United States Institute of Peace

1200 17th Street NW

Washington, DC 20036

www.usip.org

Providing for the Common Defense

I

n January 2018, the Department of Defense completed the National Defense 

Strategy (NDS), a congressionally mandated assessment of how the Department will 

protect the United States and its national interests using the tools and resources at 

its disposal. That assessment is intended to address an array of important subjects: 

the nature of the strategic environment, the priority objectives of the Department 

of Defense, the roles and missions of the armed forces, the size and shape of the 

force, the major investments in capabilities and innovation that the Department will 

make over the following five-year period, and others. The 2018 NDS is a classified 

document; an unclassified summary was released publicly. 

To enhance America’s ability to address these issues, Congress also convened 

a bipartisan panel to review the NDS and offer recommendations concerning 

U.S. defense strategy. The members of the Commission on the National Defense 

Strategy for the United States represent a group of distinguished national security 

and defense experts. They analyzed issues related not just to defense strategy, but 

also to the larger geopolitical environment in which that strategy must be executed. 

They consulted with civilian and military leaders in the Department of Defense, 

representatives of other U.S. government departments and agencies, allied diplomats 

and military officials, and independent experts. This publication is the consensus 

report of the Commission. The Commission argues that America confronts a grave 

crisis of national security and national defense, as U.S. military advantages erode and 

the strategic landscape becomes steadily more threatening. If the United States does 

not show greater urgency and seriousness in responding to this crisis, if it does not 

take decisive steps to rebuild its military advantages now, the damage to American 

security and influence could be devastating. 
The Assessment and Recommendations of

the National Defense Strategy Commission

iii

Letter from the Co-Chairs

As co-chairs of the Commission on the National Defense Strategy for the 

United States, we are pleased to submit our Commission’s work and 

publish our report. In the National Defense Authorization Act of 2017, 

Congress charged this Commission with providing an independent, nonpartisan review of the 2018 National Defense Strategy and issues of U.S. 

defense strategy and policy more broadly. We consulted widely and reviewed numerous classified and unclassified sources in developing our 

conclusions and recommendations. Although not every member of this 

Commission agrees with every word, the unclassified analysis, findings, 

and recommendations expressed herein capture the broad consensus of 

this diverse group of Republicans, Democrats, and independents. 

We thank all whose cooperation made our work possible: Chairmen John 

McCain and “Mac” Thornberry and ranking members Jack Reed and 

Adam Smith of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Deputy Secretary Patrick Shanahan, 

Department of Defense officials who provided briefings and information, 

representatives of other U.S. government departments and agencies, and 

allied officials and independent experts with whom we consulted. We especially note the contributions of Senator McCain, who passed away 

shortly before this report was completed. Chairman McCain, along with 

Chairman Thornberry, played a crucial role in establishing this Commission. We consider it appropriate and fitting that Jon Kyl, a member of the 

Commission who participated fully in its deliberations, is now in Senator 

McCain’s former seat in the Senate. Finally, we are deeply grateful to 

our fellow commissioners and support staff for their time, energy, and 

insight. All who contributed to this report embody extraordinary nonpartisan cooperation in the service of a strong, secure, and prosperous 

America. 

We urge Congress and the Administration to consider fully our observations and recommendations and implement them expeditiously. We affirm strongly the view that the global role the United States has played 

for many generations has benefitted our nation enormously, and that this 

role rests upon a foundation of unmatched military power. Today, however, our margin of superiority is profoundly diminished in key areas. 

There are urgent challenges that must be addressed if the United States is 

to avoid lasting damage to its national security. Some observers have 
iv

noted—and we agree—that the United States will soon face a national 

security emergency. This report offers our recommendations for ensuring 

the United States maintains the strong defense the American people deserve and expect and that current and prospective circumstances require.

Eric Edelman Gary Roughead 

Co-Chair Co-Chair
v

Executive Summary

The security and wellbeing of the United States are at greater risk than at 

any time in decades. America’s military superiority—the hard-power 

backbone of its global influence and national security—has eroded to a 

dangerous degree. Rivals and adversaries are challenging the United 

States on many fronts and in many domains. America’s ability to defend 

its allies, its partners, and its own vital interests is increasingly in doubt. 

If the nation does not act promptly to remedy these circumstances, the 

consequences will be grave and lasting.

Since World War II, the United States has led in building a world of 

unusual prosperity, freedom, and security—an achievement that has benefitted America enormously. That achievement has been enabled by unmatched U.S. military power. Investments made in our military and the 

competence and sacrifice of those who serve have provided for the defense and security of America, its citizens overseas, and its allies and 

partners. America has deterred or defeated aggression and preserved stability in key regions around the globe. It has ensured the freedom of the 

global commons on which American and international prosperity depends, and given America unrivaled access and influence. Not least, 

America’s military strengths have prevented America from being coerced or intimidated, and helped avert a recurrence of the devastating 

global wars of the early 20th century, which required repeated interventions at a cost of hundreds of thousands of U.S. lives. Put simply, U.S. 

military power has been indispensable to global peace and stability—and 

to America’s own security, prosperity, and global leadership. 

Today, changes at home and abroad are diminishing U.S. military 

advantages and threatening vital U.S. interests. Authoritarian competitors—especially China and Russia—are seeking regional hegemony and 

the means to project power globally. They are pursuing determined 

military buildups aimed at neutralizing U.S. strengths. Threats posed by 

Iran and North Korea have worsened as those countries have developed 

more advanced weapons and creatively employed asymmetric tactics. In 

multiple regions, gray-zone aggression—intimidation and coercion in the 

space between war and peace—has become the tool of choice for many. 

The dangers posed by transnational threat organizations, particularly radical jihadist groups, have also evolved and intensified. Around the world, 

the proliferation of advanced technology is allowing more actors to contest U.S. military power in more threatening ways. The United States 

thus is in competition and conflict with an array of challengers and 
vi

adversaries. Finally, due to political dysfunction and decisions made by 

both major political parties—and particularly due to the effects of the 

Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011 and years of failing to enact timely 

appropriations—America has significantly weakened its own defense. 

Defense spending was cut substantially under the BCA, with pronounced 

detrimental effects on the size, modernization, and readiness of the 

military. 

The convergence of these trends has created a crisis of national security 

for the United States—what some leading voices in the U.S. national 

security community have termed an emergency. Across Eurasia, grayzone aggression is steadily undermining the security of U.S. allies and 

partners and eroding American influence. Regional military balances in 

Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and the Western Pacific have shifted in 

decidedly adverse ways. These trends are undermining deterrence of 

U.S. adversaries and the confidence of American allies, thus increasing 

the likelihood of military conflict. The U.S. military could suffer unacceptably high casualties and loss of major capital assets in its next conflict. It might struggle to win, or perhaps lose, a war against China or 

Russia. The United States is particularly at risk of being overwhelmed 

should its military be forced to fight on two or more fronts simultaneously. Additionally, it would be unwise and irresponsible not to expect 

adversaries to attempt debilitating kinetic, cyber, or other types of attacks 

against Americans at home while they seek to defeat our military abroad. 

U.S. military superiority is no longer assured and the implications for 

American interests and American security are severe. 

Evaluating the National Defense Strategy

The 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS), the document this Commission was created to evaluate, represents a constructive first step in responding to this crisis. We support its candid assessment of the strategic 

environment, the priority it places on preparing for major-power competition and conflict, its emphasis on the enduring value of U.S. alliances 

and partnerships, and its attention to issues of readiness and lethality. 

That said, we are concerned that the NDS too often rests on questionable 

assumptions and weak analysis, and it leaves unanswered critical questions regarding how the United States will meet the challenges of a more 

dangerous world. We believe that the NDS points the Department of 

Defense (DOD) and the country in the right direction, but it does not 

adequately explain how we should get there. 

The NDS rightly stresses competition with China and Russia as the central dynamic in sizing, shaping, and employing U.S. forces, but it does 
vii

not articulate clear approaches to succeeding in peacetime competition or 

wartime conflict against those rivals. Resource shortfalls, unanticipated 

force demands, unfilled capability gaps, and other risk factors threaten 

DOD’s ability to fulfill the central goals of the NDS, such as defeating 

one major-power rival while maintaining deterrence in other regions. As 

America confronts five major security challengers across at least three 

important geographic regions, and as unforeseen challenges are also

likely to arise, this is a serious weakness. To meet those intensifying 

military challenges, DOD will require rapid, substantial improvements to 

its capabilities built on a foundation of compelling, relevant operational 

concepts. 

Proposed fixes to existing vulnerabilities—concepts such as “expanding 

the competitive space,” “accepting risk” in lower-priority theaters, increasing the salience of nuclear weapons, or relying on “Dynamic Force 

Employment”—are imprecise and unpersuasive. Furthermore, America’s

rivals are mounting comprehensive challenges using military means and 

consequential economic, diplomatic, political, and informational tools. 

Absent a more integrated, whole-of-government strategy than has been 

evident to date, the United States is unlikely to reverse its rivals’ momentum across an evolving, complex spectrum of competition. 

Operational Challenges and Concepts

As regional military balances have deteriorated, America’s advantage 

across a range of operational challenges has diminished. Because of our 

recent focus on counter-terrorism and counterinsurgency, and because 

our enemies have developed new ways of defeating U.S. forces, America 

is losing its advantage in key warfighting areas such as power projection, 

air and missile defense, cyber and space operations, anti-surface and 

anti-submarine warfare, long-range ground-based fires, and electronic 

warfare. Many of the skills necessary to plan for and conduct military 

operations against capable adversaries—especially China and Russia—

have atrophied. 

DOD and the Congressional committees that oversee national security 

must focus current and future investments on operational challenges such 

as protecting critical bases of operations; rapidly reinforcing and sustaining forces engaged forward; assuring information systems and conducting effective information operations; defeating anti-access/area-denial 

threats; deterring, and if necessary defeating, the use of nuclear or other 

strategic weapons in ways that fall short of justifying a large-scale nuclear response; enhancing the capability and survivability of space systems and supporting infrastructure; and developing an interoperable joint 
viii

command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) architecture that supports the warfare 

of the future. 

The United States needs more than just new capabilities; it urgently requires new operational concepts that expand U.S. options and constrain 

those of China, Russia, and other actors. Operational concepts constitute 

an essential link between strategic objectives and the capability and 

budgetary priorities needed to advance them. During the Cold War, the 

United States developed detailed operational concepts to overcome 

daunting challenges in Europe and elsewhere. Innovative concepts are 

once again needed because Russia and China are challenging the United 

States, its allies, and its partners on a far greater scale than has any adversary since the Cold War’s end. The unconventional approaches on 

which others rely, such as hybrid warfare (warfare combining conventional and unconventional elements), gray-zone aggression (coercion in 

the space between peace and war), and rapid nuclear escalation demand 

equally creative responses. In other words, maintaining or reestablishing 

America’s competitive edge is not simply a matter of generating more 

resources and capabilities; it is a matter of using those resources and capabilities creatively and focusing them on the right things. Unfortunately, the innovative operational concepts we need do not currently 

appear to exist. The United States must begin responding more effectively to the operational challenges posed by our competitors and force 

those competitors to respond to challenges of our making.

National Security Innovation Base

Aggressively pursuing technological innovation and introducing those 

advances into the force promptly will be critical to overcoming operational challenges and positioning the U.S. military for success. We 

applaud the NDS for emphasizing this issue. We remain concerned, however, that America’s edge is diminishing or has disappeared in many key 

technologies that underpin U.S. military superiority, and that current efforts to offset that decline are insufficient. For example, as part of a 

whole-of-society approach to innovation, China is currently making 

great strides in the race to dominate in key areas such as FifthGeneration Long-Term Evolution (5G LTE) broadband wireless networks. That effort may yield great economic, geopolitical, and military 

benefits for Beijing—and equally great dangers for the United States. 

DOD and the U.S. government more broadly must take additional steps 

to protect and strengthen the U.S. National Security Innovation Base, 
ix

perhaps by increasing investment in key industries and pursuing selective economic disintegration with rivals to avoid dangerous dependencies. The Department must also continue broadening its efforts to find 

and incorporate new capabilities commercially developed by the private 

sector. Not least, Congress and DOD must find new ways of enabling 

more rapid maturation, acquisition, and fielding of leap-ahead technologies. For two decades, the emphasis for defense programs has been on 

process and efficiency—navigating smoothly through the acquisition 

system—rather than on optimizing them for innovation and warfighting 

effectiveness. This has led to a situation in which innovation occurs outside of government, and those innovations are increasingly difficult for 

our defense processes to access quickly, if at all. One way of addressing 

this problem would be to explore a new, narrowly tailored category of 

acquisition pilot programs that would accept greater cost and risk in pursuit of speed and the game-changing technological breakthroughs necessary to sustain U.S. military advantages. 

Near- and Mid-Term Force Priorities

Innovations in operational concepts and leap-ahead technologies are vital 

to sustaining U.S. military advantages, particularly over the long term. In 

the near- to mid-term, the Commission identified a variety of critical improvements to U.S. military posture and capabilities that are imperative 

for prevailing against our most pressing security challenges. 

In the Western Pacific, deterring Chinese aggression requires a forwarddeployed, defense-in-depth posture, buttressed by investments in capabilities ranging from undersea warfare to strategic airlift. In Europe, 

dealing with a revanchist Russia will entail rebuilding conventional 

NATO force capacity and capability on the alliance’s eastern flank and

the Baltics, while also preparing to deter and if necessary defeat the use 

of non-strategic nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, U.S. security commitments and operations in the Middle East cannot be wished away. As long 

as terrorism is exportable, as long as the Middle East remains a major 

producer of oil, and as long as the United States has key U.S. allies and 

partners in the region, U.S. interests in the Middle East will be profound. 

Accordingly, U.S. military posture there should not shrink dramatically, 

even as the precise mix of capabilities is re-examined. 

Across all theaters—especially Europe and the Indo-Pacific—our forward posture will be essential to deterring competitors and adversaries 

and thereby reducing the chances of conflict. In addition, the Army, 

Navy, and Air Force will all require selective warfighting capacity enhancements, and America will need to improve its capabilities in key 
x

cross-cutting areas such as munitions, missile defense, electronic warfare, space, cyber, and air and sealift. In particular, it is painfully clear 

that America is not competing or deterring its adversaries as effectively 

as it should in cyberspace. We must operate more nimbly, aggressively, 

and effectively in this crucial domain. Space is also an increasingly important and contested domain and the United States must place special 

emphasis on ensuring dominance there by devising a coherent space 

strategy that emphasizes technology, policy, organization, broader 

awareness through effective communication, and cooperation.

Another critical imperative is modernizing our nuclear deterrent. The 

NDS rightly identifies the “re-emergence of long-term, strategic competition between nations” as a primary factor driving U.S. nuclear force 

posture and planning. Given the need for a robust deterrent, the aggressive nuclear modernization programs some rivals have been carrying out, 

and the increasing reliance of those rivals—particularly Russia—on escalatory doctrines that feature limited use of nuclear weapons, DOD 

must remain committed to the bipartisan nuclear modernization program 

outlined in the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review. This pertains especially to 

modernizing the triad of bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and 

ballistic missile submarines. In addition, it is urgently necessary to modernize the supporting infrastructure, including the national laboratories 

and the nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) network. 

At its peak, planned spending on nuclear modernization, operations, and 

sustainment should consume just 6.4 percent of the defense budget, although the impact on procurement will be greater and will require careful 

prioritization and sequencing by DOD, with Congressional support. 

Given that investments made today will pay strategic dividends well into

the 2070s and 2080s, America can surely afford to pay this price to preserve such a critical element of its national defense. 

Making informed decisions about strategic, operational, and force development issues requires a foundation of state-of-the-art analytical capabilities. In the course of our work, we found that DOD struggled to link 

objectives to operational concepts to capabilities to programs and resources. This deficit in analytical capability, expertise, and processes is 

intolerable in an organization responsible for such complex, expensive, 

and important tasks, and it must be remedied. Specifically, DOD needs a 

rigorous force development plan that connects its investment strategy 

with its key priorities of winning in conflict and competing effectively 

with China and Russia. Repairing DOD’s analytical capability is essential to meeting the challenges the NDS identifies and giving Congress 

confidence that DOD’s budget requests reflect its stated priorities.
xi

Readiness

The readiness of U.S. forces to conduct operations as effectively and 

safely as possible is another crucial component of America’s national security. Yet the readiness of our forces has suffered in recent years, due to 

extended operations in the greater Middle East as well as severe budgetary uncertainty and austerity. The Commission therefore firmly supports 

DOD’s efforts to improve readiness. We note, however, that U.S. forces 

will need additional resources to train to high levels of proficiency across 

a broader and more technologically challenging range of potential missions than in the recent past, particularly those missions focusing on advanced military threats from China and Russia. DOD must also develop 

and use analytic tools that can measure readiness across this broad range 

of missions, from low-intensity, gray-zone conflicts to protracted, highintensity fights. Moreover, while resources alone can never cure a readiness shortcoming, timely and sufficient funding will be vital to overcoming readiness gaps created in part by a broken budgetary process. 

The foremost resource required to produce a highly capable military is 

highly capable people—but the number of Americans with both the fitness and propensity to serve is in secular decline, putting the NDS at 

long-term risk. DOD and Congress must take creative steps to address 

the shortage of qualified and willing individuals, rather than relying 

solely on ever-higher compensation for a shrinking pool of qualified 

volunteers. 

Civil-Military Relations

Constructive approaches to any of the foregoing issues must be rooted in 

healthy civil-military relations. Yet civilian voices have been relatively 

muted on issues at the center of U.S. defense and national security policy, undermining the concept of civilian control. The implementation of 

the NDS must feature empowered civilians fulfilling their statutory responsibilities, particularly regarding issues of force management. Put 

bluntly, allocating priority—and allocating forces—across theaters of 

warfare is not solely a military matter. It is an inherently politicalmilitary task, decision authority for which is the proper competency and 

responsibility of America’s civilian leaders. Unless global force management is nested under higher-order guidance from civilians, an effort to 

centralize defense direction under the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff may succeed operationally but produce profound strategic problems. It is critical that DOD—and Congress—reverse the unhealthy trend 

in which decision-making is drifting away from civilian leaders on issues 

of national importance.
xii

Resources

The question of resources cuts across many of the issues we examine in 

this report, and the Commission assesses unequivocally that the NDS is 

not adequately resourced. It is beyond the scope of our work to identify 

the exact dollar amount required to fully fund the military’s needs. Yet 

available resources are clearly insufficient to fulfill the strategy’s ambitious goals, including that of ensuring that DOD can defeat a majorpower adversary while deterring other enemies simultaneously. The 

available resources are also insufficient to undertake essential nuclear 

and conventional modernization simultaneously and rectify accumulated 

readiness shortfalls. America is very near the point of strategic insolvency, where its “means” are badly out of alignment with its “ends.”

Notably, this disparity is true despite the two-year funding increase provided by the Bipartisan Budget Act (BBA) of 2018. Although that increase provides a healthy initial investment in this strategy, the lack of 

planned real budgetary growth beyond this two-year period, the lingering 

damage caused by the BCA and the pattern of government shutdowns 

and continuing resolutions, and the threat of unpredictable and delayed 

funding in the future all place the strategy in jeopardy. DOD apparently 

plans to fill key resource gaps through savings yielded by organizational 

reform. We strongly agree that the Pentagon’s culture and way of doing 

business must be brought into the 21st century, yet it is unrealistic to expect that such reforms will yield significant resources for growth, especially within a time frame appropriate to meet the challenges posed by 

China and Russia. Without additional resources, and without greater stability and predictability in how those resources are provided, the Department will be unable to fulfill the ambition of the NDS or create and 

preserve U.S. military advantages in the years to come. There must be 

greater urgency and seriousness in funding national defense.

In accordance with the testimony of Secretary Mattis and Chairman 

Dunford in 2017, this Commission recommends that Congress increase 

the base defense budget at an average rate of three to five percent above 

inflation through the Future Years Defense Program and perhaps beyond. 

Although this number is more illustrative than definitive, and although 

these estimates were provided prior to the conclusion of the process that 

produced the current defense strategy, it is nonetheless indicative of the 

level of investment needed to meet the ends the NDS establishes. Making this investment will require lifting the remaining BCA caps for Fiscal 

Years 2020 and 2021. Congress should also transfer overseas contingency operations funds back to the base budget, and permit more flexibility by giving DOD authority to spend Operations and Maintenance 
xiii

funds for any fiscal year across that fiscal year and the next. More ambitiously, Congress should seek to produce multi-year budget agreements 

for defense. Above all, Congress must fix a broken funding process that 

wreaks havoc on readiness and the defense program, and avoid the temptation of viewing defense cuts as the solution to the nation’s fiscal problems. Those problems must be addressed through a holistic approach that 

scrutinizes the entire federal budget—especially mandatory spending—

as well as taxes to set the nation on a firmer financial footing. Although 

the resulting tradeoffs will certainly be difficult, anything short of these 

steps will represent an implicit decision not to provide America with the 

defense it deserves.

Congress, of course, has a critical role to play in all this. In one sense, it 

is the responsibility of Congress to appropriate the resources necessary 

for the nation’s defense. More broadly, we urge the Congress to use its 

oversight tools to encourage the Department to take many of the steps we 

outline in this report. We also urge Congress and DOD to work as partners in addressing the many issues that can only be resolved through collaboration between the executive and legislative branches. The current 

crisis is bigger than any single branch of government, and the solutions 

must be, as well. 

In conclusion, we wish to be crystal clear about one thing. The costs of 

failing to meet America’s crisis of national defense and national security 

will not be measured in abstract concepts like “international stability” 

and “global order.” They will be measured in American lives, American 

treasure, and American security and prosperity lost. It will be a tragedy—

of unforeseeable but perhaps tremendous magnitude—if the United States 

allows its national interests and national security to be compromised 

through an unwillingness or inability to make hard choices and necessary 

investments. That tragedy will be all the more regrettable because it is 

within our power to avoid it.

xv

Contents

Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1

Chapter 1 The Purpose of American Military Power and the Crisis 

of National Defense ....................................................................................................... 4

The Changing Strategic Environment.......................................................................... 6

The Crisis of American Military Power and Its Consequences ................................. 11

Chapter 2 Evaluating the National Defense Strategy ....................................................... 18

Strengths and Weaknesses of the NDS...................................................................... 18

Competition against Russia and China ...................................................................... 19

Under-Resourced Theaters ........................................................................................ 20

Unanticipated Force Demands................................................................................... 21

Unclear Concepts....................................................................................................... 21

Unanticipated Resource Shortfalls............................................................................. 22

Challenges Requiring More than DOD Capabilities.................................................. 22

Chapter 3 The Force We Need: Meeting Core Operational Challenges 

and Strengthening the National Security Innovation Base........................................... 24

Meeting Core Operational Challenges....................................................................... 24

Operational Concepts ................................................................................................ 26

National Security Innovation Base ............................................................................ 28

Chapter 4 The Force We Need: Force Priorities, Readiness, 

and Civil-Military Relations........................................................................................ 33

Near- to Mid-Term Force Priorities........................................................................... 33

Readiness................................................................................................................... 43

Civil-Military Relations............................................................................................. 47

Chapter 5 Funding the Force We Need ............................................................................ 49

The Lingering Impacts of the BCA ........................................................................... 49

The Need for Additional Funding to Execute the NDS ............................................. 52

Resourcing Priorities and Challenges........................................................................ 54

Ensuring Timely and Consistent Funding.................................................................. 56

Restoring OCO Funding to the Base Budget ............................................................. 59

Pentagon Reform: Necessary but Not Sufficient ....................................................... 59

Addressing Long-Term Fiscal Challenges................................................................. 61

Embracing a Whole-of-Government Approach to Strategic Competition ................. 63

Compendium of Findings and Recommendations........................................................... 64

Additional Views of Andrew Krepinevich ...................................................................... 72

Appendix A Glossary ...................................................................................................... 76

Appendix B Enabling Legislation .................................................................................... 78

Appendix C Schedule of Plenary Meetings ..................................................................... 81

Appendix D Individuals Appearing before the Commission ........................................... 82

Appendix E Commissioner Biographies .......................................................................... 88

Appendix F Commission Staff ........................................................................................ 98 

1

Introduction

The United States confronts a grave crisis of national security and national defense. No duty of the federal government is more essential than 

defending the American people, American territory, and American interests abroad. For generations, international peace and prosperity and the 

wellbeing and security of the United States have depended on America’s 

unequaled military strengths. 

