Abstract : The United States has achieved a great deal of success in the post-Cold War era. Our forces are more capable and better equipped than those of any conceivable adversary. The quality of our troops is good and morale in the armed forces is high. Analysts do point out that we might have problems in executing a strategy of fighting nearly simultaneously two major regional contingencies. But these problems lend themselves to straightforward analysis, and the solutions are straightforward if challenging in an era of tight defense budgets. In the immediate future, there does not seem to be a threat to our interests from a nation that we cannot handle militarily. Yet, a handful of weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons in the hands of the wrong country, can change this situation overnight. The use of a few of these weapons, or even the threat of their use, changes the context in which our national command authority makes decisions about the terms under which we go to war or whether we go to war at all.
Abstract : This paper suggests an approach for how the Department of Defense (DoD) might execute deep reductions in the defense budget, deep enough that stated defense strategy could not be fully resourced. The cuts examined go beyond the $487 billion announced in January 2012 by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. The authors do not argue for or against further reductions. They posit that the ongoing pressure to reduce the federal budget deficit may mandate further reductions in the DoD budget. In this context, they suggest starting from a strategic basis in determining the reductions, prioritizing challenges, and identifying where to accept more risk in the process. The paper demonstrates this method with three illustrative strategic directions that might guide the department in choosing which forces and programs to reduce or to protect while making explicit the risks involved. It builds on the strategic guidance of January 2012, Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense.1 It is intended to inform the debate that will likely take place over the coming months, and years, on how to cope with pressure to reduce the defense budget further while limiting risk to U.S. national security. This research was sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense and conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute (NDRI), a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community. For more information on the RAND International Security and Defense Policy Center.
Abstract : The Department of Defense has been successfully exploiting rapidly developing advances in information technology for military gain. On tomorrow's multidimensional battlefield-or 'battlespace'-the increased density, acuity, and connectivity of sensors and many other information devices may allow U.S. Armed Forces to see almost everything worth seeing in real or near-real time. Such enhanced vision of the battlespace is no doubt a significant military advantage, but a question remains: How do we achieve dominant battlefield knowledge, namely the ability to understand what we see and act on it decisively? The papers collected here address the most critical aspects of that problem-to wit: If the United States develops the means to acquire dominant battlespace knowledge (DBK), how might that affect the way it goes the war, the circumstances under which force can and will be used, the purposes for its employment, and the resulting alterations of the global geomilitary environment? Of particular interest is how the authors view the influence of DBK in light of the shift from global to regional stability issues that marks the post-Cold War world. While no definitive answer has yet emerged, it is clear that the implications of so profound a change in military technology are critical to the structure and function of the U.S. Armed Forces. In working toward a definitive answer, the authors of this volume make an important contribution to a debate whose resolution will shape the decades to come.
Abstract : Homeland defense that is, the military's role in preventing and defending against terrorist attacks on the territory of Alliance members is an increasingly important imperative for the United States, Canada and Europe. NATO has the opportunity to articulate a strategic direction and planning process for homeland defense to ensure that relevant Alliance activities and capabilities are adapted and integrated to deal with these new threats. NATO's activities in many areas for example, its protection of Mediterranean sealanes against weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and terrorists provide multiple elements that can be united to form a homeland defense initiative at Riga. Such an initiative would be intended to complement, not detract from, national and European Union (EU) capabilities and institutions that bear the major responsibility for ensuring homeland security. This initiative would offer NATO both a 21st-century approach to Article 5 and new meaning and credibility in the eyes of NATO publics who are concerned about threats to their homelands.1 This report proposes that enhanced transatlantic homeland defense be a major initiative for adoption at the 2006 Riga Summit and completion at the 2008 summit. Accompanying this initiative would be parallel proposals on strengthening partnerships with nonmembers and further improving NATO's military forces and capabilities for new-era missions. The initiative would include four categories of homeland defense, none of which would address expeditionary, counterterrorism, natural disaster, and humanitarian missions outside the NATO area. In some cases, capabilities created for homeland defense purposes could be used within and outside the NATO area for such civil-military missions.
Abstract : Congress has taken great interest in the capabilities of the U.S. Army as the service has transitioned to its new, modular force structure. Congress recently requested an independent study to determine: (A) The operational capability of the Army to execute the core mission of the Army to contribute land power to joint operations. (B) The ability to manage the flexibility and versatility of Army forces across the range of military operations. (C) The tactical, operational, and strategic risk associated with the heavy, medium, and light modular combat brigades and functional support and sustainment brigades. (D) The required and planned end strength of the Army. This study addressed these questions through comparative analysis, considering how the earlier, division-centric force structure compared to the current force structure. Many of the data to support the analysis were provided by the Army. In particular, the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command's Army Capabilities Integration Center provided Army Structure Messages that allowed us to track changes in the Army's force structure between 2003 and 2008, the period when much of the transition to the current modular force structure was taking place. The research team also made use of the Army's Structure and Manpower Allocation System (SAMAS) database and FMSWeb for data on manpower and organizational characteristics of the force. We concluded that the present force structure is superior to the earlier force structure in terms of its ability to contribute land power to current and reasonably foreseeable joint operations, its flexibility and versatility across the range of military operations, and its associated risks. The analysis also demonstrated that the modular force structure produced a larger tactical force with a larger number of more aggregated capabilities than its predecessor force structure.
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