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1 1 (March 19, 2019)

handle is hein.crs/govyfm0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Conresoa Reerh evc S March 19, 2019 Evaluating DOD Strategy: Key Findings of the National Defense Strategy Commission On January 19, 2018, the Department of Defense (DOD, or the Department) released an unclassified summary of the congressionally mandated National Defense Strategy (NDS). On November 14, 2018, the congressionally appointed bipartisan National Defense Strategy Commission (NDSC, or the commission) issued its report, Providing for the Common Defense. The NDSC's mandate was to critique the NDS in order to provide Congress some alternative ideas for improving DOD. All quotations are from the NDSC report unless otherwise specified. The National Defense Strategy (NDS) Consistent with comparable documents issued by prior Administrations, the NDS maintains that there are five central external threats to U.S. interests: China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and terrorist groups with global reach. The NDS mandate requires DOD to prioritize those threats. In a break from previous Administrations, the NDS views retaining the U.S. strategic competitive edge relative to China and Russia as a higher priority than countering violent extremist organizations. Further, the NDS appears conceptually consistent with the National Security Strategy regarding the notion that peace through strength, or improving the capability and lethality of the joint force in order to deter warfare, is essential to countering these threats. It also contends that, unlike most of the period since the end of the Cold War, the joint force must now operate in contested domains where freedom of access and maneuver is no longer assured. The NDS organizes DOD activities along three central lines of effort-rebuilding military readiness and improving the joint forces' lethality, strengthening alliances and attracting new partners, and reforming the Department's business practices, and argues that all three are interconnected and critical to enabling DOD to advance U.S. objectives effectively. The National Defense Strategy Commission: Key Findings The commission evaluated the NDS as well as the activities and priorities of the Department of Defense more broadly. Overall, the NDSC endorses DOD's strategic approach, particularly its orientation toward strategic competition with other great powers. Nevertheless, the commission believes that successive Administrations and Congresses have significantly underestimated the scale of this reorientation, the urgency with which it must occur, and the resources required in order to do so. Two key trends led the NSDC to this conclusion: 1. Changes at home and abroad that are diminishing U.S. military advantages and threatening vital U.S. interests (p. v). The NSDC argues that the United States is both in competition and conflict with an array of challengers, including China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. The United States must also contend with transnational organizations that pose threats to the United States and its allies, to include the Islamic State (IS). Finally, the proliferation of sophisticated technologies is enabling adversaries to challenge U.S. military supremacy in innovative and dangerous ways. In other words, the United States must contend with more, and more severe, national security challenges than in previous decades. 2. Due to political dysfunction and decisions made by both major political parties across administrations ... America has significantly weakened its own defense (p. vi). In the NDSC's view, the combination of DOD budget reductions and the lack of stable, predictable defense funding have negatively affected the size and readiness of U.S. forces. Further, DOD's ability to buy the equipment it needs in order to contend with challenges presented by other militaries has been hampered. Failure to address these challenges has led to what the NDSC refers to as a crisis of national security for the United States, because U.S. military superiority is no longer assured and the implications for American interests and American security are severe (p. vi). The 2017 National Security Strategy argues that since the 1990s, the United States has displayed a great degree of strategic complacency, (p. 27) largely as a result of overwhelming and unchallenged U.S. military and economic superiority. Operations in the Balkans, Africa, Afghanistan, and Iraq, while challenging and complex undertakings, did not existentially challenge the capabilities and strategies of the United States. Yet both China and Russia appear to be developing capabilities and concepts that potentially demonstrate technological superiority over U.S. military capabilities. As a result, the NDSC, in assessing whether DOD is adequately prepared to meet these challenges, concludes that the U.S. might struggle to win, or perhaps lose, a war against China or Russia (p. vi). This analysis rests on the commission's concern with six areas that, taken together, touch upon the structures, intellectual capabilities, priorities, and funding of DOD. Realizing the Vision of the National Defense Strategy? The commission agrees with the NDS's assessment of the strategic environment and its prioritization of great power competition, the enduring value of alliances, and its focus https:I/crsreports.conc -- -q

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