Today, the strategic landscape is growing steadily more threatening. An 

array of adversaries and rivals—violent jihadist groups, aggressive regional challengers armed with advanced weapons, powerful authoritarian 

regimes possessing significant influence and even greater ambitions—

are challenging U.S. interests and global security. Across these issues, 

the United States is not simply facing renewed geopolitical competition. 

States and non-state actors are waging conflict against America and the 

world it has done so much to build. 

Meanwhile, because of foreign and domestic factors, America’s 

longstanding military advantages have diminished. The country’s strategic margin for error has become distressingly small. Doubts about America’s ability to deter and, if necessary, defeat opponents and honor its 

global commitments have proliferated. Previous congressionally mandated reports, such as the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel and the 2014 National Defense Panel, warned that this crisis 

was coming. The crisis has now arrived, with potentially dire effects not 

just for U.S. global influence, but also for the security and welfare of 

America itself. 

This document, the consensus report of the Commission on the National 

Defense Strategy for the United States, expresses our view of the dangers 

the nation faces and the steps that should be taken to meet them. The 

Commission was created pursuant to the National Defense Authorization 

Act of 2017, to examine and make recommendations with respect to the 

national defense strategy of the United States. More specifically, the 

Commission was charged with formally reviewing the National Defense 

Strategy (NDS) released by the Department of Defense (DOD) in January 2018, as well as assessing and offering its views on the broad range 

of issues that informed that strategy. The Commission was tasked with 

reporting its findings to the President, Secretary of Defense, Committee 

on Armed Services of the House of Representatives, and Committee on 

Armed Services of the Senate. 
2

In carrying out these responsibilities, we have deliberated regularly for 

the past year. We have reviewed relevant material, both classified and 

unclassified, and consulted widely with civilian and military leaders in 

the Department of Defense, representatives of other U.S. government departments and agencies, diplomats and military officials from some of 

America’s closest allies, and independent experts. We have studied issues related not just to defense strategy itself, but also to the larger geopolitical environment in which that strategy must be devised and 

implemented, and in which it must succeed. 

Our report proceeds as follows. In Chapter 1, we review the role U.S. 

military power has traditionally played in protecting U.S. national interests, and we describe how a combination of global challenges and 

America’s disinvestment in defense has created the troubling situation 

the nation confronts today. In Chapter 2, we evaluate the NDS, focusing 

particularly on the question of whether the goals it sets can be accomplished with the resources available and using the approaches DOD has 

outlined. In Chapters 3 and 4, we offer our views on the force America 

needs, focusing specifically on operational challenges and concepts, the 

national security innovation base, near- and mid-term force priorities, 

readiness, and civil-military relations. In Chapter 5, we examine resourcing issues. 

Our specific findings are outlined in the text. But at the outset, we wish 

to underscore the central theme of this report: There is a need for extraordinary urgency in addressing the crisis of national defense. We believe that the NDS is a broadly constructive document that identifies 

most of the right objectives and challenges. Yet we are deeply concerned 

that the Department of Defense and the nation as a whole have not yet 

addressed crucial issues such as force sizing, developing innovative operational concepts, readiness, and resources with the degree of urgency, 

persistence, and analytic depth that an increasingly dangerous world 

demands. 

Put bluntly, the American people and their elected representatives must 

understand that U.S. military superiority is not guaranteed, that many 

global trends are adverse and threatening, and that the nation has reached 

a pivotal moment regarding its ability to defend its vital interests and 

preserve a world in which the United States and other like-minded nations can thrive. The choices we make today and in the immediate future 

will have profound and potentially lasting consequences for American 
3

security and influence. If we do not square up to the challenge now, we 

will surely regret it.

1

 

1 Although this Commission reviewed some classified material during the 

course of its deliberations, our major strategic assessments and our key recommended capacity and capability enhancements have been previously discussed 

in unclassified settings and reports. Space limitations preclude a full listing of 

unclassified sources consulted in the preparation of this report. But see, as representative examples, David Shlapak and Michael Johnson, Reinforcing Deterrence of NATO’s Eastern Flank: Wargaming the Defense of the Baltics (Santa 

Monica: RAND Corporation, 2016); David Ochmanek et al., U.S. Military 

Capabilities for a Dangerous World: Rethinking the U.S. Approach to Force 

Planning (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2017); Eric Heginbotham et al., 

The U.S.-China Military Scorecard: Forces, Geography, and the Evolving Balance of Power, 1996-2017 (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2015); Michael 

Mazarr et al., The Korean Peninsula: Three Dangerous Scenarios (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2018); Scott Boston et al., Assessing the Conventional 

Force Imbalance in Europe: Implications for Countering Russian Local Superiority (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2018); Testimony by William Shelton 

before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces and House 

Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response and 

Communications, “Threats to Space Assets and Implications for Homeland Security,” March 29, 2017, https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AS/AS29/20170329/ 

105785/HHRG-115-AS29-Wstate-SheltonW-20170329.pdf; Robert Ackerman, 

“Intelligence Confronts Space Vulnerabilities,” Signal, September 1, 2018; Sydney Freedberg, “$86,000 + 5,600 MPH = Hyper Velocity Missile Defense,” 

Breaking Defense, January 26, 2018; Jen Judson, “Space-Based Laser Weapons 

Could Ultimately Take Out Missile Threats in Boost Phase,” Defense News, 

August 14, 2018; Department of Defense, 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, 

https://DOD.defense.gov/News/SpecialReports/2018NuclearPostureReview.aspx; 

as well as the consultations with numerous non-governmental experts listed in 

the appendix.
4

Chapter 1

The Purpose of American Military Power 

and the Crisis of National Defense

Any defense strategy must protect the fundamental interests of the 

United States. Since the inception of the Republic, America’s most vital 

interests have remained constant. They include the physical security of 

the United States and its citizens; the promotion of a strong, innovative, 

and growing U.S. economy; and the protection of the nation’s democratic freedoms and domestic institutions. These interests were enshrined 

in the Declaration of Independence as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of 

happiness,” and collectively, they represent the pole star toward which 

any American strategy must be oriented. 

Since the mid-20th century, there has been a bipartisan consensus that 

America should take an international leadership role to secure these interests. The events of the 1930s and 1940s showed that the United States 

could not remain prosperous in a world ravaged by global depression, 

nor could it remain safe in a world convulsed by instability and war. 

Moreover, these events illustrated to Americans the danger that their 

own free institutions might not survive in a world ruled by hostile autocracies. As a result, Americans and their elected leaders concluded that 

the United States must use its unmatched power to foster a larger global 

environment in which America could thrive. This endeavor has often 

been referred to as building the “liberal international order,” but it simply 

reflects the common-sense idea that America will be most secure, prosperous, and free in a world that is itself secure, prosperous, and free. 

This straightforward judgment has underpinned the sustained global 

leadership the United States has exercised since the 1940s. America has 

anchored an open global economy in which trade and investment flow 

freely and Americans can see their creative energies rewarded. It has 

built international institutions that facilitate problem-solving and cooperation on important global issues. It has defended democratic values and 

human rights abroad in order to enhance U.S. influence and safeguard 

democratic values and human rights at home. It has sought to uphold favorable balances of power in key regions and concluded military alliances and security partnerships with dozens of like-minded countries—

not as a matter of charity, but as a way of deterring aggression and preventing conflicts that could pose a serious threat to U.S. national security 

and prosperity. These have not been Republican policies or Democratic 
5

policies; they have been American policies, meant to create a world conducive to American interests and values. 

The role of alliances and partnerships deserves special emphasis here. 

U.S. alliances and partnerships are sometimes mischaracterized as 

arrangements that squander American resources on behalf of free-riding 

foreign countries. In reality, U.S. alliances and partnerships have been 

deeply rooted in American self-interest. They have served as forcemultipliers for U.S. influence, by promoting institutionalized cooperation 

between America and like-minded nations. They have allowed America 

to call on the aid of its friends in every major conflict it has waged since 

World War II. They have buttressed the concept of international order 

that the United States seeks to preserve, by enlisting other nations in the 

promotion of a world favorable to American interests. They have provided intelligence support, regional expertise, and other critical assistance. In short, alliances and partnerships rooted in shared interests and 

mutual respect have reduced the price America pays for global leadership and enhanced the advantages America enjoys over any geopolitical 

rival. And although these alliances and partnerships—like all of America’s postwar policies—have required the persistent use of diplomacy, 

economic power, and other tools of statecraft, they have ultimately rested 

on a foundation of military strength. 

Since World War II, America has had a military second to none. After 

the Cold War, it possessed military power far greater than that of any rival or group of rivals. This position of unmatched strength has provided 

for the defense and security of the United States, American citizens overseas, and American allies and partners. It has been crucial to deterring 

and, if necessary, defeating aggression by hostile powers, whether the 

Soviet Union and its allies during the Cold War or al-Qaeda and Islamic 

State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) more recently. It has preserved stability 

in key regions from Europe to East Asia and beyond, and ensured the 

freedom of the global commons on which U.S. and international prosperity depends. It has prevented America from being coerced or intimidated, 

or once again finding itself the situation of the early 1940s, when democracy itself was endangered because aggressive authoritarian powers 

were on the verge of dominating the globe. It has given the United States 

unrivaled influence on a wide range of global issues. 

America’s leadership role has never been inexpensive or easy to play, 

and today many Americans are questioning whether it is worth the cost. 

But by any reasonable standard, U.S. global engagement has been a great 

investment. U.S. leadership has prevented a recurrence of the devastating 
6

world wars that marked the first half of the 20th century and required repeated U.S. interventions at a cost of hundreds of thousands of American 

lives. That leadership has also fostered an unprecedented growth in human freedom, with the number of democracies rising from roughly a 

dozen during World War II to 120 in the early 21st century. And as democracies displaced dictatorships, America itself became more secure 

and influential.

The growth of prosperity has been even more astounding. According to 

World Bank data, inflation-adjusted U.S. gross domestic product has increased nearly six-fold since 1960. Both U.S. and global per capita income have also increased roughly three-fold (also in inflation-adjusted 

terms) over the same period. To be clear, the evolution of the economy 

in recent decades has left too many of our citizens behind, and it is essential that all benefit from our national prosperity. On the whole, however, both the United States and the world are far richer than they would 

have been absent the open international economy America has fostered. 

Here, too, American policy has been successful in what it has avoided as 

well as what it has achieved: the world has not suffered another global 

depression that would cause rampant poverty, political radicalism, and 

international aggression, and that would surely lead to catastrophic effects for the United States. Decades of experience have taught that 

American leadership is not a fool’s errand or a matter of altruism, but a 

pragmatic approach to advancing American security and wellbeing. 

There is little reason to think the situation has changed today. The fundamental lesson of the 1930s and 1940s—that no country is an island—

remains as relevant as ever. If anything, as the world becomes increasingly interdependent, the security and prosperity of the United States are 

becoming ever more closely linked to the health of the larger international environment. And although the United States has many powerful 

allies, none of them can fill the singular role America has played in 

providing the international peace, stability, and prosperity in which the 

United States itself has flourished. U.S. leadership of a stable and open 

international environment remains as profoundly in the country’s own 

national interests as it was more than seven decades ago. Unfortunately, 

in recent years changes at home and abroad have eroded American military advantages and threatening U.S. interests. 

The Changing Strategic Environment

After the Cold War, the United States faced a relatively benign security 

environment. There remained dangerous challenges to U.S. interests 

and—as shown by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001—the 
7

American homeland. Yet tensions between the world’s major powers 

were historically low, and the actors that threatened the United States, 

from so-called rogue states to jihadist terror organizations, were comparatively weak. Today, however, the international landscape is more 

ominous. The United States confronts the most challenging security environment in decades. Six trends are particularly worthy of note. 

First, and most important, is the rise of major-power competition and 

conflict. The world America shaped has brought great security and prosperity to many countries. Yet today, powerful authoritarian rivals—

China and Russia—see U.S. leadership as a barrier to their ambitions. 

These countries seek to overturn existing regional balances of power and 

re-create spheres of influence in which they can dominate their neighbors’ economic, diplomatic, and security choices. They are also seeking 

to project power and exert influence beyond their peripheries. They are 

pursuing their agendas, moreover, through the use of coercion, intimidation, and in some cases outright aggression, all backed by major military 

buildups that specifically target U.S. military advantages and alliance 

commitments and relationships.

The challenge China presents is particularly daunting. It is natural for 

China to exert greater influence as its power grows, and the rise of China 

would present challenges for America and the world even if Beijing pursued its interests through entirely legitimate means. Unfortunately, China 

is increasingly exerting influence in illegitimate and destabilizing ways. 

China is using military, paramilitary, and diplomatic measures to coerce 

U.S. allies and partners from Japan to India; contest international law 

and freedom of navigation in crucial waterways such as the South China 

Sea; undermine the U.S. position in East and Southeast Asia; and otherwise seek a position of geopolitical dominance. It is using predatory economic statecraft to weaken its rivals, including the United States, and 

give it decisive strategic leverage over its neighbors. Meanwhile, China 

is reaping the fruits of a multi-decade military buildup. Beijing has invested in systems designed to counter American power-projection and 

thereby prevent the United States from protecting its allies, partners, and 

economic interests. China is also modernizing its nuclear forces, developing sophisticated power-projection capabilities, and undertaking the 

most thoroughgoing military reforms since the founding of the People’s 

Republic. China already presents a severe test of U.S. interests in the 

Indo-Pacific and beyond and is on a path to become, by mid-century, a 

military challenger the likes of which America has not encountered since 

the Cold War-era Soviet Union. 
8

Russia, too, is pursuing regional hegemony and global influence in destabilizing ways. Moscow has invaded and dismembered neighboring 

states, used cyberwarfare and other tactics to attack democratic nations’ 

political systems, and employed measures from military intimidation to 

information warfare to undermine and weaken NATO and the European 

Union. Russia has intervened militarily in Syria to bolster Bashar 

al-Assad’s brutal regime and restore lost influence in the Middle East, 

while supporting many other authoritarian governments. Across these initiatives, the Putin regime has demonstrated a propensity for risk-taking 

backed up by enhanced military power. Moscow has developed advanced conventional capabilities meant to prevent America from projecting power and aiding its allies along Russia’s periphery and to project its 

own power farther afield. Russia is also conducting a comprehensive nuclear modernization, including sustainment and modernization of a large 

number of non-strategic nuclear weapons and the development of a 

ground-launched cruise missile that violates the Intermediate-Range 

Nuclear Forces Treaty. These developments are accompanied by Russian 

doctrinal writings that emphasize the prospect of using limited nuclear 

escalation to control the trajectory of a potential conflict against the 

United States and NATO. Russia is seeking to create situations of military strength vis-à-vis America and its allies, and despite its limited resource base, it is having considerable success. 

Second, aggressive regional challengers—notably North Korea and 

Iran—are expanding their military capabilities consistent with their geopolitical ambitions. The United States and its allies have faced threats 

from a brutal, erratic, and aggressive North Korea for decades, but never 

before has Pyongyang possessed such destructive power. North Korea 

may already have the capability to detonate a nuclear weapon over a major American city; the regime also continues to develop biological, 

chemical, and conventional capabilities as a way of guaranteeing its survival and coercing adversaries. Today, Kim Jong Un’s military can 

threaten America more directly than his father or grandfather. He can 

also exert great pressure on U.S. alliances with South Korea and Japan, 

sowing doubt about whether America would defend those allies in a crisis. This Commission hopes that ongoing negotiations will lead to the 

complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization of North Korea, 

but the history of U.S.-North Korean negotiations give little cause for 

optimism. Even successful negotiations would leave America facing significant security challenges on the Korean Peninsula and in East Asia, 

most significantly the robust ballistic missile threat posed to our allies, 

Japan and the Republic of Korea.
9

The threat from Iran, another longtime U.S. adversary and the world’s 

foremost state sponsor of terrorism, has also worsened. Iran has skillfully 

utilized asymmetric tactics including terrorism, the weaponization of 

sectarianism, support for insurgent groups, and a reliance on proxy and 

special operations forces to weaken U.S. influence and pursue hegemony 

in the Middle East. Iranian military capabilities are growing in areas such 

as unmanned aerial vehicles and explosive boats, advanced naval mines 

and submarines, more sophisticated cyber forces, and anti-ship and landattack cruise missiles. Iran is also expanding what is already the largest 

ballistic missile force in the region. In a conflict with the United States, 

Iran could use these capabilities to obstruct freedom of navigation in regional waterways, target U.S. military facilities and critical infrastructure 

in the Persian Gulf, and otherwise inflict substantial costs on America 

and its partners.

The challenges of major power conflict and aggressive regional challengers are linked by a third, which is the growing prevalence of aggression and conflict in the gray zone—the space between war and peace. 

The means of gray-zone conflict include everything from strong-arm 

diplomacy and economic coercion, to media manipulation and cyberattacks, to use of paramilitaries and proxy forces. Singly or in combination, such tactics confound or gradually weaken an adversary’s positions 

or resolve without provoking a military response. Gray-zone conflict is 

often shrouded in deception or misinformation, making attribution difficult and discouraging a strong response. 

Although coercive challenges of this sort are not new, they have become 

the tool of choice for those who do not wish to confront U.S. military 

power directly. China’s island-building and maritime coercion in the 

South China Sea, Iran’s sponsorship of Hezbollah and other militias as 

tools of influence and subversion in the Middle East, Russia’s use of 

unacknowledged military and proxy forces in Ukraine, and Moscow’s 

information warfare campaigns meant to inflame social tensions and influence political processes in the United States and Europe all represent 

examples of gray-zone aggression today. Because gray-zone challenges 

combine military and paramilitary measures with economic statecraft, 

political warfare, information operations, and other tools, they often 

occur in the “seams” between DOD and other U.S. departments and 

agencies, making them all the more difficult to address. 

Fourth, the threat from radical jihadist groups has evolved and intensified. Groups such as ISIS, al-Qaeda, and their affiliates pose ongoing 

threats to the United States and its allies and partners, from Western 
10

Africa to the Philippines. That threat is not new, but it is expanding. 

There are more jihadists in more countries today than at any time since 

the birth of the modern jihadist movement in 1979, and there are more 

groups capable of mounting major attacks. The most sophisticated 

groups have developed state-like military capabilities, conquered (however briefly) large swaths of territory, shown continued interest in acquiring weapons of mass destruction, and commanded or inspired deadly 

attacks around the globe. Assisted by poor governance, sectarian conflict, and regional instability, these groups—or their successors—will 

threaten U.S. and international security for generations to come. 

Fifth, and compounding these challenges, the proliferation of advanced 

technology is eroding U.S. advantages and creating new vulnerabilities. 

The spread of weapons of mass destruction, ballistic and cruise missiles, 

precision-strike assets, advanced air defenses, antisatellite and 

cyberwarfare capabilities, and unmanned systems has given weaker 

actors the ability to threaten America and its allies in more dangerous 

ways. In some cases, we are behind, or falling behind, in critical technologies. U.S. competitors are making enormous investments in hypersonic 

delivery vehicles, artificial intelligence (AI), and other advanced technologies. With respect to hypersonics in particular, the United States finds 

itself trailing China and perhaps Russia as well. All this raises the possibility that America may find itself at a technological disadvantage in future conflicts. Because the American way of war has long relied on 

technological supremacy, this could have profoundly negative implications for U.S. military effectiveness.

The United States thus confronts more numerous—and more severe—

threats than at any time in decades. America must address the threats 

posed by major-power rivals, dangerous regional challengers, and 

terrorists simultaneously; it must deal with geopolitical conflict, grayzone aggression, and instability from one end of Eurasia to the other. It 

must also prepare for the prospect that the U.S. military might be called 

into action in a country, region, or contingency that is not currently 

envisioned. 

The dangers posed by these and other troubling trends have been compounded by a final problem, of America’s own making: budgetary instability and disinvestment in defense. Because of decisions made by both 

major parties—especially the enactment of the Budget Control Act 

(BCA) of 2011—constant-dollar defense spending (in estimated 2018 

dollars) fell from $794 billion in Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 to $586 billion 

in FY2015, according to U.S. government statistics. In percentage terms, 
11

this constituted the fastest drawdown since the years following the 

Korean War. Excluding overseas contingency operations accounts—

funding for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—the inflation-adjusted decline 

was from $612 billion to $541 billion. This defense austerity was exacerbated by political gridlock, which forced the Pentagon to operate on 

short-term continuing resolutions, and which triggered the crippling, 

across-the-board cuts associated with the sequester mechanism in 2013. 

The effects of these resource challenges have been devastating. By 2017, 

all of the military services were at or near post-World War II lows in 

terms of end-strength, and all were confronting severe readiness crises 

and enormous deferred modernization costs (see Figure 1). A series of 

temporary budget increases provided for by the Bipartisan Budget Acts 

of 2013, 2015, and 2018 provided welcome but insufficient relief. As the 

world has become more threatening, America has weakened its own 

defense. 

The Crisis of American Military Power 

and Its Consequences

Collectively, these trends add up to a perilous situation. In 2010, the 

Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel warned of a coming 

“train wreck” if America did not retain adequate military capabilities in 

an increasingly competitive world. In 2014, the National Defense Panel 

warned that the U.S. military had become “inadequate given the future 

strategic and operational environment.” In 2018, this Commission believes that America has reached the point of a full-blown national security crisis. The U.S. military remains the strongest in the world, but the

number and geographic diversity of security challenges, the technical sophistication of U.S. rivals and adversaries, and other factors mean that 

America’s military capabilities are insufficient to address the growing 

dangers the country faces. America is courting unacceptable risk to its 

own national security, and to the stability and prosperity of the global environment from which it has benefitted so much. 

Across multiple regions, adverse military trends and gray-zone aggression are undermining U.S. influence and damaging U.S. interests. In the 

Western Pacific, the regional military balance has shifted dramatically 

because of China’s ongoing buildup and coercive activities. In Eastern 

Europe, Russian military modernization has left U.S. and NATO forces 

with severe vulnerabilities on the alliance’s eastern frontier. In the Middle East, Tehran’s arsenal of asymmetric and anti-access/area denial capabilities, along with its network of proxy forces, can create significant 
12

0

800600

400200

20001800

16001400

1200

1000 1946 1948 1950 1952 1954 1956 1958 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018

Army Navy Marine Corps Air Force (and Army Air Corps) DOD Civilians

Between 2012 and 2016, the Army and Navy reached their 

lowest strengths since before World War II.

In the same timeframe, the Air Force was the 

smallest it had been since its founding in 1947. Number of Personnel in Thousands

DOD Civilians

Source: Department of Defense Green Book 2019, Table 7-5.

