggest the need to craft a new defense strategy and force planning to construct during the QDR. Given this elaboration of existing and emerging strategic challenges, each Service should inform senior DoD leaders as to how it intends to exploit its unique attributes to prepare for future threats—and, ideally, to exploit opportunities as well. At its core, the strategy involves setting priorities—identifying what roles and missions are within a Service’s means to undertake and those that are not. Consequently, rather than advancing overly broad and general statements such as “securing command of the air” or “dominating the seas” the Services’ strategic concepts should describe how they will address specific threats within a specific geographic focus. In this way the Services can avoid developing long and unrealistic “laundry lists” of missions that appear designed more to protect their budget shares and program preferences than to best apply limited resources to address vital security priorities. For example, in 1954 Huntington described how the Mediterranean Basin was replacing the Pacific as “the geographical focus of attention” for a U.S. Navy that could operate within it to launch a “knock-out punch” deep into the Soviet Union.96 Correspondingly, today the Asia-Pacific region—which is witnessing the rise of great powers and which is primarily a maritime/aerospace theater of operations—seems very likely to emerge as the United States’ principal geographic focus.

References

  1. Michael G. Vickers and Robert C. Martinage, The Revolution In War (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, December 2004), pp. 109-114.
  2. Gunzinger, Mark. “SHAPING AMERICA’S FUTURE MILITARY.” Center for Business Strategy and Budgetary assessments , January 2, 2013. https://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/CSBA_ForceStructure-Report-web.pdf.
  3. Hoffman. Frank G .. ·Future Threats and Strategic Thinking·. Infinity Journal. Issue No. 4. Fall 201 1. pages 17-21. Issue 4
  4. Department of Defense (DoD) Directive 5111.11, Director of Net Assessment (Washington, DC: DoD, December 23, 2009), p. 1.
  5. Gunzinger (p 35)
  6. Kline, Jeffrey E. and Hughes,, Wayne P. Jr. (2012) ‘Between Peace and the Air-Sea Battle: A War at Sea Strategy,’ Naval War College Review: Vol. 65 : No. 4 , Article 6. https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol65/iss4/6

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