Qdr 2001 Strategy Driven Choices For America S Security

Every new Presidential administration seeks to implement its policy objectives rapidly, but in the vast organization of the U.S. Government, such changes take time. The Quadrennial defense Review (QDR) of 2001 offers the new Bush administration an important opportunity, as well as a great responsibility, to reexamine America's defense priorities in a comprehensive, top-to-bottom, strategy-to-program approach and provide early guidance for change. This is a gargantuan task. Current legislation requires the final report of QDR 2001 to be provided to Congress in September 2001. Even with early Senate confirmation of top defense officials, completing such a thorough review in just eight months is a daunting charge. One of the lessons learned during QDR 1997 was the advance efforts to identify key issues for the review process can be critical to success. Fortunately for the incoming administration, an independent effort to develop intellectual capital for QDR 2001 was started in the autumn of 1999. This effort consisted of a small working group which was chartered by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and established in the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. Leading the group was Michele A. Flournoy, a veteran of the QDR 1997 effort and the former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Threat Reduction. This volume is a product of the group's work as well as contributions from outside experts associated with the project. A major conference on the project was held at NDU in November 2000, at which a final report was issued. This book provides the intellectual underpinnings of that report. To some extent this book is very much like the results of screening at an archeological dig. The issues in the book are not new; they are already part of the defense policy debate of our great democracy. But the authors carefully unearthed insights and options in a systematic manner, placing the issues in context. No defense issue lives in isolation; all are part of the process of priority-setting that is required to craft a successful strategy in the context of a finite budget. To help the new administration set its priorities, the working group and outside contributors have outlined a series of integrated paths that lead from strategy alternatives to force-sizing criteria to force structure and other programmatic issues, and they identify the forks in each path and the signposts along the way. This valuable book provides a unique service to the Department of Defense and the Nation, whether the new administration uses the QDR or some other review process as its primary vehicle for setting defense priorities. It represents an effort to transcend both the tyranny of the urgent and the bureaucratic rivalries that tend to dominate the analyses conducted within the Pentagon. It does so in a practical, logical, and supportive manner. It does not provide solutions but instead offers options form which the Bush administration can craft a new defense policy. In a sense this book represents a consummate menu of choices: an outside view that only knowledgeable insiders can provide. There are options identified in this book that some might support enthusiastically, and others might oppose. But no one can fail to be impressed by the fairness of this effort and the professional skill with which it was completed. This book represents a service to the Department of Defense and the new administration with few parallels. It provides an excellent starting point for a review of defense strategy, policies and programs.

The QDR is a comprehensive, top-to-bottom, strategy-to-prog. approach, and provides early guidance for change. Chapters: 12 strategy decisions; the future security environ., 2001-2025; the rise of asymmetric threats: priorities for def. planning; the def. budget: meeting growing require. with constrained resources; def. strategy alternatives: choosing where to place emphasis and where to accept risk; sizing conventional forces; assessing risk; identifying force structure issues; the future of U.S. overseas presence; peacetime oper.; modernizing and transforming U.S. forces; strategic nuclear forces and nat. missile defense; choosing among strategy-driven integrated paths. Charts and tables.

Excerpt from Charting a Course: Strategic Choices for a New Administration: The new administration takes office in a time of great complexity. Our new President faces a national security environment shaped by strong currents: globalization; the proliferation of new, poor, and weak states, as well as nonstate actors; an enduring landscape of violent extremist organizations; slow economic growth; the rise of China and a revanchist Russia; a collapsing Middle East; and a domestic politics wracked by division and mistrust. While in absolute terms the Nation and the world are safer than in the last century, today the United States finds itself almost on a permanent war footing, engaged in military operations around the world. [...] No formal document describes a grand strategy for the United States, and indeed, many academics deny that one exists. Yet a close look at our history as a world power suggests that core interests and how we secure them have remained generally consistent over time. If grand strategy "rises above particular strategies intended to secure particular objectives," many decades of focusing on nuclear deterrence, power projection, alliances and partnerships, and military and economic strength probably constitute the underpinnings of a coherent grand strategy. How we employ and leverage these instruments of national power to protect, defend, and advance the national interest is, after all, the essence of grand strategy. In a dangerous world, these pillars have provided a strong foundation for national security. If our domestic politics can achieve consensus on future threats and solutions, America is well positioned to lead and prosper in a world that will remain both dangerous and uncertain. R.D. Hooker, Jr. Director, Institute for National Strategic Studies National Defense University Washington, D.C. Related items: Policy Analysis in National Security Affairs: New Methods for a New Era can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-020-01561-0 Operationalizing Counter Threat Finance Strategies can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-000-01131-1

American Defense Policy has been a mainstay for instructors of courses in political science, international relations, military affairs, and American national security for over 25 years. The updated and thoroughly revised eighth edition considers questions of continuity and change in America's defense policy in the face of a global climate beset by geopolitical tensions, rapid technological change, and terrorist violence. On September 11, 2001, the seemingly impervious United States was handed a very sharp reality check. In this new atmosphere of fear and vulnerability, policy makers were forced to make national security their highest priority, implementing laws and military spending initiatives to combat the threat of international terrorism. In this volume, experts examine the many factors that shape today's security landscape—America's values, the preparation of future defense leaders, the efforts to apply what we have learned from Afghanistan and Iraq to the transformation of America's military, reflection on America's nuclear weapons programs and missile defense, the threat of terrorism, and the challenges of homeland security—which are applied to widely varied approaches to national defense strategy. This invaluable and prudent text remains a classic introduction to the vital security issues facing the United States throughout its history and breaks new ground as a thoughtful and comprehensive starting point in understanding American defense policy and its role in the world today.

This book examines US naval strategy and the role of American seapower over three decades, from the late 20th century to the early 21st century. This study uses the concept of seapower as a framework to explain the military and political application of sea power and naval force for the United States of America. It addresses the context in which strategy, and in particular US naval strategy and naval power, evolves and how US naval strategy was developed and framed in the international and national security contexts. It explains what drove and what constrained US naval strategy and examines selected instances where American sea power was directed in support of US defense and security policy ends – and whether that could be tied to what a given strategy proposed. The work utilizes naval capstone documents in the framework of broader maritime conceptual and geopolitical thinking, and discusses whether these documents had lasting influences in the strategic mind-set, the force structure, and other areas of American sea power. Overall, this work provides a deeper understanding of the crafting of US naval strategy since the final decade of the Cold War, its contextual and structural framework setting, and its application. To that end, the work bridges the gap between the thinking of American naval officers and planners on the one hand and academic analyses of Navy strategy on the other hand. It also presents the trends in the use of naval force for foreign policy objectives and into strategy-making in the American policy context. This book will be of much interest to students of naval power, maritime strategy, US national security and international relations in general.