Figure 1. Department of Defense Active-Duty End Strength, 1946–2019
13

challenges for U.S. forces and influence, as Russia’s renewed regional 

military presence further inhibits American freedom of action. Looking 

beyond these regions, U.S. competitors and adversaries—particularly 

Russia and China—are increasingly contesting American control of the 

maritime, space, and cyber commons and improving their ability to strike 

the U.S. homeland (see Figure 2). 

Figure 2. U.S.-Russia-China Force Comparison

Sources: International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Military Balance, 2002, 2012, 

2018. Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Nuclear Notebook.

Notes: Naval vessels include submarines and combat logistics force ships, but exclude 

small patrol and landing craft. Fighter aircraft exclude “attack aircraft,” but include 

“fighter, ground attack” aircraft, as classified by IISS.

The consequences of these shifts are profound. Because the military balance casts its shadow over international diplomacy, the erosion of U.S.

military advantage is weakening the norms and principles for which 

America has traditionally stood. It is no coincidence that threats to freedom of navigation in the South China Sea—through which one-third of 

global shipping transits—have increased as the military balance has deteriorated. Similarly, the credibility of American alliances—the bedrock of 

geopolitical stability in key areas—will be weakened as allies question 

whether the United States can defend them; American rivals and adversaries will be emboldened to push harder. From the Taiwan Strait to the 
14

Baltic region, peace and deterrence have long rested on the perception 

that the United States can decisively defeat military challenges. As that 

perception fades, deterrence weakens and war becomes more likely. 

Should war occur, American forces will face harder fights and greater 

losses than at any time in decades. It is worth recalling that during the 

Falklands War, a decidedly inferior opponent—Argentina—crippled and 

sank a major British warship by striking it with a single guided missile. 

The amount of destruction a major state adversary could inflict on U.S. 

forces today might be orders of magnitude higher. A war on the Korean 

Peninsula, for instance, would expose U.S. and allied citizens and forces 

in the region to intense conventional warfare and likely chemical and biological warfare. There would be a real possibility of North Korean nuclear strikes against allied countries in Northeast Asia and perhaps even 

against U.S. territory.

If the United States had to fight Russia in a Baltic contingency or China 

in a war over Taiwan (see Vignette 1), Americans could face a decisive 

military defeat. These two nations possess precision-strike capabilities, 

integrated air defenses, cruise and ballistic missiles, advanced 

cyberwarfare and anti-satellite capabilities, significant air and naval 

forces, and nuclear weapons—a suite of advanced capabilities heretofore 

possessed only by the United States. The U.S. military would face daunting challenges in establishing air superiority or sea control and retaking 

territory lost early in a conflict. Against an enemy equipped with advanced anti-access/area denial capabilities, attrition of U.S. capital 

assets—ships, planes, tanks—could be enormous. The prolonged, deliberate buildup of overwhelming force in theater that has traditionally been 

the hallmark of American expeditionary warfare would be vastly more 

difficult and costly, if it were possible at all. Put bluntly, the U.S. military could lose the next state-versus-state war it fights.
15

Such conflicts are also unlikely to stay neatly confined to overseas theaters. Rather, they are likely to reach the American people at home. As 

noted, a war against North Korea would expose the United States to the 

risk of nuclear strikes on American territories or even major American 

cities (see Vignette 2). War with Russia or China would also involve significant risk of nuclear escalation—a risk heightened, in Russia’s case, 

by Moscow’s emphasis on the limited use of nuclear weapons to intimidate the United States and NATO into ending a conflict on Russian 

terms. Even absent nuclear escalation, a conflict with Russia or China 

could involve attacks on U.S. space systems, which would profoundly 

disrupt the functioning of a society that is heavily dependent on satellite 

1. Losing Taiwan

In 2024, China undertakes a surprise attack to prevent Taiwan from declaring 

independence. As Chinese forces launch air and missile attacks, cripple the 

Taiwanese Navy, and conduct amphibious landings, it becomes clear that 

decisive U.S. intervention will be required. Unfortunately, America can no longer 

mount such an intervention at acceptable cost. China’s missile, air, surface, and 

undersea capabilities have continued to grow as U.S. defense spending has 

stagnated. Large parts of the Western Pacific have become “no-go” zones for 

U.S. forces. The Pentagon informs the President that America could probably 

defeat China in a long war, if the full might of the nation was mobilized. Yet it 

would lose huge numbers of ships and aircraft, as well as thousands of lives, in 

the effort, in addition to suffering severe economic disruptions—all with no 

guarantee of having decisive impact before Taiwan was overrun. Allowing Taiwan 

to be absorbed by the mainland would represent a crushing blow to America’s 

credibility and regional position. But avoiding that outcome would now require 

absorbing horrendous losses.

2. Nuclear Escalation with North Korea

In 2019, U.S.-North Korean tensions remain high over Pyongyang’s nuclear and 

missile programs. As a precaution, the President directs an orderly withdrawal of 

U.S. civilians from South Korea. Yet Kim Jong Un misinterprets this as prelude to 

war and strikes first. North Korean artillery hammers Seoul. Conventionally armed 

ballistic missiles strike ports, airfields, and U.S. military facilities in South Korea. As 

casualties mount, U.S. and South Korean leaders order operations to neutralize 

North Korea’s artillery, missile, and nuclear forces. As the conflict escalates, 

however, Kim concludes that his only chance of survival is to shock America into 

backing down. North Korea launches nuclear-armed ballistic missiles at the South 

Korean port of Busan and U.S. bases on Okinawa and Guam. As the U.S. 

President considers how to respond, Kim announces that if America does not 

accept an immediate cease-fire, North Korea will launch nuclear-tipped 

intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) at the continental United States—a threat 

against which U.S. missile defenses offer only uncertain protection. The President 

faces a terrible dilemma: risk devastating nuclear attacks on U.S. cities or let North 

Korea prevail.
16

communications; attempts to cut undersea fiber optic cables that are crucial to communications and commerce; and devastating cyberattacks on 

U.S. critical infrastructure (see Vignette 3). Finally, regardless of 

whether a war with Russia or China led to direct attacks on U.S. territory, winning such a conflict—particularly if it lasted months or years instead of days or weeks—would likely require a level of U.S. national 

industrial and public mobilization not experienced since the middle of 

the last century. It would also inflict devastating economic impacts on 

the United States and beyond.

Even short of such scenarios, the military and geopolitical changes 

described here are fraught with pernicious implications. America is 

already experiencing advanced cyberattacks conducted by rivals and 

adversaries—witness Russian intervention in U.S. electoral politics and 

the “wannacry” ransomware attacks perpetrated by North Korea in 2017. 

As regional military balances grow less favorable, American competitors 

will be better able to contest the freedom of the commons and establish 

intimidation and aggression as the coin of the geopolitical realm (see 

Vignettes 4 and 5). And as Russia and China gain greater influence 

within their regions, they may use those positions as spring-boards to 

contest U.S. leadership across the full range of its economic and security 

interests in ways not seen since the Cold War.

3. Domestic Chaos amid War with Russia

In 2019, NATO-Russia tensions ignite. Responding to false reports of atrocities 

against Russian populations in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, Russia invades 

those countries under guise of a “peacekeeping” mission. As U.S. and NATO 

forces prepare to respond, Russia declares that strikes against Russian forces in 

those states will be treated as attacks on Russia itself—implying a potential 

nuclear response. Meanwhile, to keep America off balance, Russia escalates in 

disruptive ways. Russian submarines attack trans-Atlantic fiber optic cables. 

Russian hackers shut down power grids and compromise the security of U.S. 

banks. The Russian military uses advanced anti-satellite capabilities to damage 

or destroy U.S. military and commercial satellites. The domestic consequences 

are severe. Major cities are paralyzed; use of the internet and smart phones is 

disrupted. Financial markets plummet as commerce seizes up and online 

financial transactions slow to a crawl. The banking system is thrown into chaos. 

Even as the U.S. military confronts the immense operational challenge of 

liberating the Baltic states, American society is suffering the devastating impact 

of modern conflict.
17

The United States is on the precipice of this future, but it can still act to 

secure its long-term advantages. Doing so will require the effective use 

of all elements of national power, with particular demands on the Department of Defense.

4. Losing Access to the South China Sea

The year is 2022. China has been deploying advanced military capabilities on land 

formations in the South China Sea for nearly a decade. Although America and its 

allies have decried China’s actions and increased the tempo of their own naval 

deployments, Beijing has gradually created a ring of military facilities that extends 

the reach of its naval, air, and amphibious forces. Amid tense U.S.-Chinese trade 

talks, China begins harassing commercial shipping in international waters that 

China claims as part of its exclusive economic zone. When the United States and 

its allies hesitate to challenge this behavior, an emboldened China then imposes 

heavy tolls on maritime traffic through the South China Sea and begins restricting 

transit by commercial vessels from America and other “unfriendly” nations. With 

14 percent of America’s maritime trade passing through the South China Sea, the 

economic effects are immediately felt in U.S. financial markets, consumer prices, 

and manufacturing and agricultural communities. America has fought to preserve 

freedom of the seas before. But now, the potential military costs of reversing 

China’s control over the South China Sea seem so high, and Washington 

confronts so many other global challenges, that America can only acquiesce.

5. Cyber Attacks in Conflict Short of War

Competition with Russia need not erupt into war for the impact to be profound. 

In 2020, mass protests against the authoritarian Lukashenko regime in Belarus 

prompt Russian intervention to “stabilize” that government. Because this marks 

the third time in 12 years Russia has invaded a neighboring country, America 

and its European allies impose harsh economic sanctions. Rather than backing 

down, Russia responds by exploiting U.S. vulnerabilities in cyberspace. 

Russian hackers launch massive cyberattacks on the U.S. electoral 

infrastructure in November, tampering with registration rolls and vote counts 

and thereby throwing the elections into chaos. Russia also launches targeted 

attacks against the U.S. electrical grid, leaving Cleveland and Syracuse without 

power for days. As the President weighs his options, his advisers warn that 

Russia can still escalate further in cyberspace—by attacking other power grids 

or the U.S. financial system. Moscow could also provoke a military crisis in the 

Baltic region, where it enjoys conventional dominance over outnumbered U.S. 

and NATO forces. America has seen the very fabric of its society and polity 

attacked, but struggles to find an effective response.
18

Chapter 2

Evaluating the National Defense Strategy

Although the NDS represents a constructive first step in responding to 

the crisis of national defense and generally sets appropriate goals, the execution of the strategy will likely be hindered by critical resource shortfalls and analytical gaps. After discussing the limitations of the NDS in 

this chapter, in subsequent chapters we outline how to build and sustain 

the force America needs.

Strengths and Weaknesses of the NDS

The Commission applauds the priority the NDS places on competition 

with China and Russia as the central dynamic in shaping and sizing U.S. 

military forces and in U.S. defense strategy more broadly. The military 

competitions with these two nations, each presenting its own challenges, 

are evident today and could further unfold in particularly worrisome 

ways. We also agree with one of the key assertions of the NDS—that 

U.S. forces must not only dominate key competitions with these two 

states, but must also succeed in the face of wide-ranging challenges from 

state and non-state actors alike, from combating gray-zone measures 

short of war to winning in high-intensity conflict. The goals of restoring 

readiness and “prioritiz[ing] preparedness for war” are sound and the 

Department of Defense must hold fast to them. We affirm the stress the 

NDS lays on strengthening existing U.S. alliances and partnerships, 

building or enhancing newer ones, and promoting “mutual respect, responsibility, priorities, and accountability” in all of these relationships. 

U.S. alliances and partnerships will continue to be critical to advancing 

American interests for the foreseeable future, and the Department is right 

to make this issue a top priority.

The Commission is nonetheless skeptical that DOD has the attendant 

plans, concepts, and resources needed to meet the defense objectives established in the NDS, and we are concerned that there is not a coherent 

approach for implementing the NDS across the entire DOD enterprise. In 

assessing this issue, the commissioners reviewed numerous classified 

documents, received briefings, and interviewed many DOD leaders. We 

came away troubled by the lack of unity among senior civilian and military leaders in their descriptions of how the objectives described in the 

NDS are supported by the Department’s readiness, force structure, and 

modernization priorities, as described in the Future Years Defense 
19

Program (FYDP) and other documents. The absence of well-crafted analytic products supporting the Department’s force sizing and shaping 

plans was equally notable.

The Commission also questions whether the desired outcomes of the 

NDS can be realized within anticipated resource constraints. Although 

the NDS lays out ambitious strategic and operational goals, which this 

Commission largely supports, to date this administration has proposed 

only modest increases in the defense budget and few major long-term capability initiatives. The Department has not clearly explained how it will 

implement the NDS with the resources available; in fact, many of the additional resources made available so far have been distributed uniformly 

across the defense bureaucracy so that “everybody wins,” rather than being strategically prioritized to build key future capabilities. Above all, 

none of the dramatic changes needed to effectively execute the strategy 

will be possible without substantial cultural change paired with in-depth 

civilian oversight.

Based on available information, the Commission judges that DOD is 

assuming too much risk in its approach to achieving its stated objectives 

and far greater risk than is publicly understood. The NDS states, “In wartime, the fully mobilized Joint Force will be capable of: defeating 

aggression by a major power; deterring opportunistic aggression elsewhere; and disrupting imminent terrorist and WMD threats.” Unacknowledged risk is built into the Department’s force construct and the 

resourcing of that force construct in six major ways. 

Competition against Russia and China

As we subsequently note in greater detail, DOD and the White House 

have not yet articulated clear operational concepts for achieving U.S. security objectives in the face of ongoing competition and potential military confrontation with China and Russia. While the NDS properly 

focuses on winning high-intensity conflicts and closing near-term capability gaps vis-à-vis China and Russia, DOD leaders had difficulty articulating how the U.S. military would defeat major-power adversaries 

should deterrence fail. The Department does not appear to have a plan 

for succeeding in gray-zone competitions against these actors, nor does 

the administration as a whole appear to have such an integrated plan. The 

United States is currently losing those competitions as Russia and China 

use measures short of war and employ multiple tools of statecraft to expand their influence and weaken U.S. alliances and partnerships. The 

NDS asserts that DOD will “expand the competitive space” but offers 

little evidence of how it will do so.
20

The NDS also states that DOD will plan to employ the force “unpredictably” or “creatively” at the operational level. Horizontal escalation is one 

example of such an approach. Based on analysis reviewed by the Commission, the deterrent or coercive value of this approach appears limited. 

If China attacked Taiwan or Russia attacked the Baltic states, for instance, it seems unlikely that the United States could force its adversary 

to back down by applying pressure—military or otherwise—in secondary areas. Moreover, while the creativity implicit in seeking to “expand 

the competitive space” is laudable, force employment must be firmly 

grounded in foreign policy goals set by the civilian leadership, and it 

must deliberately integrate political-military considerations in order to 

avoid unintended or counterproductive strategic effects. Civilian oversight should not be window-dressing in this process; it must entail the 

meaningful political-military guidance required by Congress and entrusted to the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD).

Under-Resourced Theaters

Because the United States remains a global power with global obligations, it must possess credible combat power to deter and defeat threats 

in multiple theaters in a timely manner. Indeed, given the presence of 

five serious adversaries, three with nuclear weapons, the United States 

must prepare—and resource—for multiple, near-simultaneous contingencies. Today, however, DOD is neither prepared nor resourced for such a 

scenario. The Department has largely abandoned the longstanding “twowar” construct for a “one major war” sizing and shaping construct. In the 

event of large-scale conflict with Russia or China, the United States may 

not have sufficient remaining resources to deter other adversaries in 

one—let alone two—other theaters by denying them the ability to 

accomplish their objectives without relying on nuclear weapons. The 

Department’s suggested means for addressing multiple contingencies—

minimizing involvement in the Middle East, deepening collaboration 

with allies and partners, and increasing the salience of nuclear 

weapons—are unlikely to solve the problem.

For instance, although multiple defense leaders referenced “accepting 

risk” in lower priority areas such as the Middle East, there was little consensus about what this means in practice. Questions remaining unanswered include which forces would be removed from the theater and 

what implications this would have for deterring and if necessary defeating Iran (now potentially operating outside the limitations on uranium 
21

enrichment contained in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) or dangerous terrorist organizations, competing with Russia, or sustaining ongoing operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.

Unanticipated Force Demands

The NDS emphasizes husbanding resources to build readiness for highintensity conflicts with China or Russia. Yet given the differing needs for 

forces across theaters, the challenges of projecting power over great distances, and the fact that the United States has rarely been able to predict 

precisely where or how adversaries will challenge its interests, the U.S. 

military will surely experience unanticipated force demands in coming 

years. This pressure will be particularly acute should there be a military 

crisis on the Korean Peninsula, should Iran intensify its proxy warfare 

(or worse) in the Middle East, or should there be a large-scale terrorist 

attack on the homeland. Following the U.S. departure from the Joint 

Comprehensive Plan of Action, for example, the potential for conflict in 

the Middle East—which was already rising—is probably greater than before. A contingency in the Middle East, on the Korean Peninsula, or elsewhere could consume resources and significantly hamper the U.S. 

military’s ability to prevail in a military confrontation or more intense 

gray-zone competition with China or Russia.

Unclear Concepts

“How” is as important as “how much” in setting U.S. defense strategy. 

Yet key concepts in the NDS—including deterrence and posture shifts 

like “dynamic force employment”—lack underlying analytics and maturity. For instance, the strategy does not explain the Department’s thinking on how the United States will deter threats in a second theater of 

operations. Due to the increased complexity of evolving domains such as 

cyber and space, the challenges of dealing with multiple rivals, and the 

reliance of countries such as Russia on highly escalatory approaches, 

which may include use or threatened use of nuclear weapons, the requirements for deterrence are significantly different today than during 

the Cold War or the early post-Cold War era. Deterring our rivals will be 

highly challenging. Although the NDS states that deterring adversaries is 

a key objective, there was little consensus among DOD leaders with 

whom we interacted on what deterrence means in practice, how escalation dynamics might play out, and what it will cost to deter effectively.

Similarly, the Department’s resolve to rely on a “Dynamic Force Employment” (DFE) model may be ill considered. DFE appears to refer to 

creating efficiencies within the force and decreasing the need to expand 
22

force structure by having a single asset perform multiple missions in different theaters on a near-simultaneous basis. Yet the United States must 

confront threats in both the Western Pacific and Europe, two very different theaters that require a significantly different type and mix of forces to 

best deter aggression and defeat the enemy if deterrence fails. (The likely 

force requirements for these theaters are discussed subsequently.) Moreover, successfully competing in Europe and the Indo-Pacific region, 

while also managing escalation dynamics, requires positioning substantial capability forward (in what the NDS calls the “blunt” layer) to deter 

and prevent a fait accompli by an agile, opportunistic adversary. Given 

the vast distances involved in reaching both theaters and beyond, DFE 

may simply place additional strain on already stretched logistics and 

transportation networks.

Unanticipated Resource Shortfalls

In 2017, both Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Chairman of the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford testified that the Pentagon 

required sustained three to five percent annual budgetary growth just to 

execute the defense strategy inherited from the previous administration. 

Although these estimates were provided prior to the finalization of the 

NDS, we believe they are generally reflective of the level of resources 

required to execute the ambitious strategy the NDS lays out. Yet based 

on DOD’s own projections, real budgetary growth will be essentially flat 

beyond FY2019. This creates high risk that the strategy will suffer from 

even greater resource shortfalls than those already identified. Should 

Congress fail to provide funding on a timely basis, resorting instead to 

the habitual use of short-term continuing resolutions, or should it fail to 

craft an additional bipartisan budget deal lifting the much lower caps imposed by the BCA for FY2020 and FY2021, resource shortfalls will be 

even more pronounced, making it impossible to achieve the goals outlined in the NDS.

Challenges Requiring More than DOD Capabilities

Many of the challenges the United States faces today are not purely military in nature and are not strictly the purview of the Department of Defense. Rather, American adversaries and rivals are using the full range of 

tools, from economic coercion to paramilitary action and information 

warfare, to accomplish their aims. As noted previously, many of these 

activities occur below the threshold of conventional war. Although the 

NDS (like this Commission’s report) is properly focused on defenserelated issues, the strategy it outlines is insufficient to protect U.S. 

interests from gray-zone competition and other threats that fall short of 
23

outright war or reside in the seams between bureaucratic jurisdictions. 

The United States could well lose the competitions and conflicts in 

which it is engaged today absent more cohesive, fully-resourced responses that reach across the various U.S. government departments and 

agencies, and across the many elements of American power: diplomacy, 

intelligence, economic statecraft, information warfare, and others.

Taken together, these risk factors and logic gaps leave us concerned that 

DOD will face serious challenges achieving the goals the NDS identifies. 

We therefore assess that the United States requires rapid and substantial 

improvements to its military capabilities, built on a foundation of compelling warfighting concepts at the operational level of war. This foundation must be built in the context of major-power competition, in which 

deterrence and assurance strategies will grow in importance and must be 

tailored to meet the specific requirements of particular rivalries and relationships. Due to the rapidly changing security environment and the impossibility of accurately foreseeing all future requirements, the 

commission recommends an emphasis on adaptability in force planning 

and a serious study of escalation dynamics. We now turn to a more detailed assessment of what will be necessary to sustain a strong and adequate defense, today and in the future.
24

Chapter 3

The Force We Need: Meeting Core Operational Challenges 

and Strengthening the National Security Innovation Base

Building a force that can protect American interests, security, and prosperity in a more complex and competitive world will require determined, 

ongoing efforts across a range of issues and challenges. It will entail a 

mix of near, medium, and long-term initiatives. Developing innovative 

operational approaches that can overcome difficult operational challenges and strengthening the National Security Innovation Base are imperative in addressing current and future threats.

Meeting Core Operational Challenges

The NDS lists a series of key operational challenges to focus U.S. defense investments. Unfortunately, DOD elected to classify those challenges. The Commission believes this limits needed public awareness 

and understanding, obscures the urgency of these challenges and makes 

it difficult for Congress and the broader defense community to discuss 

them, develop approaches to meeting them, and gauge progress in doing 

so. Our competitors are well aware of the challenges they are imposing 

as a result of their sustained and deliberate investment campaigns. We 

recommend strongly that DOD declassify the operational challenges alluded to in the 2018 NDS so that they can be used as a benchmark for 

measuring implementation of the strategy. For purposes of unclassified 

discussion, the Commission believes the following generally captures the 

challenges that exist:

 Protecting critical bases of operations, including the U.S. homeland, forces abroad, and allies and partners;

 Rapidly reinforcing and sustaining forces engaged forward;

 Assuring information systems in the face of attack and conducting

effective information operations;

 Projecting and sustaining U.S. forces in distant anti-access or areadenial environments and defeating anti-access and area-denial

threats;

 Deterring and if necessary defeating the use of nuclear or other

strategic weapons in ways that would fall short of justifying a

large-scale nuclear response;

 Enhancing the capability and survivability of space systems and

supporting infrastructure; and
25

 Leveraging information technology and innovative concepts to develop an interoperable, joint command, control, communications, 

computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) 

architecture and capability that supports warfare of the future. 

Many of these challenges are similar to the ones DOD identified before 

September 11, 2001, when they were largely prospective. Today, they 

are real. Nearly two decades on we find it notable that many of these 

challenges have informed U.S. defense strategy across multiple administrations, yet the position of the United States has eroded in most, if not 

all, of these areas.

