Analysts and think tankers have had a chance to digest the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review and here's the reaction:
While perhaps better stated than in previous documents, it is reminiscent of the Rumsfeld strategy that called for â??full-spectrum dominance.â? That is, the United States will maintain the ability to go anywhere (sub-surface to outer space) and control any situation (major combat to humanitarian assistance). This ambition, un-tempered by the harsh realities the United States faces in benign environments like Haiti or hostile environments like Afghanistan, seems to undermine Secretary Gatesâ?? goal of restoring balance.
For nearly two decades, the United States has been the policeman for the world. If the senior civilian leadership in the White House had decided to push other countries to take responsibility for their own security, and for security in their respective regions, the QDR might have become a vehicle for responsibly shaping a smaller military that is explicitly oriented toward defending U.S. security. Instead, because the military is convinced that they will be expected to answer all of the worldâ??s 911 calls for the foreseeable future, the Pentagon hedged its bets.I canâ??t say that I blame them.
Events since 9/11 have shown that size matters; the U.S. Army and Marine Corps cannot keep up with the pace of operations without mobilizing hundreds of thousands of reservists and National Guardsmen every day. The QDR caps the active Army at 45 brigades, three less than the 48 planned for at the end of the Bush administration. The Air Force fleet is smaller and rapidly aging; the Navy has fewer than 300 ships compared to the Reagan-era fleet of 600. The gap between American strategic ends and military means grows and grows.
The point is that the framework is reasonable but not provocative, solid but not innovative, cautious more than bold. It is interesting that a president who campaigned on a mantra of change would come up with this. And to my mind, it is somewhat reassuring as well. Military planning is not the place to make one's big rhetorical or symbolic mark in the world.This is not to say that all is constant in defense circles. In fact, while the size of the military has hovered at around 1.5 million active-duty troops for nearly two decades, while big-ticket fighter jet and submarine and other aviation and shipbuilding and vehicle programs remain the core of the Pentagon's modernization agenda, lots has in fact changed. But the interesting thing about that change is that, particularly over the last 12 years or so, less and less of it begins with quadrennial review documents.
Last but certainly not least, here's a speech from Michèle Flournoy, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, at the Dept. of Defense, who led the QDR process.