As noted, the military balance in key regions has been shifting away 

from the United States and toward major-power competitors. Over the 

past two decades, while the United States was focused on counterterrorism and defeating insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, Russia and 

China were focused on acquiring capabilities to overcome America’s 

technological edge and operational reach. As a result, America has been 

losing its military advantage in a number of key warfighting areas, such 

as air and missile defense, anti-surface warfare, long-range ground-based 

fires, and electronic warfare. Many of the skills necessary to plan for and 

conduct military operations against a capable adversary, such as command and control of large forces and logistical support of large, highintensity operations, have also deteriorated. The United States now faces 

far graver challenges in projecting power and operating effectively in the 

Western Pacific and Eastern Europe. Moreover, the United States and its 

allies must increasingly account for Chinese and Russian activities and 

power-projection capabilities beyond their home regions. Major-power 

competition is a global challenge, not simply a regional one.

We recommend that U.S. defense investments emphasize achieving and 

maintaining a favorable military balance for the United States and its 

allies against China in the Indo-Pacific region and against Russia in 

Europe—and that those investments be focused on the 2018 Operational 

Challenges, represented by the challenges described previously. More 

specifically, we recommend that defense investments should seek to yield 

an expanded set of U.S. operational options while constraining those 

available to China and Russia. They should restore our momentum in 

competition with Beijing and Moscow, forcing them to bear considerable 

cost in response.
26

Operational Concepts

The NDS rightly notes the importance of developing innovative operational concepts to maximize the effectiveness of existing and emerging 

capabilities. Operational concepts provide the conceptual basis for planning at the theater or campaign level of war. They inform how joint and 

combined forces will operate to achieve strategic goals such as preserving a favorable military balance in the Western Pacific and Europe in the 

face of growing threats. Operational concepts offer solutions to major 

challenges to U.S. and international security and enable the formulation 

of military doctrine. In this way, operational concepts constitute an essential link between strategic objectives, defense policy, and budgetary 

priorities.

During the Cold War, the U.S. military developed detailed concepts for 

overcoming formidable operational challenges. One set of concepts focused on defending NATO’s European frontiers from a Soviet attack. 

The problem at that time centered on defeating a numerically superior 

foe while avoiding nuclear escalation. To address this problem, the Army 

cooperated with the Air Force to develop the AirLand Battle and FollowOn Forces Attack concepts, which focused on defeating successive echelons of Soviet forces. Mechanized formations would block the Soviet 

frontline forces’ advance; deep-strike forces, including combat aircraft, 

missiles, rocket artillery, and attack helicopters would break up the second and third waves. To ensure sufficient U.S. forces would be available, 

and to enable rapid reinforcement of NATO’s flanks, large quantities of 

equipment were pre-positioned in Western Europe and Norway. The 

Navy developed its Maritime Strategy and Outer Air Battle concepts to 

keep the Soviet fleet and aircraft bottled up and enable reinforcements to 

move safely by sea. The Marines planned to employ maneuver warfare 

concepts to secure NATO’s northern flank. These plans and concepts 

allowed DOD and Congress to establish clear defense program priorities.

Today, Russia and China are capable of challenging the United States, its 

allies, and its partners on a far greater scale than any adversary since the 

Cold War. These countries are also leveraging existing and emerging 

technologies to present U.S. forces with new military problems, such as 

China’s anti-access/area-denial capabilities and the Russian hybrid warfare approach employed in seizing eastern Ukraine. Detailed, rigorous 

operational concepts for solving these problems and defending U.S. interests are badly needed, but do not appear to exist.

We recommend that DOD more clearly answer the question of how it intends to accomplish a core theme of the NDS—defeating major-power 
27

rivals in competition and war. Without a credible approach to winning a 

war against China or Russia, DOD’s efforts will be for naught. Similarly, 

the United States needs plausible strategies and operational concepts—

that include but are not limited to efforts by the Department of Defense—

for winning competitions below the threshold of conventional war. DOD 

should identify what the United States seeks to achieve, explain how the 

United States will prevail, and suggest measures of effectiveness to mark 

progress along the way. It should also clarify ill-defined concepts like 

“expand the competitive space.” Of note, this effort should provide detail 

about how DOD plans to decrease its focus on the Middle East to support 

strategies and operational concepts focused on major-power competition 

and the risks it foresees such an approach entailing.

In addition, the United States must develop new operational concepts to 

achieve strategic advantage, including by addressing the ability of 

aggressive regimes to achieve a fait accompli against states on their 

periphery, or to use nuclear or other strategic weapons in ways that 

would fall short of justifying a large-scale U.S. nuclear response. Deterring and, if necessary, defeating Russia’s potential reliance on nuclear 

escalation to end a conflict on its own terms is both a particularly difficult and an extremely important operational problem. More broadly, 

potential adversaries are increasingly blurring lines between conventional, unconventional, and nuclear approaches; the United States needs 

concepts that account for an adversary’s early reliance on nuclear means 

and the blending of nuclear, space, cyber, conventional, and unconventional means in its warfighting doctrine. The United States has been 

responding—inadequately—to operational challenges posed by our competitors. We must reverse that paradigm and present competitors with 

challenges of our own making. Any new operational concepts must be 

rigorously validated through experimentation, exercises, and training, 

and subjected to the systematic analysis necessary to generate the associated time-phased force deployment data (TPFDD).

We also recommend that DOD establish cross-functional teams to integrate strategies and operational concepts. Congress mandated in the 

National Defense Authorization Act of 2017 that DOD use crossfunctional teams (CFTs) to take on some of its toughest challenges. The 

multi-dimensional challenges presented by competition from China and 

Russia are well suited to this approach. The Secretary should consider 

creating CFTs, which should be led by a civilian with a military deputy, 

to advise him on the global challenges posed by China and Russia and to 

integrate plans and solutions for advancing U.S. interests in the face of 

them.
28

National Security Innovation Base

Innovation is critical to overcoming operational challenges and positioning the U.S. military for success. In the past, research and development 

(R&D) investments leading to new innovations were primarily the purview of the government. Today, the U.S. private sector invests significantly greater amounts than the federal government in research and only 

a small portion of government investment goes to developing emerging 

technologies. At the same time, the emphasis for defense programs has 

been making the acquisition system function more smoothly rather than 

optimizing for innovation and technological breakthroughs. This has led 

to more innovation taking place outside of the government—in our commercial sector, universities, and R&D labs—making it increasingly difficult for DOD to access new technology quickly, if at all.

Making innovation accessible to the government is a critical issue that is 

recognized in the National Security Strategy (NSS) and the NDS, as well 

as by DOD leaders. Wisely, the NSS expands the traditional notion of 

the Defense Industrial Base to the National Security Innovation Base 

(NSIB). To better address this issue, however, a commitment to change 

is needed by all who participate in the governance of national security 

programs and budgets.

In support of the NDS, the Undersecretary for Defense for Research and 

Engineering (USD(R&E)) has established ten priority technology domains: hypersonics; directed energy; command, control, and communications; space offense and defense; cybersecurity; AI/machine learning; 

missile defense; quantum science and computing; microelectronics; and 

nuclear modernization. These are very similar to the “Vectors for Current and Future Modernization” the National Defense Panel identified in 

2014. The Commission is nonetheless concerned that our superiority in 

these areas is decreasing or has disappeared.

Our competitors, by contrast, are investing heavily in innovation (see 

Figure 3). China’s “Made in China 2025” initiative emphasizes areas of 

investment and development that very closely resemble the USD(R&E) 

priorities. As part of a whole-of-society approach that features strong 

collaboration between government and the commercial sector, China is 

focusing intensely on and devoting generous funding to technologies 

such as AI and synthetic biology. The Chinese government has announced it intends to lead the world in AI advancement by 2025. Beijing 

is also emerging as a global leader in critical areas such as FifthGeneration Long-Term Evolution (5G LTE) broadband wireless networks. Should Beijing become dominant in this area, it would not 
29

0

5 0

450

400

350

300250

200

150100

1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

United States of America China Russian Federation

In 1996, for every dollar Russia and China spent on 

research and development, the U.S. spent $8.21.

Using the same metric 20 years later, the U.S. only 

outspends our adversaries by 6 cents. Billions $ 

Source: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization R&D Database, IISS Military Balance and World Bank (for gross domestic product).

Figure 3. Annual Expenditure on Research and Development (Adjusted For Purchasing Power Parity)

Russia United States

Source: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization R&D Database, IISS Military Balance and World Bank (for gross domestic

product).
30

only enjoy great economic advantages. It would also gain strong geopolitical leverage over countries that become dependent on Chinese technology; it would reap tremendous military benefits in the form of 

enhanced awareness and freedom of maneuver, superior command and 

control, increased lethality, and improved ability to drive future military 

innovation. Moreover, China’s Belt and Road Initiative features enormous investments meant to strengthen Chinese influence and proliferate 

Chinese technology throughout Eurasia and Africa.

The contrast between Chinese and American investments in technology 

and manufacturing is stark. Since enactment of the BCA in 2011, the 

United States has lost roughly 17,000 prime defense vendors because of 

a lack of sufficient and predictable funding for defense. More broadly, an 

estimated 60,000 factories have closed, as China’s own national security 

innovation base has grown markedly. The cumulative result has been to 

significantly diminish the superiority in innovation and manufacturing 

that has long been critical to America’s military edge.

Furthermore, new technologies and capabilities, such as lethal autonomous weapons, biological applications, and AI require intensive attention and investment as they are introduced. Policymakers must consider 

whether to pursue these technologies without limit; develop capabilities 

to use in some future contingency; seek to develop arms control regimes; 

or perhaps seek a global ban on particular technologies. All of this 

requires addressing innovation in a more focused and sustained way.

There are several steps that should be taken to close the innovation gap. 

First, the United States must better protect and strengthen its own 

National Security Innovation Base. China has deliberately sought to 

erode our NSIB through predatory economic tactics that America should 

not emulate. Moreover, efforts to strengthen the NSIB often reside outside the strict purview of the Department of Defense. But if the United 

States does not protect sources of technological innovation and key areas 

of manufacturing capability and capacity, its ability to develop and sustain the means through which it pursues the NDS will be at risk. The 

U.S. government must give serious consideration to questions such as 

whether it should increase investment to preserve and strengthen industries that produce vital technology and components, and whether some 

selective economic disintegration with U.S. rivals—namely China—may 

be necessary to ensure that America is not dependent on those rivals for 

critical components of key systems and platforms. It will be necessary to 

intensify U.S. engagement with allies and partners regarding how to 

avoid excessive technological or economic dependence on rivals.
31

Additionally, DOD should broaden its efforts to find and incorporate 

new technologies developed commercially by the private sector. Established organizations like the Defense Advanced Research Projects 

Agency (DARPA), as well as the newer Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) 

and Defense Innovation Board, are focused on this task. The government 

R&D labs, University Affiliated Research Centers (UARCs), and Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) can play a 

greater role as well. All of these organizations are focused on helping 

DOD access the private sector to find and exploit new technologies. 

Making the most of these interactions will require DOD to be mindful of 

commercial interests and the globalization of supply chains, while working assiduously to expand relationships with firms and industries—

including some that have been ambivalent or reluctant about working 

with the U.S. government.

While innovation is a first step, what matters most is whether new technologies can be rapidly acquired and fielded to keep pace with changing 

threats. DOD has appropriately increased its focus on rapid prototyping 

and the military departments are striving to get prototypes out to operating forces for experimentation. Often, the forces keep the prototypes because they provide capability unavailable in existing programs. Yet if 

this approach provides advanced capabilities quickly, too frequently 

these prototypes are not accompanied by the sustainment, training, and 

integration into existing systems needed to provide enduring military 

advantage.

Congress and DOD must agree on new ways to more rapidly approve 

and acquire breakthrough technologies. There is a growing recognition 

of this need. With greater speed, however, comes the acceptance of risk 

and the need for more flexible budget authorities. Those have not yet 

been provided to DOD at the scale necessary. 

Longer-term innovation challenges also require attention. DOD will need 

to continue its history of envisioning, finding, developing, and fielding 

innovative technologies. Moreover, in some cases, only DOD will acquire these technologies in large quantities for extremely large programs 

such as those acquiring aircraft, ships, and satellites.

The Department should explore a new, narrowly tailored category of acquisition pilot programs that would push the boundaries on new technologies. This would not amount to wholesale reform of the acquisitions 

process. Rather, DOD would embark on this narrow category of programs with full acceptance of the cost and risk inherent in pursuing technological breakthroughs. To enable this approach, Congress and DOD 
32

would have to collaborate to establish particular acquisition authorities 

and waivers to Nunn-McCurdy rules.

This requires a change of mindset as well as a change of procedures and 

regulations. Currently, to be judged “successful,” a program needs to 

stay on-time and on-budget. Those budgets and schedules are estimated 

at the earliest stages of the acquisition cycle. The Department’s major acquisition programs are mostly meeting these requirements today, albeit 

with continuing need for aggressive oversight of major programs such as 

the Joint Strike Fighter and the new aircraft carrier. But what if DOD is 

not taking enough risk? If a realistic schedule and budget can be accurately predicted at the earliest stages of a program, how can that program 

be pushing new boundaries? Today’s programs are incrementally fielding new capabilities rather than leaping ahead. To sustain U.S. technological advantages, our national security community needs new 

approaches that support riskier, long-term acquisition programs in important new areas.
33

Chapter 4

The Force We Need: Force Priorities, Readiness, 

and Civil-Military Relations

Near- to Mid-Term Force Priorities

Innovative operational concepts and creative approaches to force development, design, structure, and acquisition are vital to sustaining critical 

U.S. military advantages. Some of these initiatives could produce immediate and important gains. Others, if allowed to mature, may yield benefits that will manifest over time. In the near- to mid-term, the 

Commission identified a variety of critical improvements to U.S. military posture and capabilities that are imperative for prevailing against our 

most pressing security challenges

Although the Commission lacked the means to perform the sustained 

analysis that we call on the Department of Defense to perform to better 

link strategy to operational concepts to force requirements, the improvements we recommend here are based on discussions with senior DOD 

leaders and a host of non-government experts. They are also based on 

briefings the Commission received associated with FFRDC-run wargames. Finally, these recommended improvements are based on the extensive experience and expertise that the members of the Commission 

collectively bring to bear.

Global Posture. Forward posture is a key component of deterring 

competitors and adversaries and assuring allies and partners. Military 

exercises, particularly joint exercises with allies and partners, reinforce 

commitments, create doubt in opponents’ minds, and ensure that the U.S. 

military has the warfighting capability it needs should a conflict erupt. 

Speed matters, and the ability to mobilize and move forces quickly is 

increasingly critical given that the most likely conflicts the United States 

would seek to deter or win might begin with a small confrontation that 

escalates quickly. This places a premium on the U.S. military’s ability to 

move in-theater forces quickly, protect emplaced and maneuvering 

forces, and rapidly deploy ready forces from other regions, including the 

United States. Moreover, once force posture is diminished or eliminated 

in key regions, it can be especially difficult to reestablish. In the 

European and Indo-Pacific theaters, where the United States confronts 

serious challenges from China, North Korea, and Russia, the value of 

forward posture is demonstrated every day. If the United States desires to 
34

avoid military conflict in these regions it should ensure there is a 

capable day-to-day posture in both theaters to deter adversaries and 

engage in prompt escalation control. At the same time, the United States 

must recognize that forward-deployed forces are increasingly vulnerable 

to attack and strive to make forward-deployed forces more resilient and 

survivable.

 Indo-Pacific. Of the five competitors and adversaries named in the 

NDS, four—China, North Korea, Russia, and terrorist groups—are 

active in the Indo-Pacific region. Deterring aggression in this region 

requires establishing a forward-deployed defense-in-depth posture. 

Protecting U.S. interests from China and Russia will require additional investment in the submarine fleet; intelligence, surveillance, 

and reconnaissance (ISR) assets; air defense; long-range strike platforms; and long-range ground-based fires. Deterring and, if necessary, 

defeating North Korea will demand additional air defense assets, as 

well as a sustained ground presence with the ability to quickly flow 

additional armored brigade combat teams (ABCTs), fires and combat 

engineer assets, and other capabilities into theater. Given the distances involved in the Indo-Pacific region, the United States will also 

need to expand and modernize its logistics capacity, particularly its 

tanker, strategic airlift, and military sealift fleets. Allies can be helpful 

in this context by investing in maritime domain awareness, undersea 

capabilities, missile defense, precision guided munitions, and cyber 

capabilities.

 Europe. The military challenges in Europe are no less serious. To deter a revanchist Russia, the United States and its NATO allies must 

rebuild military force capacity and capability in Europe. In terms of 

land forces, DOD should have a corps-level headquarters, or at least a 

division-level headquarters, to enhance operational command and 

control and provide additional capabilities in fires, aviation, combat 

engineering, air defense, and ABCTs. Over the long term, DOD 

should restore a heavy division to Europe, in addition to the existing 

Stryker Brigade Combat Team (BCT) and 173rd BCT, and invest in 

electronic warfare, netted intelligence and command and control. 

These improvements should be accompanied by significant improvements from NATO allies, particularly in such areas as expanding advanced munitions stocks and mobile, short-range air defense, as well 

as contributing more armored forces. Russia’s advanced air defense 

will also demand additional fifth-generation aircraft and ground-based 

long-range fires. To support those forces, control of the sea lines of 
35

communication is imperative. Accordingly, additional anti-submarine 

warfare capability is needed.

 Middle East. The demise of the core ISIS “caliphate” in Iraq and 

Syria is clearly a positive development, but in the near and mid-term, 

the United States will still need to conduct counterterrorism operations against the remnants of ISIS and other jihadist groups. Given 

Iranian hegemonic ambitions and influence in the Middle East, U.S. 

forces must also be poised to actively counter Iranian subversion and 

deter Iran and its proxies from overt military aggression. Additionally, Russia’s enduring military engagement in Syria and greater 

Chinese involvement throughout the region means that the Middle 

East will not be immune from major-power rivalry. Finally, 

Afghanistan will require a sustained U.S. military presence to prevent 

the country from once again becoming a safe haven for terrorists. In 

total, the Middle East will demand significant special operations 

forces, light attack aircraft, ISR assets, close air support, and securityforce advise-and-assist brigades for the foreseeable future. Carrierbased naval aviation and other advanced naval and air capabilities—

including surface warfare capabilities and fifth-generation aircraft—

may also be necessary to deter and if necessary defeat Iran, or project 

power into areas where other advanced militaries (such as Russia’s) 

operate. Thus, U.S. military posture in the Middle East should not become dramatically smaller, even though the precise mix of U.S. capabilities should be reexamined.

Priority Joint Force Enhancements. As the foregoing discussion of 

theater requirements underscores, the United States now faces five 

credible challengers, including two major-power competitors, and three 

distinctly different geographic and operational environments. This being 

the case, a two-war force sizing construct makes more strategic sense 

today than at any previous point in the post-Cold War era. Instead, the 

NDS adopts what is functionally a one-war force sizing construct and 

recommends only modest increases in force capacity, an approach that is 

likely to create severe strategic and operational vulnerabilities for the 

United States. Even if new technologies such as hypersonic weapons, AI, 

cyber, and autonomous systems eventually do change the face of 

warfare, in the near- and medium-term conventional capacity will still 

matter greatly in fighting and deterring conflict. Consequently, although 

further capability and posture enhancements are necessary, they are 

likely to be insufficient to meet America’s strategic challenges. As the 

old adage goes, “Quantity has a quality all its own.” Simply put, the 
36

United States needs a larger force than it has today if it is to meet the 

objectives of the strategy.

 Army. The United States will need capacity enhancements in the 

Army. More armor, long-range fires, engineering, and air-defense 

units are required to meet the ground-heavy challenges posed by 

Russia in Eastern Europe and while maintaining a robust deterrent to 

aggression on the Korean Peninsula. In the event of conflict with 

China, additional air-defense and logistical forces will be necessary to 

support Air Force operations. Army forces also remain very much engaged in a war in Afghanistan, which—despite often being forgotten 

or overlooked today—will place further stress on existing structure.

 Navy. The Navy, likewise, will have to grow. As China and, to a 

lesser extent, Russia invest in their undersea capabilities, the United 

States must expand its submarine fleet. Yet the NDS and associated 

shipbuilding plan do not provide for that growth; under current plans, 

there will actually be a reduction in the number of submarines over 

the next decade. Moreover, to project and sustain combat power into 

the Western Pacific and other theaters, the Navy must dramatically recapitalize and expand its military sealift forces.

 Air Force. Regardless of where the next conflict occurs or which adversary it features, the Air Force will be at the forefront. It will need 

more stealthy long-range fighters and bombers to penetrate advanced 

enemy air defenses, as well as more tankers to refuel them and allow 

them to operate at longer ranges. It will need additional lift capacity, 

especially if the United States intends to project power across the Pacific. Above all, it will need more intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms to give commanders the information they 

need to fight and win.

 Marine Corps. Finally, as the world remains unpredictable and the 

threat of terrorism endures, the United States will need a premier expeditionary, rapid-response force, so it should maintain the Marine 

Corps at no less than its current size.

 Cyber. America confronts cyberattacks from state adversaries on a 

daily basis, will remain vulnerable to such attacks in the coming 

years, and will continue to face cyberattacks from non-state actors. 

Protecting U.S. cyber networks and infrastructure, and deterring and 

responding to attacks by U.S. adversaries, are critical. Presently, 

America’s cyber posture and activities are hampered by debates over 

authorities and jurisdictional boundaries. These issues have lingered 

through several administrations and must be addressed to make the 

United States more competitive. The administration and Congress 
37

should evaluate what operational flexibility is required to ensure the 

United States can act in ways that are agile, but also prudent, in support of its broader national security goals. The United States should 

also lead efforts to establish international norms in cyberspace.

To facilitate this process, Congress should appoint a high-level commission to review U.S. cyber policy, particularly relevant authorities 

and organizational relationships and responsibilities within the U.S. 

government. That commission should offer recommendations on how 

to streamline decision-making and bureaucratic processes so as best 

to protect American interests, deter or respond to malign actions, and 

still protect civil liberties. It should feature significant input from 

DOD and other departments and agencies whose missions may be affected by the findings.

 Nuclear. Successive secretaries of defense from both Republican and 

Democratic administrations have identified nuclear deterrence as the 

Department’s number one priority. Given increased competition from 

nuclear-armed competitors and the need for a robust deterrent, the 

United States remains committed to the bipartisan nuclear modernization program of record outlined in the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review 

(NPR), and especially to modernizing the triad of bombers, ICBMs, 

and ballistic missile submarines. This triad, plus dual-capable tactical 

aircraft, presents insurmountable targeting challenges for adversaries, 

imposes disproportionate costs on adversary defenses, and hedges 

against unforeseen geopolitical or technological changes. In addition, 

it is urgently necessary to rationalize and modernize the supporting 

nuclear infrastructure, including the national laboratories and the nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) network, which 

is critical to ensuring U.S. leaders remain situationally aware and in 

control of the nuclear arsenal in all situations.

With all legs of the triad, as well as much of the supporting infrastructure, approaching the ends of their service lives, nuclear modernization must receive sustained and predictable funding from Congress. 

Sustained and predictable funding is equally important to sustaining 

the portion of the defense industrial base devoted to nuclear matters. 

As discussed in Chapter 5 triad modernization should not be sacrificed to pay for conventional force investments. At its peak, planned 

spending on nuclear modernization, operations, and sustainment 

should consume just 6.4 percent of the defense budget. And as the 

NPR states, “Given the criticality of effective U.S. nuclear deterrence 

to the assurance of allies, and, most importantly, the safety of the 
38

American people, there is no doubt that these programs are both necessary and affordable.”

We are concerned by the disequilibrium between the aging of 

America’s nuclear arsenal and our rivals’ vigorous modernization 

programs. Further, it is clear that U.S. competitors have not followed 

America’s lead in decreasing the role and number of nuclear weapons 

in their defense strategies. Russia and China are both years into thoroughgoing nuclear modernization programs and have been thinking 

creatively about how to employ nuclear weapons for deterrence and 

coercion. U.S. policies have remained appropriately restrained in 

response—they have not lowered the U.S. threshold for nuclear use 

but sought to raise our competitors’ thresholds. Because the strategic 

environment can change rapidly, U.S. leaders must prioritize adaptability in U.S. nuclear forces to meet shifting deterrence requirements. 

Decisions made today will have strategic effects well into the 2070s 

and 2080s. We believe that the 2018 NPR offers an appropriate option for meeting U.S. nuclear deterrence and assurance requirements 

in this era of major-power rivalry, and we urge DOD to proceed 

along the path the NPR lays out.

 Space. During the Cold War, space was an arena of intense majorpower competition. Subsequently, the lack of a peer competitor produced a casual assumption of U.S. space dominance and diminished 

attention to potential rivalries in space. Today, however, the United 

States is again competing with major-power rivals, and space is once 

again—and will remain—a critical and an increasingly contentious 

domain.

This poses real challenges for the U.S. military. In recent decades, the 

U.S. military has become increasingly dependent on space-based assets across the full spectrum of conflict. Access to space underpins 

our ability to project power globally, strike targets precisely, and discern and respond to threats before they endanger the homeland or 

U.S. global interests. Yet space has also become a far more crowded 

and competitive domain. Other nations have noted the military and 

economic advantages space provides to the United States. Some have 

attempted to replicate U.S. space capabilities; others have developed 

counterspace capabilities to reduce or eliminate U.S. advantages. 

China and Russia are pursuing both strategies. Their technical advances have made U.S. space systems and vehicles more vulnerable 

to kinetic and non-kinetic attacks that can degrade or destroy important U.S. capabilities. At the same time, the increasing role of the 

private sector is changing the economic and business dimensions of 
39

space exploration and exploitation and further challenging U.S. dominance. The United States needs a space posture suited to an era of 

major-power competition.

This administration and Congress deserve credit for elevating this 

critical national security issue. DOD recently issued a report to Congress on the Organization and Management Structure for the National 

Security Components of the Department of Defense. Congress has yet 

to respond to the Department’s recommendations. This Commission 

believes there must be greater urgency in devising a coherent and coordinated space strategy.

As the United States rethinks how it approaches space, it should emphasize five themes: technology, policy, organization, communication, 

and cooperation. First, regarding technology, DOD should strengthen 

research on and acquisition of key capabilities, particularly space vehicles and launch systems. Second, regarding policy, there must be a 

higher level of clear accountability and oversight within the Office of 

the Secretary of Defense, commensurate with the complexity and importance of the problem. Third, regarding organization, the United 

States must develop a space cadre that ensures an enduring focus on 

space capabilities and unmatched competence in this area. Because 

the organizational issues in this area are complex, any proposed 

changes should identify new seams between existing organizations 

and bureaucratic jurisdictions; consider when space would be in a 

supported or supporting role; explore how and whether the spacebased capabilities resident in the intelligence agencies should be integrated with military space organizations; examine how to optimize 

the costs and overhead of creating new organizational structures; and 

consider how to strike the balance between operational control and 

man, train, and equip functions.

Fourth, although much of the space portfolio is classified, there is a 

pressing need for more communication and public awareness regarding the challenges we face. Those challenges must be brought into the 

open through appropriate public release of information. Fifth, regarding cooperation, DOD should re-examine existing protocols and 

agreements with allies and partners so it can aggressively pursue 

modifications to enhance collective space capabilities. Space, after 

all, is not simply the domain of the U.S. military or the U.S. government. It is a global domain, one with no borders or territory and one 

where steps taken by a single actor can affect all others that use the 

domain. By emphasizing the five themes outlined here, the United 

States can improve its ability to compete and deter malign activities in 
40

space and become sufficiently resilient that the military and economic 

effects on Earth are minimized should deterrence fail.

 Missile Defense. Missile defense is foundational to U.S. deterrence 

and assurance strategies. As the missile threat to the U.S. homeland 

from North Korea and Iran grows, and as Russia and China modernize their nuclear arsenals and conventional strike forces, the United 

States will need effective, integrated, and credible missile defenses to 

deter American adversaries. It will also need those defenses to assure 

U.S. allies and partners that America itself will not be deterred from 

aiding them in the event of conflict. U.S. missile defense strategy 

therefore should prioritize increasing the reliability and survivability 

of current defenses, fielding a resilient space-based sensor layer, 

providing persistent surveillance of missile threats, moving to a more 

resilient and proliferated space architecture, developing non-kineticbased defenses, investing in directed energy and hypervelocity projectiles, and assuring communications in a degraded environment. 

Whereas competitors’ missile programs have imposed costs on us, by 

forcing the United States to spend increased resources on missile defenses, we should look to new missile defense technologies as a way 

of imposing costs on our competitors.

To ensure an adequate defense, the highest levels of the Department 

must actively ensure the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) retains its 

special acquisition authorities (while preserving the appropriate level 

of oversight), until broader DOD acquisition authorities have recovered the ability to act with sufficient nimbleness to support innovation 

in this critical area. 

The Commission recommends that a senior official in OSD (e.g., the 

Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering) should be 

designated by the Secretary of Defense with the complete authority—

including budgetary authority—and responsibility for developing and 

implementing an integrated, long-term plan for acquisition and development of air and missile defense capability. To avoid redundancies 

and inefficiencies, and to ensure our defenses outpace evolving 

threats, DOD must operate according to a single, unified vision of air 

and missile defense goals and plans. In support of this vision, we recommend that the Secretary finally implement the original mission for 

the MDA by transferring to the military services the responsibility 

and resources for post-research, development, test, and evaluation 

(RDT&E) acquisition of current and future missile defense systems. 

Finally, the United States should invest in research and development 
41

to anticipate future threats, operate effectively from space, and enhance resiliency against kinetic and non-kinetic attack.

 Electronic Warfare. Electronic warfare capabilities will be critical in 

any future conflict, especially those against major-power rivals. U.S. 

competitors have invested heavily in electronic warfare as a way of 

neutralizing U.S. advantages, undermining U.S. command, control, 

and communications, and weakening America’s ability to project 

decisive military power in contested environments. Russia and China 

have made particularly significant strides in this area. DOD must 

enhance its electronic warfare capacity and capability to allow the 

United States to overcome adversary electronic warfare investments, 

and to degrade and defeat advanced anti-access/area denial 

capabilities and adversary command, control, and communications 

architectures.

 Munitions. Nearly any conflict between the United States and its most 

capable competitors would entail significant demand for long-range, 

high-precision munitions so that U.S. forces can remain outside the 

range of advanced air defense systems and other anti-access/areadenial capabilities. (Large quantities of shorter-range high-precision 

munitions will be needed, as well.) Illustrative capabilities include the 

Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range (JASSM-ER), 

Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), and a longer-range HighSpeed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM). Current and planned DOD 

investments promise some gains in this area, but more must be done 

to ensure a substantial, sustainable, and rapidly scalable supply of 

preferred weapons. To this end, DOD should also explore options for 

strengthening the part of the National Security Innovation Base that 

produces high-precision munitions to ensure that the country has the 

surge capacity needed to prevail in high-intensity conflict.

 Mobility. Because the U.S. military must project power over vast distances, strategic mobility is fundamental to the American way of war. 

The NDS places an extraordinary premium on mobility and then proposes managing that demand through a Dynamic Force Employment 

model that envisions shifting assets rapidly across theaters. The Commission, however, has serious reservations about DOD’s ability to 

support its global operations, particularly in the event of a highintensity contingency or multi-theater operations. Inadequate lift and

tanker support, a lack of secure communications, and insufficient capabilities and infrastructure are impeding strategic mobility. The 
42

investments U.S. competitors have made in overseas infrastructure—

and, in some cases, their growing ability to target U.S. strategic mobility assets—worsen this trend. The Department must invest in a 

more resilient and secure logistics and transportation infrastructure, 

especially if it chooses to rely on DFE. Those investments should be 

rooted in a systematic study of U.S. Transportation Command’s 

(TRANSCOM’s) capabilities, capacity, and command structure, and 

the extreme logistical and transportation demands that would be imposed by key contingencies. The Department should also consider 

whether there is a sufficiently strong “logistics voice” within the 

Office of the Secretary of Defense given the recent restructuring of 

that office.

 Analytical Support. Making informed decisions about strategic, operational, and force development issues requires a foundation of stateof-the-art analytical capabilities. If DOD is to make such decisions 

with appropriate rigor, it will be critical to revitalize analytical support for the Secretary of Defense. Throughout our work, we found 

that DOD struggled to link objectives to operational concepts to capabilities to programs and resources. This inability is simply intolerable 

in an organization with responsibility for tasks as complex, expensive, 

and important as the Department of Defense. It hampers the Secretary’s ability to design, assess, and implement the NDS, and it makes 

it difficult for Congress to have faith that the administration’s budget 

request supports its strategy.

This deficit in analytical capability, expertise, and processes must be 

addressed. OSD-Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) 

and the Joint Staff—working closely with OSD-Policy—must rebuild 

their decision support capability to ensure that the Secretary and Deputy Secretary can make hard decisions grounded in expert analysis, 

particularly as they consider the warfighting return on investments. 

Specifically, the Department needs a rigorous force development plan 

that connects its investment strategy with its key priorities of winning 

in conflict and competing effectively with China and Russia. That 

plan must have a clear force sizing construct to illuminate the strategy’s ambition and risks. Such a force development architecture 

should provide answers to the following questions:

- What are our objectives?

- What operational concepts will animate how we plan to deter 

and fight?

- How might operational concepts, force posture, and attendant capabilities be tailored to specific regional and functional contexts?
43

- What assumptions is DOD making about multi-theater demands 

in timing, scale, and other key aspects? How is DOD hedging 

against the possibility that these assumptions may not prove out?

- If the United States finds itself in conflict in a first theater, what 

constitutes “deterrence” in the second theater and how does it 

change the force requirements projected prior to the NDS’s release (i.e., under the previous defense strategy)?

- How do component program priorities reflect these assessments?

- What role do strategic nuclear forces and allies and partners play 

in meeting the strategy’s objectives?

Addressing these issues will be essential to meeting the key challenges 

the NDS identifies. We encourage Congress to seek answers to these 

questions through its oversight tools.

Readiness

The readiness of U.S. forces to conduct operations promptly, effectively, 

and safely is a crucial component of America’s national security. When 

developing budgets, readiness must be balanced with the size of the 

force, modernization strategies, and levels of personnel compensation required to maintain a high-quality force. Readiness is highly sensitive not 

just to the level of resources provided by Congress, but also to the timeliness and predictability of that funding, as well as how the services measure readiness and the practices they adopt to achieve it.

The readiness of our forces has suffered in recent years, due to unfettered 

high demand on a smaller force, persistent budgetary uncertainty, and inadequate funding. Evidence of this can be found in the testimony of the 

Joint Chiefs over many years, as well as in increases in mishap rates, including aviation accidents and collisions at sea. The Commission therefore applauds the efforts of the Secretary of Defense, the services, and 

the entire Department of Defense to improve the readiness of U.S. 

forces. The Commission strongly supports those efforts and does not believe DOD requires detailed guidance on how best to do so, provided 

other issues raised in this chapter are addressed.

It has long been the Department’s practice not to send into harm’s way 

men and women who are not properly trained and ready for their mission. But the broader and more demanding those missions are—particularly in dealing with major-power adversaries—the more difficult that 

commitment becomes to fulfill, as it entails more extensive training for a 

higher percentage of the force. U.S. forces will therefore need additional 

resources to train to high levels of proficiency across a broader range of 
44

more complex missions than in the recent past. Each of the five major 

challenges identified in the NDS—China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and 

terrorist groups—requires our forces to train and be proficient in different capabilities, tactics, and techniques. Additional resources will also be 

needed to support the exercises and experiments needed to develop and 

refine innovative operational concepts and incorporate them into doctrine. Furthermore, training for gray-zone operations will require doctrine and scenarios that go beyond military operations. Interagency 

involvement in such training will be greater than has been the case for 

counterinsurgency missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. We recommend that 

the Department develop analytic tools that measure readiness across 

this range of challenges, from low-intensity, gray-zone conflicts to protracted, high-intensity fights with major-power rivals.

In training for these missions, the Department must overcome what the 

NDS labels “the impact on current readiness from the longest continuous 

stretch of armed conflict in our Nation’s history.” For over a decade, and 

with good reason, training for much of our conventional and special operations forces emphasized the specific challenges of operations in 

Afghanistan and Iraq. The Commission thus supports the view that major-power competition should be at the center of the Department’s strategy as well as its budget, and that a greater share of training and 

readiness efforts must be devoted to the full range of potential missions 

our forces face.

DOD must simultaneously overcome years of unprecedented budgetary 

turmoil. This turmoil has included multiple government shutdowns and 

near-shutdowns, nine consecutive years beginning under either shutdowns or short-term continuing resolutions that have consumed over 

one-third of the time available to plan and execute readiness activities, 

the defense caps within the BCA, the application of sequestration, and 

unpredictable budget top-lines (see Figure 4).
45
46

We address the issue of resources in more detail in the next chapter. Here 

it is simply important to note that resources alone rarely cause, and cannot in isolation cure, a readiness problem. Readiness is a complex function of having the right people with the right tools and training, led by 

people who themselves have had the proper experience and leadership 

development. Lost time and missed opportunities to develop doctrine and 

experience over a wide range of operations cannot be bought back just 

by adding more funds. Nevertheless, the Commission emphasizes that 

sufficient funding—provided on a timely, consistent basis—is imperative 

to address current readiness challenges. We recommend that Congress 

work with the Department to ensure a level of funding adequate to execute the NDS, and that it take steps to ensure such funding is not held 

hostage to budgetary unpredictability. One concrete step would be for 

Congress to authorize DOD to expend Operations and Maintenance 

funds from any given fiscal year during that fiscal year and the subsequent one.

The Commission is also concerned that the rates of attrition and consumption involved in the conflicts the NDS prioritizes are not adequately 

appreciated. As recently as 2015, the Air Force ran dangerously low on 

Hellfire missiles due to the vigorous campaign against ISIS. As the Air 

Force sought to replenish those stocks, it found that the existing munitions manufacturing capacity could barely meet the need. As noted, the 

kind of campaigns envisioned by the NDS will require preferred munitions in enormous quantities, with an underlying manufacturing capacity 

that can sustain those campaigns. As a result, it seems likely that the 

United States needs to expand its defense industrial base in some sectors, 

while also increasing preparations to mobilize that base in the event of 

war.

Perhaps most importantly, the Commission believes that the most critical 

resource required to produce a highly capable military force is highly capable people willing to serve in the numbers required. That requirement 

will only loom larger in the future, because it will be necessary to increase the size of the force while also developing the ability to overcome 

new operational challenges and execute innovative operational concepts.

Current trends, however, indicate that the number of people who have 

the required fitness and propensity to serve is in decline. In April 2018, 

service personnel chiefs testified that only one in four 17-to-24 year-olds 

meets the criteria to enlist in the military. This is due to several factors, 

including the rise in obesity, existing criminal records, and failure to 

meet basic educational requirements. Manpower challenges are further 
47

complicated by the fact that, among those eligible for service, only one 

in four exhibits the propensity to serve. This, too, is a result of many factors, including misinformed impressions of military service and benefits 

and a lack of exposure to positive advocates for military service.

These factors present a very serious challenge to the execution of the 

NDS. Programs to address issues such as shortcomings in physical fitness, nutrition, and general educational preparation in our national 

school-age population are not part of the Department’s role in U.S. government or society. Nevertheless, it is clear that DOD and Congress 

must take creative steps to address those aspects of the problem that are 

within their purview, rather than relying solely on ever-higher compensation for a shrinking pool of qualified volunteers. Without a marked 

change in the way America approaches the idea of military service and 

the fitness and education of future generations, DOD will struggle to fill 

its ranks with highly qualified individuals, with profound implications 

for national security.

Civil-Military Relations

Constructive approaches to addressing any of the challenges the U.S. 

military confronts must be rooted in healthy civil-military relations. In 

the course of its evaluation, however, the Commission was struck by the 

relative imbalance of civilian and military voices on critical issues of 

strategy development and implementation. We came away with a troubling sense that civilian voices were relatively muted on issues at the 

center of U.S. defense and national security policy, undermining the concept of civilian control. Strong civilian oversight is the central hallmark 

of the U.S. civil-military relations, codified in the Constitution and embraced throughout the nation’s legislative history. The implementation of 

the NDS must feature empowered civilians fulfilling their statutory 

responsibilities.

One area where an increased civilian voice appears particularly important is integrating responses to global challenges, particularly as that 

task relates to force management. The Secretary should have a robust 

and capable civilian staff with regular opportunities to advise him on 

these issues. For “Global Integration” to work well, DOD should ensure 

a substantial civilian oversight role to facilitate consideration of politicalmilitary issues at key junctures. Put simply, allocating priority—and 

forces—across theaters of warfare is not solely a military matter. It is an 

inherently political-military task, decision authority for which is the 

proper competency and responsibility of America’s civilian leaders, informed by the counsel they receive from military leadership.
48

According to Title 10 of the U.S. Code, the Secretary of Defense is the 

“principal assistant to the President in all matters relating to the Department of Defense,” and has “authority, direction, and control over the Department of Defense.” These Title 10 responsibilities, as well as the 

specific Title 10 responsibilities of the Under Secretary of Defense for 

Policy to guide and review war plans, are particularly meaningful here. 

Unless Global Integration is nested under higher-order guidance from civilians, an effort to centralize defense direction under the Chairman of 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff may succeed operationally but produce 

profound—and potentially catastrophic—strategic problems. For DFE 

and Global Integration to work well, the Department must give serious 

thought to decision-making processes that highlight the relevant 

political-military dynamics of force management shifts in addition to the 

direct impacts on readiness and other opportunity costs (e.g., in the “losing” theater). The Commission urges the Secretary of Defense and Under 

Secretary of Defense for Policy to exercise fully their Title 10 responsibility for preparing guidance for and reviewing contingency plans. In 

particular, we view the Contingency Planning Guidance and the plans 

that result from it as vital to implementing the NDS and we urge the Secretary to give these documents close attention. 

The Commission also recommends that Congress ensure thorough oversight of the Department’s civil-military relations. The issue here is not 

that the existing Title 10 responsibilities of the Secretary and his civilian 

advisers are inadequate, but that they have not been used effectively, and 

that responsibility on key strategic and policy issues has increasingly migrated to the military. Congress has provided the Secretary of Defense 

with significant discrimination to manage and direct the Department, but 

it has also levied specific requirements for civilian oversight. It should 

hold the Secretary accountable for the Department meeting the spirit and 

the letter of these Title 10 requirements. In doing so, Congress will help 

uphold the authority of civilian leaders and reverse the unhealthy trend in 

which decision-making is drifting increasingly toward the military on 

issues of national importance.
49

Chapter 5

Funding the Force We Need

“Strategy wears a dollar sign,” the strategist Bernard Brodie wrote: The 

United States will only have as much military strength and security as it 

is willing to pay for. Military effectiveness is about far more than having 

enough funding and forces, of course, but these are necessary—if not 

sufficient—components of an effective defense. Although the NDS generally reflects the right priorities and objectives, it is not supported by 

adequate investments. It is beyond the scope of this Commission’s work 

to identify the exact dollar amount required to fully fund the military’s 

needs, but the available means are clearly insufficient to fulfill the 

strategy’s ends.

This is true despite the two-year funding increase for FY2018 and 

FY2019 provided by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018. Although that 

increase provides a healthy initial down payment on the defense strategy, 

a number of factors—the lack of planned real budgetary growth beyond 

this two-year period, the continuation of the BCA caps through FY2021, 

and the threat of unpredictable and delayed funding due to a persistent 

failure to pass year-long appropriations in a timely fashion—combine to 

place the strategy in jeopardy. Without a long-term commitment to 

providing additional resources, and without greater stability and predictability in how those resources are provided, DOD will be unable to execute the existing strategy. The details of defense budgeting may seem 

arcane, but the basic point is simple: If the United States does not adequately fund its military now and in the future, it risks forfeiting any 

near-term financial savings with vast long-term costs in blood, security, 

and treasure.

The Lingering Impacts of the BCA

A significant part of the resourcing challenge DOD faces today can be 

traced back to the effects of the BCA. The BCA was passed into law in 

August 2011, a time when many observers expected an extended period 

of U.S. military retrenchment following the most intensive phases of 

long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Within three years, however, ISIS 

had established a caliphate following the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, 

Russia had invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea, and China had intensified its drive for dominance in the South China Sea and undertaken a 

more ambitious global strategy. Meanwhile, U.S. spending caps remained in force. Despite periodic agreements to raise the defense topline, 
50

funding for America’s military failed to keep pace with changing security challenges.

Resources are always constrained to some degree, of course. Yet the inflexible limits of the BCA—and the havoc wreaked by start-and-stop 

funding and a reliance on continuing resolutions in place of year-long or 

multi-year budgets—are contrary to effective and efficient long-term 

planning. Under the Obama administration, the military had difficulty 

carrying out the more modest objectives of its defense strategy even with 

the additional resources provided by periodic modifications to the BCA 

caps. The current NDS, with its emphasis on competition against majorpower rivals, will require more than marginal increases to the defense 

budget. 

If artificial spending constraints and continuing resolutions were thus 

harmful before the new strategy was issued, they are downright reckless 

today. Budget Control Act (BBA) 2018 is a step in the right direction, 

but it does not fully fund the NDS for the long-term. Even factoring in 

the $237 billion in cumulative defense funding recovered by that agreement plus two earlier bipartisan agreements in 2013 and 2015, the BCA 

still resulted in a net $539 billion in cuts to base national defense spending between 2012 and 2019, relative to Secretary of Defense Robert 

Gates’s final spending plan before the BCA became law (see Figure 5). 

According to the Pentagon’s most recent projections, spending in 

FY2020 and beyond would exceed Gates’s plan, but only barely. If 

spending continued at a constant rate, it would take roughly two decades 

to fully offset the funding lost under the BCA. Furthermore, the Department’s envisioned funding levels beyond FY2019 may be excessively 

optimistic. The BCA remains law into 2021, meaning a final two-year 

budget agreement will be required to avert a reversion to BCA cap levels, which are much lower than what the Department is expecting. Without such a deal, the Defense Department could face an additional $171 

billion in base budget shortfalls in FY2020 and FY2021. 

There must be greater urgency in addressing the damage caused by the 

BCA. Recognition, on the part of the Congress and the White House’s 

Office of Management and Budget, that any strategy should be adequately resourced is overdue. One important signal of this recognition 

would be bipartisan agreement to eliminate the final two years of spending caps under the BCA.
51

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 illions $ B

$53 billion gained, 

FY20―21$1.02 trillion planned cuts,FY12―21$539 billion actual cuts,FY12―19

2022

Actual BCA caps

 720

 670 620

 570

 520

 470

 420

Years

2019 DOD Budget Gates Plan Sequestration BCA Caps

Gates Plan

Sequestration BCA Caps

2019 DOD Budget

If spending continued at the 2022 rate, it would take another 19 years to reverse all 

the Budget Control Act’s cuts

Figure 5. Base 050 Spending Under the Budget Control Act
52

The Need for Additional Funding 

to Execute the NDS

Eliminating the final two years of BCA caps would be helpful but is not 

enough to adequately fund U.S. defense strategy. Although the NDS emphasizes strategic and military competition with China and Russia, the 

administration’s proposed budgets for FY2019 and beyond do not fund a 

level of military capacity and capability adequate to defeat either adversary should war occur while deterring other enemies simultaneously.

In 2017, Secretary Mattis and Chairman Dunford testified to Congress 

that DOD required three to five percent annual budgetary growth (in 

inflation-adjusted terms) if the U.S. military was not to lose its ability to 

project power and uphold alliance commitments. Although this number 

is more illustrative than definitive, and although these estimates were 

provided prior to the conclusion of the process that produced the current 

defense strategy, it is nonetheless indicative of the level of investment 

needed to meet the ends the NDS establishes. The need for sustained 

budgetary growth remains, and we are deeply troubled by the lack of 

such growth in the Department’s five-year budget plans (see Figure 6).

If this shortfall is not corrected, the Department may find itself able to 

prosecute just one conflict successfully, without the ability to simultaneously deter other adversaries. Given that the United States could plausibly face threats from both Russia and China at once, given the persistent 

dangers posed by North Korea and Iran, and given that the U.S. military 

will also continue to face challenges that require enduring effort in the 

Middle East, this outcome entails an intolerable level of national risk. 

The United States may find itself confronted with agonizing choices: 

abandoning commitments in other theaters to focus on one, mobilizing 

American society to a degree not currently envisioned in order to meet 

simultaneous threats, or relying on high-risk strategies including nuclear 

escalation to avoid conventional defeat.

Congress should increase the size of the base defense budget significantly through the Future Years Defense Program and perhaps beyond. 

We believe that three to five percent annual real growth is indicative of 

the investment required. Failing that, it may be necessary to alter the expectations of U.S. defense strategy and our global strategic objectives.
53

925

875

825775

725

675

625

575

2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

Enacted Spending Through BBA18 5% Real Growth 3% Real Growth McCain Plan 2012 (Pre-BCA) Plans Trump's 2019 FYDP Obama's 2017 FYDP BCA Cap $ Billions Source: President’s Budget 2012, 2017, 2019; Congressional Research Service “The Budget Control Act and the Defense Budget;” Restoring American Power; Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018.

Figure 6. Projected 050 National Defense Spending at Various Toplines
54

Resourcing Priorities and Challenges

The Commission endorses the priority the NDS places on modernizing 

the U.S. nuclear deterrent, including all three legs of the nuclear triad—

ballistic missile submarines, ICBMs, and nuclear-capable aircraft—as 

well as related command and control systems. This recapitalization has 

been repeatedly deferred and cannot be further delayed because so many 

elements of the U.S. nuclear deterrent are rapidly nearing the ends of 

their service lives at a time when U.S. rivals are aggressively modernizing and in some cases expanding their arsenals. History and basic arithmetic suggest that this recapitalization cannot be accomplished within 

currently projected budget levels unless DOD reduces its conventional 

capabilities (see Figure 7).

At the same time, DOD faces an impending “bow wave” of conventional 

modernization costs, driven by the need to reinvest in key capabilities 

that sustain deterrence and preserve a warfighting advantage. Yet here, 

too, existing and envisioned funding levels are insufficient. Between 

FY2012 and FY2017, the military lost $200 billion in modernization 

spending compared to pre-BCA/sequestration plans. Under the Department’s current five-year budgetary outlook, funding to support the NDS 

will add back only $20 billion—just 10 percent of the overall reduction 

(see Figure 8). Without serious conventional force modernization, the 

United States may need to rely on its nuclear arsenal in ways that hamper 

effective competition with Russia and China. But undermining the nation’s strategic deterrent to pay for conventional deterrence also entails 

unacceptable risks.

The Commission finds that nuclear and conventional forces are both indispensable to a balanced, effective defense: The nation should not hollow out one set of capabilities to pay for the other. Congress should 

therefore fund DOD at a level to permit critical conventional and nuclear modernization.
55

35%30%

25%20%15%10%5 %0 % 1947 1949 1951 1953 1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017 2019 2021 2023 2025 2027 2029 2031 2033 2035 2037 2039 2041 2043 2045

0

8 0

6 0

4 02 0

180

160140

120

100 Spending DOD Fraction of Total 

Total Nuclear Weapons Spending Nuclear Spending as Fraction of Total DOD Spending

First Wave: 1951-1965

$1.7 trillion expended

25% average of annual spending

Second Wave: 1979-1991

$886 billion expended

12% average of annual spending

Third Wave: 2017-2046 

$1.2 trillion expended

5% average of annual spending

Both waves of historical nuclear modernization required sharp increases 

from the status quo; future planning may be 

unrealistically optimistic. Billions 2019 $ Source: Department of Defense Green Book Table 6-5; Atomic Audit for methodology on processing data; Congressional Budget Office 

(CBO), “Approaches for managing the costs of US Nuclear Forces, 2017 to 2046.” 

Figure 7. Department Of Defense Nuclear Spending 1947–2046 
56

Figure 8. Modernization Investment Lost Under BCA

Source: PB12 Table 32-1, 2019 Green Book Table 6-25, 2018 Appropriations.

Note: Because they were not divided by public law, this graphic does NOT 

reflect the amended (higher) base toplines announced in the round of overseas 

contingency operations (OCO)-to-base movements in the wake of BBA18 and 

after the release of PB19.

Finally, the readiness challenges across the U.S. military took years to 

create and will require years to redress. Long-standing readiness problems will not be fixed by a single two-year budget deal. It will take years 

of sustained, predictable, and increased funding to repair readiness and 

ensure that U.S. forces are fully prepared to fight when needed. Moreover, capable modern systems and fully funded training and readiness 

accounts are key to recruiting and retention. The Commission recommends that DOD and Congress balance new funding to emphasize readiness, capacity, and capability across the force rather than focusing on a 

subset of capability.

Ensuring Timely and Consistent Funding

The importance of providing adequate resources is obvious. Yet our 

forces also need funding that is timely, sustained, and predictable. Our 

political leaders have been failing that test miserably. Put simply, the 

funding process is broken. 

For nearly a decade, DOD did not receive its funding on time. In the last 

nine years, the military has operated under a continuing resolution for the $ Billions

0

50

100

150

200

250

2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023

$200 Billion Lost FY12–23

90% of funding cuts not recouped

Enacted Modernization Planned Modernization

2012 Planned Modernization Budget

$20 Billion Potentially Gained FY18–23
57

equivalent of three calendar years. During such periods, operations are 

restricted and acquisition and contracting processes grind to a halt. The 

five longest continuing resolutions in the Department’s history have all 

occurred in the past eight years. Washington’s inability to appropriate 

funding on a timely basis or at anticipated levels conveys a lack of seriousness divorced from growing worldwide challenges. This dysfunction 

has had grave material impact, encouraging inefficient, “use-it-or-loseit” spending by the services at the end of the fiscal year, resulting in delays in acquisitions and modernization, and exacerbating readiness problems throughout the force (see Figure 9). The failure to provide timely, 

sustained, and predictable funding is a strong negative message regarding the worth of the men and women who serve in uniform.

Just as swift budget reductions harm readiness, adding back large 

amounts of money in unpredictable fashion also constrains the Department’s ability to make carefully considered choices and investments. To 

relieve this pressure, Congress should give the Department authority to 

spend Operations and Maintenance funds for any given fiscal year 

across that fiscal year and the subsequent one. More ambitiously, Congress should produce five-year budget agreements for defense. It is 

hypocritical for policymakers to advocate that American allies commit to 

multi-year defense budgeting while the United States refuses to do so itself, and Congress has already demonstrated its willingness to set future 

year spending targets for defense through the BCA.
58

1.61.41.21.00.80.60.40.2

0.0

80/20 Rule (Historical) 75/25 Rule (Enacted) Spread Evenly Until End of FY18 Spread Evenly Over One Calendar Year $ Billions Source: 2018 Appropriations.

Figure 9. Average Fiscal Year 2018 Operations and Maintenance Spending Per Day
59

Restoring OCO Funding to the Base Budget

Because of budgetary constraints imposed by the BCA, lawmakers and 

the Department of Defense have increasingly relied upon the overseas 

contingency operations (OCO) fund to pay for warfighting operations in 

the greater Middle East, as well as other activities and initiatives. Yet 

this approach to resourcing has produced problems and distortions of its 

own. For one thing, the amount of money devoted to OCO since the 

BCA was enacted no longer corresponds to warfighting operations in the 

greater Middle East. Furthermore, such operations are no longer a top 

priority as articulated in the NDS. Finally, reorienting the military 

toward high-end competition and conflict will require new capabilities 

beyond the current program of record. OCO is not the way to provide 

adequate and stable resources for such a long-term endeavor, given its 

lack of predictability and the limitations on what OCO funds can be used 

to buy.

As a general rule, the cost of operations and programs paid for by OCO 

should be reabsorbed into the base Pentagon budget. This also requires 

a dollar-for-dollar increase in the BCA spending caps, should they remain in force, so that this transfer of costs does not result in an overall 

spending cut. It is critical that as much DOD spending as possible be 

covered by the base budget, to provide the Department with the stability 

and long-term planning and investment capability needed to execute the 

NDS.

Pentagon Reform: Necessary but Not Sufficient

Resourcing a strategy is not only an issue of providing reliable, adequate, 

and timely funding. It also entails ensuring that the available dollars are 

spent as efficiently and effectively as possible. This is more than a matter 

of treating taxpayer dollars with respect, as vitally important as that is. It 

is equally a matter of sharpening the U.S. military’s ability to compete 

with its rivals by wringing maximum value out of the resources at hand. 

This being the case, the NDS is correct to argue that the Pentagon’s culture and way of doing business must change. Sustained reforms, implemented across every aspect of the Department’s activities, are sorely 

need to bring one of the world’s largest bureaucracies into line with 

21st century business practices. This will be critical to fostering innovation, improving responsiveness and agility, enhancing the speed at which 

capabilities are developed and fielded, and improving the efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability with which the Department expends limited funds. Every recent Secretary of Defense has recognized this 
60

imperative, which has only become more pressing as America’s competitive edge has eroded. 

As important as reform is, however, it is an illusion to believe that savings from efficiencies alone will provide sufficient funds for near-term 

reinvestment in modernization. Every previous attempt to subsidize 

modernization through internal reform has come up well short of expectations. We believe the Department should continue to pursue reform on 

its own merits, to enhance competitiveness and assure taxpayers that 

their tax dollars are well-spent. Yet DOD and Congress must understand 

that even the most optimistic advocates of reform cannot identify sufficient savings to make this approach a reliable source of real growth in 

defense capability.

Furthermore, Congress should recognize that the best way to manage 

reform is not by instituting wholesale changes every year. The Pentagon 

needs time to implement existing guidance before undertaking further 

reforms. It is true that the Pentagon’s broken, 20th century acquisition 

system is insufficient for the problems of the 21st century, and there are 

some areas in which further acquisition reform may be necessary, as 

discussed in Chapter 3. To better adapt, DOD must embrace risk, and 

thus the possibility of failure. To facilitate this cultural change, DOD 

must move away from a vulnerable few projects with timescale 

measured in decades, to a larger volume of smaller bets on 

groundbreaking technologies.

In considering further reforms, Congress should take this same approach 

to heart. The best way to manage Pentagon reform is not by instituting 

grand organizational changes every year, but to adopt a succession of 

smaller measures that allow the Pentagon to internalize changes before 

pursuing additional reform. As former Deputy Secretary of Defense 

Robert Work has noted, waves of innovation and change at DOD are 

generational affairs. They are not problems that can be fixed in one 

legislative calendar. In lieu of additional broad, near-term acquisition 

reform, Congress should emphasize thoughtful oversight and assessment 

of changes to date. Lawmakers should focus on prodding the Pentagon to 

use its newly established authorities to field equipment more quickly and 

cheaply. If the Department is not given time to absorb these acquisition 

policy shifts, new efforts at wholesale reform may overload the system 

or attempt to solve problems that the Pentagon might work through on its 

own as it absorbs new ways of doing business.
61

Addressing Long-Term Fiscal Challenges

This Commission is under no illusions about the magnitude of the resource investments it advocates. Moreover, we recognize that in any discussion of resources, there are larger fiscal pressures squeezing defense 

and other national security priorities such as diplomacy, foreign aid, and 

homeland security. As Secretary Mattis noted in his confirmation hearing, the growing national debt itself constitutes a significant national security threat. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that 

continued deficit spending will take the amount of federal debt held by 

the public to roughly 100 percent of gross domestic product by the end 

of the 2020s. Without changes to revenues or expenses, this ratio would 

climb to an unprecedented 152 percent by 2048. Such unconstrained 

growth in federal debt would imperil both the creditworthiness and economic stability of the nation and undermine its ability to adequately fund 

any number of national priorities.

That said, under-resourcing defense signals weakness to American foes 

and breeds insecurity in American allies. Equally important, when addressing the nation’s long-term fiscal challenges, Congress and the public should remember an oft-forgotten fact: that defense simply is not 

where most of the money is. Neither is discretionary spending more 

broadly. Rather, mandatory spending on domestic entitlement programs 

and interest payments on the national debt constitute the majority of federal outlays and will be the source of most growth in federal spending in 

the coming decade. If these principal drivers of the national debt are left 

unaddressed, they will crowd out spending for discretionary spending for 

both domestic and defense programs (see Figure 10).

The nation has ignored this reality for too long. The BCA disproportionately targeted discretionary spending, and forced DOD to bear half of 

total cuts despite accounting for less than a fifth of annual federal outlays. This approach induced false comfort among lawmakers that they 

were meaningfully addressing the nation’s fiscal woes. In reality, the 

deep discretionary reductions had minimal impact on the overall fiscal 

outlook, but real and severe consequences for the U.S. military. Moreover, untargeted spending cuts failed to produce dramatic improvements 

in Pentagon efficiency. Consider that the size of the Pentagon’s civilian 

workforce is nearly equivalent to pre-BCA levels, even as active-duty 

end strength has fallen by more than 100,000 personnel. Lawmakers 

should not confuse targeted and justified Pentagon reform efforts with 

across-the-board spending cuts imposed by the BCA. Simply put, 

America’s fiscal woes cannot be solved on the back of defense.
62

0

500

5,000

4,500

4,000

3,500

3,000

2,500

2,000

1,500

1,000

FY17 FY18 FY19 FY20 FY21 FY22 FY23 FY24 FY25 FY26 FY27 FY28

Mandatory (including offsetting receipts) Defense Discretionary Non-Defense Discretionary Net Interest

Meanwhile, net interest surpasses defense discretionary outlays

in FY23 and non-defense discretionary outlays in FY25. $ Billions

Source: CBO’s Budget and Economic Outlook, 2018 to 2028, Table 2-1.

Figure 10. Federal Outlays, FY17–28 

Even with offsets, mandatory entitlement 

programs drive spending growth.
63

Looking ahead, policymakers must address rising government spending 

and decreasing tax revenues as unsustainable trends that compel hard 

fiscal choices. Net interest payments to service the growing debt are rising 

rapidly, and the retirement of the baby boomers will exacerbate the problem caused by exploding entitlement costs. As for revenues, over the 

past two decades there have been several significant tax cuts (President 

Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, President Obama’s payroll tax cuts, and 

President Trump’s 2017 tax reform bill) that have decreased resources 

available to fund defense and address broader fiscal challenges. No serious effort to address growing debt can be made without either increasing 

tax revenues or decreasing mandatory spending—or both. Without such 

an effort, it will be impossible to stabilize the nation’s finances, and to 

fund and sustain an adequate defense. Rather than viewing defense cuts as 

the solution to the nation’s fiscal problems, Congress should look to the 

entire federal budget, especially entitlements and taxes, to set the nation 

on a more stable financial footing. In the near-term, such adjustments will 

undoubtedly be quite painful. Yet over time—and probably much sooner 

than we expect—failing to make those adjustments and fully fund America’s defense strategy will undoubtedly be worse.

Embracing a Whole-of-Government 

Approach to Strategic Competition

This Commission was charged with making recommendations regarding 

U.S. defense strategy. Yet even if America were to fund the Department 

of Defense lavishly, and even if all the other recommendations in this 

report were to be implemented, that would not be sufficient to address the 

threats and challenges facing the country today. America’s two most powerful competitors—China and Russia—have developed national strategies 

for enhancing their influence and undermining key U.S. interests that 

extend far beyond military competition. Encompassing economic, diplomatic, covert, political, and other initiatives, those strategies draw on the 

full array of foreign policy tools; they include many actions that fall short 

of war but nonetheless alter the status quo in dangerous ways. As noted, 

comprehensive solutions to these comprehensive challenges will require 

whole-of-government and even whole-of-nation cooperation extending far 

beyond DOD. Trade policy; science, technology, engineering, and math 

education; diplomatic statecraft; and other non-military tools will be 

critical—so will adequate support and funding for those elements of 

American power. Without such a holistic approach, the United States will 

be at a competitive disadvantage and will remain ill-equipped to preserve 

its security and its global interests amid intensifying challenges.
64

Compendium of Findings and Recommendations

Evaluating the NDS

1. The NDS generally sets the right strategic goals, but unacknowledged risk factors, analytical gaps, and resource shortfalls are likely 

to hamper its execution.

Recommendation: The United States urgently requires rapid and 

substantial improvements to its military capabilities, built on a foundation of compelling and relevant warfighting concepts at the operational level of war.

Operational Challenges and Concepts

2. The best way to develop operational concepts that address the operational challenges identified by the NDS is to promote a fuller discussion within the national security community.

Recommendation: DOD should declassify the operational challenges 

specified by the NDS.

3. The military balance in key regions has been deteriorating and the 

United States faces a worsening position across a range of key operational challenges. While the United States was focused on defeating 

insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, Russia and China were focused 

on acquiring capabilities to defeat American forces.

Recommendation: U.S. defense investments should emphasize 

achieving and maintaining favorable military balances for the United 

States and its allies against China in Asia and against Russia in Europe. Specifically, those investments should be focused on the 2018 

operational challenges; they should seek to yield expanded U.S. operational options while constraining those available to China and 

Russia.

4. Detailed, rigorous concepts for solving key operational problems are 

badly needed, but do not appear to exist. 

Recommendation: DOD must more clearly answer the question of 

how it intends to defeat major-power rivals in competition and war. 

It should develop plausible strategies and operational concepts that 

identify what the United States seeks to achieve and how it will prevail, and suggest measures of effectiveness to mark progress along 

the way. It should also clarify ill-defined concepts like “expand the 

competitive space.”
65

5. Potential adversaries are blurring lines between strategic and conventional approaches; they are blending nuclear, space, cyber, conventional, and unconventional means in their warfighting doctrines 

and pursuing coercive aims through a mix of military and nonmilitary means. 

Recommendation: DOD must develop new operational concepts to 

achieve strategic advantage, including by addressing the ability of 

aggressive regimes to achieve a fait accompli against states on their 

periphery, or to use nuclear or strategic weapons in ways that would 

fall short of justifying a large-scale U.S. nuclear response. The 

United States must also develop more holistic strategies and operational concepts for prevailing in competitions short of war. DOD 

should establish cross-functional teams to integrate responses to 

these and other difficult challenges.

National Security Innovation Base

6. U.S. superiority in key areas of innovation is decreasing or has disappeared. U.S. competitors are investing heavily in innovation while 

using predatory tactics to undermine the U.S. National Security 

Innovation Base.

Recommendation: The United States must better protect and 

strengthen its National Security Innovation Base. The U.S. government needs to consider whether it should increase investment in 

threatened industries that produce vital technology and components, 

and whether some selective disintegration with rivals—namely 

China—is necessary to avoid dangerous dependencies. 

7. Much of the needed innovation in technologies suitable for national 

defense purposes is happening outside of traditional defense 

industry. 

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should capitalize on the 

Defense Innovation Board and make maximum use of organizations 

such as DARPA, DIU, government R&D labs, UARCs, and 

FFRDCs to broaden DOD’s reach into the commercial world. 

8. Current acquisition programs are risk-averse. Finding, developing, 

and fielding new capabilities in the future will require a new 

acceptance of risk to identify and exploit potential “leap-ahead” 

technologies.

Recommendation: DOD should partner with Congress to explore the 

potential of a new, narrowly tailored category of acquisition pilot 
66

programs to enable more rapid maturation, acquisition, and fielding 

of break-through technologies. 

Near- to Mid-Term Force Priorities

9. Forward posture is a key component of deterring competitors and adversaries and assuring allies and partners. Speed matters, and the 

ability to mobilize and move forces quickly is critical given that 

likely contingencies could begin with a small confrontation that escalates quickly. 

Recommendation: If the United States desires to avoid military conflict and control potential escalation, it should ensure there is a capable day-to-day posture in key theaters. Deterring aggression in the 

Western Pacific will require using focused investments to establish a 

forward-deployed defense-in-depth posture. To deter a revanchist 

Russia, the United States and its NATO allies must rebuild military 

force capacity and capability in Europe.

10. Even after the demise of the core ISIS “caliphate,” the United States 

will still face state and non-state military challenges that require persistent military engagement in the Middle East.

Recommendation: U.S. military posture in the Middle East should 

not become dramatically smaller, even though the precise mix of 

U.S. capabilities should be reexamined. 

11. The United States now faces five credible challengers, including two 

major-state competitors, and three distinctly different geographic and 

operational environments. A two-war force sizing construct makes 

more strategic sense today than at any previous point in the postCold War era, yet the NDS adopts what is functionally a one-war 

force sizing construct.

Recommendation: The United States needs a larger force than it has 

today if it is to meet the objectives of the strategy. The Air Force, 

Navy, and Army will all need capacity enhancements in addition 

to—not in place of—the capability and posture changes this Commission recommends. The Army will need more armor, long-range 

fires, engineering and air-defensive units, as well as additional airdefense and logistical forces. The Navy must expand its submarine 

fleet and dramatically recapitalize and expand its military sealift 

forces. The Air Force will need more stealthy long-range fighters 

and bombers, tankers, lift capacity, and intelligence, surveillance, 

and reconnaissance platforms. Finally, the United States must maintain the Marine Corps at no less than its current size.
67

12. The United States confronts cyberattacks from adversaries on a daily 

basis, yet efforts to defend against and respond to those attacks are 

hamstrung by debates over authorities and jurisdictional boundaries. 

Recommendation: Congress should appoint a high-level commission 

to review U.S. cyber policy. That commission should focus on issues 

surrounding the relevant authorities and jurisdictional boundaries, 

and offer recommendations on how to streamline decision-making 

and bureaucratic processes, while protecting civil liberties and leading efforts to establish international cyber norms.

13. In view of the rapid aging of America’s nuclear arsenal and the aggressive nuclear modernization programs undertaken by U.S. rivals, 

it is urgently necessary to modernize the U.S. nuclear triad and much 

of the supporting infrastructure.

Recommendation: The findings of the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review 

offer an appropriate option for meeting U.S. nuclear deterrence and 

assurance requirements, and we urge DOD to proceed along the path 

the NPR lays out.

14. Space is once again becoming an increasingly critical and contentious domain. The U.S. military is heavily dependent on space-based 

assets across the full spectrum of conflict; other nations are attempting to replicate U.S. space capabilities for themselves and developing counterspace capabilities to reduce or eliminate U.S. advantages. 

Recommendation: America should improve its ability to compete 

and deter malign activity in space, and to be sufficiently resilient that 

the military and economic effects on Earth are minimized should deterrence fail. As the United States rethinks its approach to space, it 

should emphasize five themes: technology, policy, organization, 

communication, and cooperation. 

15. Missile defense is foundational to U.S. deterrence and assurance 

strategies. As the missile threat to the U.S. homeland from North 

Korea and Iran grows, and as Russia and China modernize their 

nuclear arsenals, America will need more credible and effective 

defenses.

Recommendation: A senior DOD official should be given full 

authority to develop and implement an integrated, long-term plan for 

acquiring and developing air and missile defense capability. The 

Secretary should transfer the responsibility and resources for postRDT&E acquisition of missile defense systems to the services; DOD 

should invest in a robust R&D program to anticipate future threats, 

operate effectively from space, and enhance resiliency. 
68

16. Electronic warfare capabilities will be critical in any future conflict, 

especially those against major-power rivals. U.S. competitors have 

invested heavily in electronic warfare as a way of neutralizing U.S. 

advantages and weakening America’s ability to project power.

Recommendation: DOD must enhance its electronic warfare capacity 

and capability to overcome adversary electronic warfare investments, and to degrade and defeat anti-access/area denial capabilities 

and adversary command, control, and communications architectures.

17. Nearly any conflict between the United States and its most capable 

competitors would entail significant demand for long-range, highprecision munitions. Large quantities of shorter-range high-precision 

munitions will be needed, as well.

Recommendation: DOD must ensure a substantial, sustainable, and 

rapidly scalable supply of preferred weapons such as Joint Air-toSurface Standoff Missile-Extended Range (JASSM-ER), LongRange Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), and a longer-range High-Speed 

Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM). DOD should explore options for 

strengthening the part of the National Security Innovation Base that 

produces high-precision munitions to ensure that the country has the 

required surge capacity.

18. The Commission has serious reservations about DOD’s ability to 

support its global operations. Inadequate lift and tanker support, a 

lack of secure communications, and insufficient capabilities and infrastructure are impeding strategic mobility.

Recommendation: DOD must invest in a more resilient and secure 

logistics and transportation infrastructure, especially if it relies on a 

Dynamic Force Employment model that envisions shifting assets 

rapidly across theaters. Those investments should be rooted in careful study of TRANSCOM’s capabilities, capacity, and command 

structure, and whether there is a sufficiently strong “logistics voice” 

within the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

19. DOD lacks the analytical ability, expertise, and processes to link objectives to operational concepts to programs and resources; many 

key concepts emphasized in the NDS are imprecise or unrealistic. 

Recommendation: OSD-CAPE and the Joint Staff—working closely 

with OSD-Policy— must rebuild decision support capability to ensure that the Secretary and Deputy Secretary can make hard decisions grounded in serious analysis, particularly as they consider the 

warfighting return on investments. Specifically, the Department 

needs a rigorous force development plan that connects its investment 
69

strategy with its key priorities of winning in conflict and competing 

effectively with China and Russia.

Readiness

20. For over a decade, training for U.S. conventional and special operations forces emphasized the specific challenges of operations in 

Afghanistan and Iraq. Today, however, each of the five major challenges identified in the NDS requires U.S. forces to train and be proficient in different capabilities, tactics, and techniques.

Recommendation: A greater share of training and readiness efforts 

must be devoted to the full range of potential missions U.S. forces 

face, with particular—but not exclusive—emphasis on major-power 

rivals. DOD should develop analytic tools that can measure readiness across this broad range of challenges, from low-intensity, gray 

zone conflicts to protracted, high-intensity fights.

21. Although readiness is not a function of money alone, sufficient 

funding—provided on a timely, consistent basis—is necessary to 

address current readiness challenges.

Recommendation: Congress should work with the Department to ensure an adequate level of funding. To provide greater flexibility and 

stability, it should also authorize the Department to expend Operations and Maintenance funds from any given fiscal year across that 

fiscal year and the subsequent one. 

22. The most critical resource required to produce a highly capable military is highly capable people willing to serve in the quantity required. Yet the number of people who have the required fitness and 

propensity to serve is in decline.

Recommendation: DOD and Congress must take creative steps to 

address those aspects of the problem that are within their purview, 

rather than relying solely on ever-higher compensation for a 

shrinking pool of qualified volunteers. Without a marked change in 

the way America approaches the idea of military service, DOD will 

struggle to fill its ranks with highly qualified individuals. 

Civil-Military Relations

23. There is an imbalance in civil-military relations on critical issues of 

strategy development and implementation. Civilian voices appear 

relatively muted on issues at the center of U.S. defense and national 

security policy. Allocating forces across theaters is an inherently 
70

political-military task, decision authority for which should be held 

by America’s civilian leaders.

Recommendation: An increased civilian role is crucial in integrating 

responses to global challenges. DOD, with Congressional oversight, 

must emphasize decision-making processes that highlight the 

political-military dynamics of force management shifts. The Secretary of Defense and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy must 

fully exercise their responsibilities for preparing guidance for and reviewing contingency plans. 

Resources

24. Budget caps were—and still are—harmful to American defense.

Recommendation: Congress should eliminate the final two years of 

caps under the BCA. 

25. At current funding levels, the U.S. military may not be able to fight

one major-power rival while still maintaining deterrence and stability in other regions.

Recommendation: Congress should increase the size of the defense 

budget through sustained annual real growth in the out years, or 

DOD should alter the expectations of the strategy and America’s 

global strategic objectives. An average of three to five percent real 

growth per annum is indicative of the investment required.

26. Recapitalization of the nuclear triad cannot be further delayed, yet 

this recapitalization cannot be accomplished within currently projected budget levels unless DOD reduces its conventional capabilities. Additionally, DOD faces an impending “bow wave” of 

conventional modernization costs. 

Recommendation: Nuclear and conventional forces are both indispensable to a balanced, effective defense. The nation should not hollow out one set of capabilities to pay for another. Congress should 

fund DOD at a level that permits critical conventional and nuclear 

modernization. 

27. The readiness challenges across the U.S. military took years to create. It will take years of sustained, predictable, and increased funding 

to repair readiness and ensure that U.S. forces are fully prepared to 

fight when needed.

Recommendation: Congress and DOD should balance new funding 

to emphasize readiness, capacity, and capability across the force 

rather than focusing on a subset of capability.
71

28. The funding process is broken. Congress has failed to provide the 

military with funding that is timely, adequate, sustained, and predictable. This dysfunction has had grave material impact and conveyed a 

lack of seriousness in the face of growing global challenges.

Recommendation: Beyond eliminating BCA caps, Congress should 

return to regular order and pass annual spending bills on time. Congress should seek to produce five-year budget agreements for defense to permit greater stability and flexibility for DOD.

29. The reliance on OCO is no longer appropriate to the new strategy’s 

emphasis on preparing for prolonged competition with major-power 

rivals. 

Recommendation: To better prepare for major-power competition, 

Congress should gradually integrate OCO spending back into the 

base Pentagon budget. This also requires a dollar-for-dollar increase 

in the BCA spending caps, should they remain in force, so that this 

transfer does not result in an overall spending cut. 

30. Reforms to the Pentagon’s way of doing business are critically necessary but insufficient to reap substantial savings in the near-term. 

Reforms cannot be seen as a primary source of funds for investment 

and growth. 

Recommendation: DOD should pursue reform for its own merits, but 

understand this is not a reliable source of real growth in defense 

capability.

31. Defense spending, and discretionary spending more broadly, are not 

primary drivers of the federal deficit. 

Recommendation: Congress should look to the entire federal budget, 

especially entitlements, as well as taxes, to set the nation on a more 

stable financial footing. 

32. In the realm of major-power competition, China and Russia have national strategies integrating all tools of national power. The United 

States does not. 

Recommendation: A whole-of-government and even whole-of-nation 

effort is required to address these challenges, which are bigger than 

the Pentagon’s portfolio, and Congress must fund that effort 

adequately.
72

Additional Views of Andrew Krepinevich

Meeting Core Operational Challenges

I fully concur with the Commission’s recommendation that the Department of Defense declassify the operational challenges alluded to in the 

2018 NDS. This is essential if our military is to develop and refine the 

innovative operational concepts Secretary Mattis rightly notes are essential to addressing the emerging threats to our security.

With an eye to filling this gap, the Commission offers a list of seven 

“core” operational challenges. As the Commission’s report notes, these 

challenges are “similar” to those listed in the 2001 Quadrennial Defense 

Review. In fact, they are almost identical.

2

Moreover, the Commission’s operational challenges suffer from several 

clear shortcomings. In fact, most of these operational “challenges” are 

not challenges at all. This may stem, in part, from a lack of precision as 

to what constitutes an “operational challenge.” Neither the NDS nor the 

Commission defines the term. As used here, “operational challenges” are 

compelling real-world problems posed by adversaries at the operational 

(or campaign) level of war.

For example, the Commission lists as one of its operational challenges: 

“Leveraging information technology and innovative concepts to develop 

an interoperable, joint C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) architecture and 

capability that supports warfare of the future.”

This is not an operational challenge; rather, the Commission is calling 

for the creation of a capability. Nor does the Commission link this capability to any particular challenge, stating only that it should support 

“warfare of the future.” 

Continuing this line of argument, three of the Commission’s “operational 

challenges” call for the military to protect “critical bases of operations,” 

“forces abroad,” and “allies and partners.” Specifically, the Commission 

emphasizes “assuring information systems” and “enhancing the survivability of space systems.” The Commission does not explain why space 

and information systems are singled out for special consideration as 

 

2 Department of Defense, “Quadrennial Defense Review Report,” September 30, 

2001, p. 30; available at https://archive.defense.gov/pubs/qdr2001.pdf. The 2001 

QDR refers not to “challenges” but rather operational “goals.”
73

opposed to, for example, naval combatants or brigade combat teams. In 

brief, rather than providing a set of operational challenges that reflect 

real-world problems posed by adversaries identified in the NDS, the 

Commission presents a list of what might best be described as generic 

tasks we would like our military to perform against any adversary.

To be fair, the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review was prepared when the 

United States lacked a major military rival. Consequently, it could focus 

on what was then called “capabilities-based” planning rather than 

“threat-based” planning. As the NDS states, this is no longer the case. 

The United States confronts clear challenges posed by two revisionist 

great powers, China and Russia, as well as Iran, North Korea, and radical 

non-state groups.

Consequently, it is now possible to identify the character of major threats 

to our security with far greater clarity than it was 17 years ago. Threatbased planning enables DOD and the Commission to be far more specific in identifying the principal operational challenges confronting our 

armed forces.

Given these considerations, the following principal operational challenges are submitted for consideration:

3

 Defending the U.S. homeland and its treaty allies from strategic attack, to include by weapons of mass destruction, as well as by advanced conventional and cyber weapons (i.e., against technically 

advanced, numerically superior enemies).

 Defending fundamental U.S. security interests in the Indo-Pacific, 

particularly along the first island chain, from Chinese aggression and 

coercion (i.e., against a technically advanced, numerically superior 

enemy).

 Defending fundamental U.S. security interests in Europe from Russian aggression and coercion (i.e., against a technically advanced, locally numerically superior enemy).

 Defending fundamental U.S. security interests in the Persian Gulf region from aggression and coercion (i.e., against a technically inferior, numerically inferior enemy).

 

3 There should be no more than five or six key operational challenges. These 

challenges should be prioritized to inform matters pertaining to strategic choice. 

As doing so would require analysis that is beyond current resources, the ones 

listed here are suggestive, rather than definitive.
74

 Maintaining access to key lines of communication linking the United 

States to major overseas theaters of operation and vital trading 

partners/resources (i.e., against a technically advanced, numerically 

inferior enemy).

(Of course, to the degree our military can successfully address these operational challenges, its ability to deter acts of aggression and coercion 

will be enhanced as well.)

These challenges meet the definition stated above: they provide our 

military with real-world problems at the campaign level of warfare to 

inform and facilitate their planning. They also do so in a manner 

consistent with what the Commission describes in its report under 

“Operational Concepts.”

Near- to Mid-Term Force Priorities

In its discussion of “Near- to Mid-Term Force Priorities,” the Commission indirectly establishes program and force priorities. It does so with 

little if anything in the way of analytic support. To take but one example, 

in discussing the Indo-Pacific region, the Commission states that, among 

other things:

Protecting U.S. interests from China and Russia will require additional investment in the submarine fleet; intelligence, surveillance, 

and reconnaissance (ISR) assets; air defense; long-range strike platforms; and long-range ground-based fires. Deterring and, if necessary, defeating North Korea will demand additional air defense 

assets, as well as a sustained ground presence with the ability to 

quickly flow additional armored brigade combat teams (ABCTs), 

fires and combat engineer assets, and other capabilities into theater.

Other than stating the obvious—it’s better to have more military capability than less—no analytic support is presented as to why these particular 

forces and capabilities are more deserving of priority than others. 

This is startling, given that the Commission criticizes the Department for 

its lack of analytic rigor. As the Commission states with respect to 

DOD’s ability to make informed decisions with respect to defense 

priorities:

If DOD is to make such decisions with appropriate rigor, it will be 

critical to revitalize analytical support for the Secretary of Defense. 

Throughout our work, we found that DOD struggled to link objectives to strategy to operational concepts to programs and resources.” 

[Emphasis as in the Commission’s report.]
75

Simply put, the Commission would do well to follow its own advice before advancing recommendations regarding the size, structure, mix, and 

posture of U.S. forces and their capabilities. As the Commission states:

Specifically, the Department needs a rigorous force development 

plan that connects its investment strategy with its key priorities of 

winning in conflict and competing effectively with China and Russia. That plan must have a clear force sizing construct to illuminate 

the strategy’s ambition and risks. Such a force development architecture should provide answers to the following questions:

 What are our objectives?

 What operational concepts will animate how we plan to deter 

and fight?

 How might operational concepts, force posture, and attendant 

capabilities be tailored to specific regional and functional 

contexts?

 What assumptions is DOD making about multi-theater demands 

in timing, scale, and other key aspects? How is DOD hedging 

against the possibility that these assumptions may not prove out

 If the United States finds itself in conflict in a first theater, what 

constitutes “deterrence” in the second theater and how does it 

change the force requirements projected prior to the NDS’s release (i.e., under the previous defense strategy)?

 How do component program priorities reflect these 

assessments?

The Commission does not address these issues in any depth, let alone 

with the kind of analytic rigor it recommends DOD pursue prior to establishing defense priorities.

In summary, it seems profoundly unhelpful for the Commission to state 

the analytic foundation required for DOD to make informed choices regarding defense priorities, and then proceed to ignore it in advancing priorities of its own.
76

Appendix A

Glossary

5G LTE Fifth-Generation Long-Term Evolution 

ABCT armored brigade combat team 

AI artificial intelligence

BBA Bipartisan Budget Act 

BCA Budget Control Act 

BCT brigade combat team

C4ISR command, control, communications, computers, 

intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance

CAPE Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation

CBO Congressional Budget Office

CFT cross-functional team

DARPA Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency 

DFE Dynamic Force Employment

DIU Defense Innovation Unit

DOD Department of Defense 

FFRDC federally funded research and development center 

FY fiscal year

FYDP Future Years Defense Program 

HARM High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile

ICBM intercontinental ballistic missile 

IISS International Institute for Strategic Studies

ISIS Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham

ISR intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance

JASSM-ER Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended 

Range 

LRASM Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile 
77

MDA Missile Defense Agency

NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

NC3 nuclear command, control, and communications 

NDS National Defense Strategy 

NPR Nuclear Posture Review 

NSIB National Security Innovation Base

NSS National Security Strategy

OCO overseas contingency operations

OSD Office of the Secretary of Defense 

R&D research and development 

RDT&E research, development, test, and evaluation 

TRANSCOM U.S. Transportation Command

UARC university-affiliated research center 

USD(R&E) Under Secretary for Defense for Research and 

Engineering 

WMD weapons of mass destruction 
78

Appendix B

Enabling Legislation

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017

Division A—Department of Defense Authorizations

Title IX—Department of Defense Organization and Management

Subtitle E—Strategies, Reports, and Related Matters

Section 942. Commission on the National Defense Strategy for the 

United States.

(a) ESTABLISHMENT.—There is hereby established a commission to 

be known as the ‘‘Commission on the National Defense Strategy for 

the United States’’ (in this section referred to as the ‘‘Commission’’).

The purpose of the Commission is to examine and make recommendations with respect to the national defense strategy for the United States.

(b) COMPOSITION.—

(1) MEMBERSHIP.—The Commission shall be composed of 

12 members appointed as follows:

(A) Three members appointed by the chair of the Committee 

on Armed Services of the House of Representatives.

(B) Three members appointed by the ranking minority member of the Committee on Armed Services of the House of 

Representatives.

(C) Three members appointed by the chair of the Committee 

on Armed Services of the Senate.

(D) Three members appointed by the ranking minority member of the Committee on Armed Services of the Senate.

(2) CHAIR; VICE CHAIR.—

(A) CHAIR.—The chair of the Committee on Armed Services 

of the House of Representative and the chair of the Committee 

on Armed Services of the Senate shall jointly designate one 

member of the Commission to serve as chair of the 

Commission.

(B) VICE CHAIR.—The ranking minority member of the 

Committee on Armed Services of the House of Representative 

and the ranking minority member of the Committee on Armed 

Services of the Senate shall jointly designate one member of 

the Commission to serve as vice chair of the Commission.
79

(3) PERIOD OF APPOINTMENT; VACANCIES.—Members 

shall be appointed for the life of the Commission. Any vacancy in 

the Commission shall be filled in the same manner as the original 

appointment.

(c) DUTIES.—

(1) REVIEW.—The Commission shall review the current national 

defense strategy of the United States, including the assumptions, 

missions, force posture and structure, and strategic and military 

risks associated with the strategy.

(2) ASSESSMENT AND RECOMMENDATIONS.—The Commission shall conduct a comprehensive assessment of the strategic 

environment, the threats to the United States, the size and shape of 

the force, the readiness of the force, the posture and capabilities of 

the force, the allocation of resources, and strategic and military 

risks in order to provide recommendations on the national defense 

strategy for the United States.

(d) COOPERATION FROM GOVERNMENT.—

(1) COOPERATION.—In carrying out its duties, the Commission 

shall receive the full and timely cooperation of the Secretary of 

Defense in providing the Commission with analysis, briefings, 

and other information necessary for the fulfillment of its 

responsibilities.

(2) LIAISON.—The Secretary shall designate at least one officer 

or employee of the Department of Defense to serve as a liaison officer between the Department and the Commission.

(e) REPORT.—

(1) FINAL REPORT.—Not later than December 1, 2017, the 

Commission shall submit to the President, the Secretary of Defense, the Committee on Armed Services of the House of Representatives, and the Committee on Armed Services of the Senate a 

report on the Commission’s findings, conclusions, and recommendations. The report shall address, but not be limited to, each of the 

following:

(A) The strategic environment, including threats to the United 

States and the potential for conflicts arising from such threats, 

security challenges, and the national security interests of the 

United States.

(B) The military missions for which the Department of Defense should prepare and the force planning construct.
80

(C) The roles and missions of the Armed Forces to carry out 

those missions and the roles and capabilities provided by other 

United States Government agencies and by allies and international partners.

(D) The force planning construct, size and shape, posture and 

capabilities, readiness, infrastructure, organization, personnel, 

and other elements of the defense program necessary to support the strategy.

(E) The resources necessary to support the strategy, including 

budget recommendations.

(F) The risks associated with the strategy, including the relationships and tradeoffs between missions, risks, and resources.

(2) INTERIM BRIEFING.—Not later than June 1, 2017, the Commission shall provide to the Committee on Armed Services of the 

House of Representatives, and the Committee on Armed Services 

of the Senate a briefing on the status of its review and assessment, 

and include a discussion of any interim recommendations.

(3) FORM.—The report submitted to Congress under paragraph 

(1) shall be submitted in unclassified form, but may include a classified annex.

(f) FUNDING.—Of the amounts authorized to be appropriated by to 

this Act for the Department of Defense, $5,000,000 is available to fund 

the activities of the Commission.

(g) TERMINATION.—The Commission shall terminate 6 months after 

the date on which it submits the report required by subsection (e).
81

Appendix C

Schedule of Plenary Meetings

Date Location

September 12, 2017 The Pentagon

Arlington, VA 22202

December 7, 2017 LMI

7940 Jones Branch Drive

Tysons, VA 22102

January 22, 2018 LMI

7940 Jones Branch Drive

Tysons, VA 22102

February 23, 2018 LMI

7940 Jones Branch Drive

Tysons, VA 22102

March 19, 2018 LMI

7940 Jones Branch Drive

Tysons, VA 22102

April 9, 2018 LMI

7940 Jones Branch Drive

Tysons, VA 22102

May 4, 2018 LMI

7940 Jones Branch Drive

Tysons, VA 22102

May 23, 2018 LMI

7940 Jones Branch Drive

Tysons, VA 22102

June 19, 2018 LMI

7940 Jones Branch Drive

Tysons, VA 22102
82

Appendix D

Individuals Appearing before the Commission

Mr Takahiro Araki

Senior Coordinator, Japan-U.S. Defense Cooperation Division, 

Embassy of Japan

Mr. James Baker

Director, Office of Net Assessment, Department of Defense

Ms. Gabrielle Burrell

Minister Counsellor Defence Policy, Australian Defence Staff, 

Embassy of Australia

Mr. Dean Cheng

Senior Research Fellow, Heritage Foundation 

Mr. Eric Chewning

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manufacturing and 

Industrial Base Policy, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense 

for Acquisition and Sustainment, Department of Defense

Major General Phillip Churn

Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for Reserve 

Matters

Air Vice Marshal Alan Clements, CSC

Head Australian Defence Staff Washington & Australian Defence 

Attaché, Embassy of Australia

Mr. Elbridge Colby

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force 

Development, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, 

Department of Defense 

The Honorable Robert Daigle

Director, Cost Analysis and Program Evaluation, Department of 

Defense

Mr. Chris Danielewski

Strategic Outreach, Defense Security Cooperation Agency, 

Department of Defense

Deputy National Intelligence Officer

Iran, Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Deputy National Intelligence Officer

Korea, Office of the Director of National Intelligence
83

Deputy National Intelligence Officer

Middle East-Military Issues, Office of the Director of National 

Intelligence

Deputy National Intelligence Officer

Military Issues, Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Deputy National Intelligence Officer

Russia-Eurasia, Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Deputy National Intelligence Officer

Transnational Issues, Director Red Cell, Office of the Director of 

National Intelligence

Deputy National Intelligence Officer

Transnational Issues, Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Mr. Christopher Dougherty

Senior Advisor, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense 

for Strategy & Force Development, Office of the Under Secretary 

of Defense for Policy, Department of Defense

Lieutenant General James Dubik, USA, Ret.

Senior Fellow, Institute for the Study of War

Mr. Matthew Dubois

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Integration, Office 

of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, 

Department of Defense

Dr. Tony Echevarria

Editor, Parameters, Army War College

The Honorable Mark Esper

Secretary of the Army, Department of Defense

Mr. William Fabian

Senior Strategic Analyst, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of 

Defense for Strategy & Force Development, Office of the Under 

Secretary of Defense for Policy, Department of Defense

Mr. David Feith

Office of Policy Planning, Asia Policy, Department of State

Ms. Suzanne Fry

Director, Strategic Futures Group, National Intelligence Council

Mr. Markus Garlauskas

National Intelligence Council
84

Mr. Richard Girven

Associate Director, Intelligence Policy Center and International 

Market Manager, National Security Research Division, RAND 

Corporation

General David Goldfein, USAF

Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Department of Defense

Lieutenant General Samuel Greaves, USAF

Director, Missile Defense Agency, Department of Defense

The Honorable Michael Griffin

Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, 

Department of Defense 

Mr. Brian Hahs

National Intelligence Council

Admiral Harry Harris, USN

Commander, U.S. Pacific Command, Department of Defense

Dr. Richard Hooker

Senior Director for Europe and Russia, National Security Council

General John Hyten, USAF

Commander, U.S. Strategic Command, Department of Defense

Mr. Greg Kausner

Deputy Director, Defense Security Cooperation Agency, Department 

of Defense 

Mr. Chris Kevork

Counsellor Defence Strategic Policy, Australian Defence Staff, 

Embassy of Australia 

Mr. Iain King

Defence Counsellor, Policy & Nuclear, British Embassy

Dr. Sean M. Kirkpatrick

Director, National Security Strategy, National Security Council

General Joseph Lengyel, USAF

Chief of the National Guard Bureau, Department of Defense

The Honorable James Mattis

Secretary of Defense, Department of Defense

Dr. Michael Mazarr

Senior Political Scientist, RAND Corporation

Mr. Steve McCarthy

Minister Defence Materiel and Civil Secretary, British Embassy
85

General Darren McDew, USAF

Commander, U.S. Transportation Command, Department of Defense

Lieutenant General Kenneth McKenzie, USMC

Director, Joint Staff, Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Department 

of Defense

Mr. Michael McNerney

Associate Director, International Security and Defense Policy Center 

and Senior International/Defense Researcher, RAND Corporation

General Mark Milley, USA

Chief of Staff of the Army, Department of Defense

Mr. R. James Mitre 

Principal Director for Strategy & Force Development, Office of the 

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy & Force 

Development, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, 

Department of Defense

Général de brigade Jean-Pierre Montégu

Defense Attaché, Embassy of France

Colonel Philippe Geay de Montenon

Deputy Defense Attaché for Strategic Affairs, Embassy of France

Dr. Karl Mueller

Senior Political Scientist and Professor, Pardee RAND Graduate 

School, RAND Corporation

General Robert Neller, USMC

Commandant of the Marine Corps, Department of Defense

Dr. Leigh Nolan

Director for Strategic Analysis, Office of the Deputy Assistant 

Secretary of Defense for Strategy & Force Development, Office of 

the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Department of Defense

Mr. Dave Ochmanek

Senior International/Defense Researcher, RAND Corporation

Mr. Jay Okey

Central Intelligence Agency 

Dr. Mira Rapp-Hooper

Senior Research Scholar in Law and Senior Fellow, Paul Tsai China 

Center at Yale Law School/Adjunct Senior Fellow, Asia-Pacific 

Security Program at the Center for a New American Security

Admiral John Richardson, USN

Chief of Naval Operations, Department of Defense
86

Ms. Lynn Robinson

National Intelligence Council

Admiral Michael Rogers, USN

Commander, U.S. Cyber Command, Department of Defense

Dr. Phillip Saunders

Director, Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs, National 

Defense University, Department of Defense

Ms. Kelley Sayler

Strategic Analyst, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of 

Defense for Strategy & Force Development, Office of the Under 

Secretary of Defense for Policy, Department of Defense

General Curtis Scaparrotti, USA

Commander, U.S. European Command, Department of Defense

Dr. Nadia Schadlow

Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Strategy, 

National Security Council

Mr. Anthony Schinella

National Intelligence Officer for Military Issues, National Intelligence 

Council

The Honorable Patrick Shanahan

Deputy Secretary of Defense, Department of Defense

Ms. Pamela Shepherd

Deputy for Strategic Planning and Integration, Defense Security 

Cooperation Agency, Department of Defense

Mr. Matthew Shipley

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Force Readiness, Office of the 

Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, 

Department of Defense

Dr. Robert Soofer

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Missile 

Defense Policy, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for 

Policy, Department of Defense

The Honorable Richard Spencer

Secretary of the Navy, Department of Defense

Dr. Michael Spirtas

Senior Political Scientist, RAND Corporation
87

Dr. Sue Mi Terry

Senior Fellow, Korea Chair, Center for Strategic and International 

Studies

Mr. Matthew Turpin

Director for China, National Security Council

General Joseph Votel, USA

Commander, U.S. Central Command, Department of Defense

The Honorable Heather Wilson

Secretary of the Air Force, Department of Defense

Dr. Yuna Wong

Policy Researcher and Professor, Pardee RAND Graduate School, 

RAND Corporation

Mr. Taro Yamato

Principal Director, Director for Defense Policy, Embassy of Japan
88

Appendix E

Commissioner Biographies

Co-Chairman, Commission on the National Defense Strategy 

for the United States 

Ambassador Eric S. Edelman was appointed to the Commission by House 

Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-TX).

Ambassador Edelman currently serves as Roger Hertog Practitioner in Residence at Johns Hopkins’ Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International 

Studies and Counselor at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He retired as a career minister from the U.S. Foreign Service on 

May 1, 2009. He has served in senior positions at the Departments of State 

and Defense as well as the White House, where he led organizations providing analysis, strategy, policy development, security services, trade advocacy, 

public outreach, citizen services, and congressional relations.

As Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from August 2005 to January 

2009, he was DOD’s senior policy official, overseeing strategy development 

with global responsibility for bilateral defense relations, war plans, special 

operations forces, homeland defense, missile defense, nuclear weapons and 

arms control policies, counterproliferation, counternarcotics, counterterrorism, arms sales, and defense trade controls. He served as U.S. Ambassador 

to Finland in the Clinton administration and Turkey in the Bush administration and was Vice President Cheney’s principal deputy assistant for national 

security affairs. He was chief of staff to Deputy Secretary of State Strobe 

Talbott, special assistant to Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs 

Robert Kimmitt, and special assistant to Secretary of State George Shultz. 

His other assignments included the State Department Operations Center, 

Prague, Moscow, and Tel Aviv, where he was a member of the U.S. Middle 

East delegation to the West Bank/Gaza autonomy talks. Ambassador 

Edelman has been awarded the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Distinguished Civilian Service Award, the Presidential Distinguished Service 

Award, and several Department of State Superior Honor Awards. In 2010, he 

was named a knight of the French National Order of the Legion of Honor.

Ambassador Edelman received a B.A. in history and government from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in U.S. diplomatic history from Yale University. 

He is a distinguished fellow at the Center of Strategic and Budgetary Assessment and a senior associate of the international security program at the 

Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. He 

also serves on the National Defense Panel and on the bipartisan board of 

directors of the United States Institute of Peace.
89

Co-Chairman, Commission on the National Defense Strategy for the 

United States

Admiral Gary Roughead, USN, Retired was appointed to the Commission by 

House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-WA).

Admiral Roughead is a 1973 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. He became the 29th Chief of Naval Operations in September of 2007, after holding six operational commands. He is one of only two officers in the history 

of the Navy to have commanded both the U.S. Atlantic and Pacific Fleets.

Ashore he served as the Commandant, U.S. Naval Academy where he led 

the strategic planning effort that underpinned that institution’s first capital 

campaign. He was the Navy’s Chief of Legislative Affairs, responsible for

the Department of the Navy’s interaction with Congress. Admiral Roughead 

was also the Deputy Commander, U.S. Pacific Command during the massive 

relief effort following the tsunami of 2004. 

In retirement, Admiral Roughead is Robert and Marion Oster Distinguished 

Military Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and serves 

on the boards of directors of the Northrop Grumman Corporation, Maersk 

Line, Limited and the Center for a New American Security. He is a Trustee 

of Dodge and Cox Funds, a Trustee of the Johns Hopkins University, and 

serves on the Board of Managers of the Johns Hopkins University Applied 

Physics Laboratory. He advises companies in the national security and medical sectors.

The Honorable Christine H. Fox was appointed to the Commission by Senate 

Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Jack Reed (D-RI).

Ms. Fox currently serves as Assistant Director for Policy and Analysis of the 

Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). Prior to joining APL, she served as Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense from December 

2013 to May 2014, making her the highest-ranking female official in history 

to serve in the Department of Defense. From 2009 to 2013, Ms. Fox served 

as the Director, Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation in the Office of 

the Secretary of Defense. In that position, she was the principal civilian advisor to the Secretary of Defense for analyzing and evaluating plans, programs, 

and budgets in relation to U.S. defense objectives and resource constraints.

From 2005 to 2009, Ms. Fox served as the President of the Center for Naval 

Analyses (CNA), a Federally Funded Research and Development Center, 

and as the scientific analyst to the Chief of Naval Operations. During her 

28-year career at CNA, Ms. Fox oversaw analysis of real-world operations, 

from the first Gulf War and the operations in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 

1990s, to the operations in Afghanistan immediately following the September 11th attacks, and the operation in Iraq in early 2003. From 2003 to 2005, 

Ms. Fox served as a member of NASA’s Return to Flight Task Group, chartered by the NASA Administrator to certify the recommendations made by 

the Columbia Accident Investigation Board.
90

Ms. Fox currently serves on the Board of Trustees for the Woods Hole 

Oceanographic Institution and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She previously served on the Advisory Board of the Applied Physics 

Laboratory, University of Washington.

With nearly 6,000 staff at what is the nation’s largest University Affiliated 

Research Center, Johns Hopkins APL makes critical contributions to a wide 

variety of national and global technical and scientific challenges. As the 

Director of Policy and Analysis, Ms. Fox leads efforts to increase APL’s 

engagement on technical policy issues and directs research and analysis 

projects on behalf of the Department of Defense, the intelligence 

community, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and other 

federal agencies.

Ms. Fox is a three-time recipient of the Department of Defense Distinguished Service Medal. She has also been awarded the Department of the 

Army’s Decoration for Distinguished Civilian Service.

Ms. Fox earned a B.S. in mathematics and an M.S. in applied mathematics 

from George Mason University.

The Honorable Kathleen H. Hicks was appointed to the Commission by 

House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-WA).

Dr. Hicks is senior vice president, Henry A. Kissinger Chair, and director of 

the International Security Program at CSIS. With over 50 resident staff and 

an extensive network of nonresident affiliates, the CSIS International Security Program undertakes one of the most ambitious research and policy agendas in the security field. Dr. Hicks is a frequent writer and lecturer on 

geopolitics, national security, and defense matters. She served in the Obama 

administration as Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy 

and Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Forces. She 

led the development of the 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance and the 2010 

Quadrennial Defense Review. She also oversaw DOD contingency and theater campaign planning. From 2006 to 2009, Dr. Hicks served as a senior fellow in the CSIS International Security Program. From 1993 to 2006, she 

served as a career civil servant in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, rising from Presidential Management Intern to the Senior Executive Service.

Dr. Hicks is concurrently the Donald Marron Scholar at the Kissinger Center 

for Global Affairs, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. 

She serves on the Boards of Advisors for the Truman Center and SoldierStrong and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Hicks 

served on the National Commission on the Future of the Army and currently 

serves on the Commission on the National Defense Strategy. She holds a 

Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an 

M.P.A. from the University of Maryland, and an A.B. magna cum laude and 

Phi Beta Kappa from Mount Holyoke College. She is the recipient of distinguished service awards from three secretaries of defense and the chairman of 
91

the Joint Chiefs of Staff and received the 2011 DOD Senior Professional 

Women’s Association Excellence in Leadership Award.

General John M. “Jack” Keane, USA, Retired, was appointed to the 

Commission by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain 

(R-AZ).

General Jack Keane is president, GSI Consulting. He serves as chairman of 

the Institute for the Study of War and the Knollwood Foundation, executive 

chairman of AM General, a director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and the Smith Richardson Foundation, and a former and recent member, for 9 years, of the Secretary of Defense Policy Board. General 

Keane is also a Trustee Fellow of Fordham University, and an advisor to the 

George C. Marshall Foundation.

General Keane, a four-star general, completed over 37 years of public service in December2003, culminating in his appointment as acting Chief of 

Staff and Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army. As the chief operating officer of the Army for over 4 years, he directed 1.5 million soldiers and civilians in 120 countries, with an annual operating budget of $110 billion. 

General Keane was in the Pentagon on 9/11 and provided oversight and support for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Since 2004, General Keane spent a 

decade conducting frequent trips to Iraq and Afghanistan for senior defense 

officials with multiple visits during the surge period in both countries directly assisting General David Petraeus.

General Keane appears before Congress regularly, offering testimony on 

matters of foreign policy and national security, having provided testimony in 

May on “ISIS: Post Caliphate.” As well he regularly speaks throughout the 

country on leadership and America’s global security challenges.

General Keane is a career infantry paratrooper, a combat veteran of Vietnam, 

decorated for valor, who spent much of his military life in operational commands where he commanded the famed 101st Airborne Division (Air 

Assault) and the legendary 18th Airborne Corps, the Army’s largest 

warfighting organization.

General Keane graduated from Fordham University with a Bachelor of 

Science degree and received a Master of Arts degree from Western Kentucky 

University. He is a graduate of the Army War College and the Command and 

General Staff College.

Dr. Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr. was appointed to the Commission by House 

Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-TX).

Dr. Krepinevich currently serves as President and Chief Operating Officer of 

Solarium LLC, a defense consulting firm. From 1995 to 2016, he served as 

president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), 

which he founded in 1995. His service at CSBA was preceded by a 21-year 

career in the U.S. Army. In 2005, he published an influential Foreign Affairs
92

article, “How to Win in Iraq.” The article called for adopting a populationcentric counterinsurgency strategy much like the approach implemented 

during the “Surge” of U.S. forces two years later.

Dr. Krepinevich has served in the DOD’s Office of Net Assessment, and on 

the personal staff of three secretaries of defense. He has also served as a 

member of the National Defense Panel, the Defense Science Board Task 

Force on Joint Experimentation, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s 

Defense Policy Board. He currently serves as chairman of the Chief of Naval 

Operations Executive Panel and on the Advisory Council of Business Executives for National Security.

Dr. Krepinevich has lectured before a wide range of professional and academic audiences, and has served as a consultant for many senior government 

officials, including several secretaries of defense, as well as all four military 

services. Dr. Krepinevich has taught on the faculties of West Point, George 

Mason University, Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, and Georgetown University.

Dr. Krepinevich’s most recent book is The Last Warrior: Andrew Marshall 

and the Shaping of Modern Defense Strategy, which he co-authored with 

Barry Watts. He also authored 7 Deadly Scenarios: A Military Futurist Explores War in the 21st Century. Dr. Krepinevich received the Furniss Award 

for his book, The Army and Vietnam. His recent articles are “Preserving Primary: A Defense Strategy for the New Administration” (with Congressman 

Mac Thornberry), and “How to Deter China: The Case for Archipelagic Defense,” both published in Foreign Affairs. His recent monographs include: 

“Preserving the Balance: A U.S. Eurasia Defense Strategy;” and “Archipelagic Defense: The Japan-U.S. Alliance and Preserving Peace and Stability 

in the Western Pacific.”

A graduate of West Point, Dr. Krepinevich holds an M.P.A. and Ph.D. from 

Harvard University. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He 

is married to the former Julia Ellen Milians. They reside in Leesburg, Virginia, and have three children, Jennifer, Andrew, and Michael, and five 

grandchildren.

Senator Jon L. Kyl (R-AZ) was appointed to the Commission by Senate 

Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-AZ). He is the junior 

U.S. Senator from Arizona, having succeeded the late John McCain in 

September 2018. 

Prior to returning to the Senate, Senator Kyl advised companies on domestic 

and international policies that influence U.S. and multi-national businesses 

and assisted corporate clients on tax, health care, defense, national security, 

and intellectual property matters among others. He retired from Congress in 

January 2013 as the second-highest ranking Republican senator.

During Senator Kyl’s 26 years in Congress, he built a reputation for mastering the complexities of legislative policy and coalition building, first in the 
93

House of Representatives and then in the Senate. In 2006, he was recognized 

by Time magazine as one of America’s Ten Best Senators. Kyl was ranked 

by National Journal in 2007 as the fourth-most conservative U.S. Senator. In 

2010, Time magazine called him one of the 100 most influential people in 

the world, noting his “encyclopedic knowledge of domestic and foreign policy, and his hard work and leadership” and his “power to persuade.”

Senator Kyl sat on the powerful Senate Finance Committee where he was the 

top Republican on the Subcommittee on Taxation and Internal Revenue Service Oversight. The senator also served as the ranking Republican on the 

Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism. A 

member of the Republican Leadership for well over a decade, Senator Kyl 

chaired the Senate Republican Policy Committee and the Senate Republican 

Conference, before becoming Senate Republican Whip.

Dr. Thomas G. Mahnken was appointed to the Commission by Senate Armed 

Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-AZ).

Dr. Mahnken currently serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of 

the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and a Senior Research 

Professor at the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at The Johns 

Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International 

Studies. He was formerly the Jerome E. Levy Chair of Economic Geography 

and National Security at the U.S. Naval War College.

Dr. Mahnken served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy 

Planning from 2006 to 2009. In that capacity, he was responsible for the 

DOD’s major strategic planning functions, including the preparation of guidance for war plans and the development of the defense planning scenarios. 

He was the primary author of the 2008 National Defense Strategy and contributing author of the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). He spearheaded the Secretary of Defense’s Minerva Research Initiative, which will 

provide $100 million in grants to universities to conduct basic research in the 

social sciences, and led an interagency effort to establish, for the first time in 

five decades, a National Security Council-run interagency policy planning 

body.

Prior to joining DOD, he served as a Professor of Strategy at the U.S. Naval 

War College. From 2004 to 2006, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Merrill 

Center at SAIS. During the 2003 to 2004 academic year, he served as the 

Acting Director of the SAIS Strategic Studies Program. His areas of primary 

expertise are strategy, intelligence, and special operations forces. Dr. 

Mahnken has held positions in both the government and the private sector. 

He served on the Staff of the 2014 National Defense Panel and as Staff Director of the 2010 QDR Independent Panel’s Force Structure and Personnel 

Sub-Panel. He served on the staff of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction. He 

served in DOD’s Office of Net Assessment, where he conducted research 

into the emerging revolution in military affairs. He also served as a member 
94

of the Gulf War Air Power Survey, commissioned by the Secretary of the 

Air Force to examine the performance of U.S. forces during the war with 

Iraq. Prior to that, he served as an analyst in the Non-Proliferation Directorate of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he was responsible 

for enforcing U.S. missile proliferation policy. In 2009, Dr. Mahnken received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service.

Dr. Mahnken is the author or editor of Strategy in Asia: The Past, Present, 

and Future of Regional Security (2014), Competitive Strategies for the 21st 

Century (2012), Secrecy and Strategem: Understanding Chinese Strategic 

Culture (2011), Technology and the American Way of War Since 1945

(2008), Uncovering Ways of War: U.S. Intelligence and Foreign Military Innovation, 1918-1941 (2002), and (with James R. FitzSimonds) of The Limits 

of Transformation: Officer Attitudes toward the Revolution in Military Affairs (2003). He has appeared on Fox News, CNN, BBC, and CBC, among 

other networks. He is editor of the Journal of Strategic Studies.

Dr. Mahnken earned his master’s degree and doctorate in international affairs from SAIS and was a National Security Fellow at the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. He was a summa cum 

laude graduate of the University of Southern California with bachelor’s degrees in history and international relations (with highest honors) and a certificate in defense and strategic studies.

The Honorable Michael J. “Mike” McCord was appointed to the Commission 

by House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith 

(D-WA).

Mr. McCord currently serves as the Director, Civil-Military Programs at the 

Stennis Center for Public Service Leadership and as an Adjunct Research 

Staff Member at the Institute for Defense Analyses.

Prior to his current positions, Mr. McCord had 32 years of service in national 

security in the executive and legislative branches. From 2009 through January 2017, he served at the Department of Defense as the Under Secretary of 

Defense (Comptroller)/Chief Financial Officer and as the Principal Deputy 

Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller). In these roles he served as principal advisor to four secretaries of defense on all budgetary and financial matters including contingency operation funding and policy, and management 

and financial audit of the world’s largest military budget. While at DOD, he 

was a four-time recipient of the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service.

Mr. McCord joined DOD with 24 years of experience in national security issues in Congress, including 21 years as a Professional Staff Member on the 

Senate Armed Services Committee for former Senators Sam Nunn and Carl 

Levin. He served on the full committee staff from 1987 through 2002 and 

again from 2004 through 2008, with oversight of defense funding issues. 

From 1995 through 2008, he also served as the minority or majority staff 

lead on the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support where he 
95

was responsible for readiness, military construction and basing, and base closure matters.

He has also served as a defense and veterans affairs analyst on the staff of 

the House Budget Committee and began his career as an analyst at the Congressional Budget Office.

Mr. McCord has a degree in economics from the Ohio State University and 

currently serves on the Board of Advisors of their Department of Economics. 

He also has a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the University of Pennsylvania. He guest-lectures on national security and budgeting at the American University and George Washington University, and is a Fellow of the 

National Academy of Public Administration.

Mr. Michael J. Morell was appointed to the Commission by Senate Armed 

Services Committee Ranking Member Jack Reed (D-RI).

Mr. Morell currently serves as Senior Counselor and Global Chairman of 

Geo-Political Risk at Beacon Global Strategies LLC. He served as the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 2010 to 2013 

and twice as its Acting Director.

In his over 30 years at the Agency, he played a central role in the United 

States’ fight against terrorism, its initiatives to halt the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and its efforts to respond to trends that are altering 

the international landscape—including a revanchist Russia, the rise of China, 

and cyber threat.

As Deputy Director, he oversaw the Agency’s analytic, collection, and covert action operations; represented the Agency at the White House and on 

Capitol Hill; and maintained the CIA’s relationships with foreign intelligence services and foreign leaders. He was one of the leaders in the search 

for Osama bin Laden and participated in the deliberations that led to the raid 

that killed bin Laden in May 2011. Mr. Morell served as Acting Director 

longer than anyone in the history of the CIA, for two months following Leon 

Panetta’s confirmation as Secretary of Defense and for five months following David Petraeus’ departure from government. He served as a member of 

the National Security Council’s Deputies Committee.

Mr. Morell started his career at the CIA in 1980. He worked on East Asia 

for 14 years, holding a number of jobs in analysis and management. In 1999, 

Mr. Morell became the Director of the Office of Asian Pacific and Latin 

American Analysis. He also served as President George W. Bush’s intelligence briefer and as the Executive Assistant to CIA Director George J. 

Tenet.

In July 2006, Mr. Morell was named the Executive Director of the CIA, 

overseeing the administration of the Agency. In this role, he worked to 

strengthen the CIA’s leadership development program and established a 

cost-savings program for the Agency’s numerous support elements. In 2008, 

Mr. Morell became the Director for Intelligence at the Agency, leading the 
96

CIA’s analytic effort. In this assignment, he strengthened the quality of CIA 

analysis and enhanced professional development opportunities for analysts. 

He served in this role until he was appointed Deputy Director in May 2010.

Mr. Morell received a B.A. in Economics from the University of Akron and 

an M.A. in Economics from Georgetown University.

Throughout his career, Mr. Morell has received a number of awards. These 

include the Presidential Rank Award, the CIA’s Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal, the Department of Defense Service Medal, the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, the National Intelligence Reform Medal, 

the Intelligence Community Seal Medallion, and five CIA Director’s 

Awards.

Ambassador Anne W. Patterson was appointed to the Commission by Senate 

Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Jack Reed (D-RI).

Ambassador Patterson served as Assistant Secretary of State for Near East 

Affairs from 2013 to 2017. She previously served as United States Ambassador to Egypt until 2013 and as United States Ambassador to Pakistan from 

July 2007 to October 2010.

Ambassador Patterson was the Deputy Inspector General of the Department 

of State from 2003 to 2004, Ambassador to Colombia from 2000 to 2003, 

and Ambassador to El Salvador from 1997 to 2000.

Ambassador Patterson joined the Foreign Service in 1973 as an economic officer. She has served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interamerican Affairs and as Office Director for Andean 

Affairs. She also served as political counselor to the U.S. Mission to the 

United Nations in Geneva from 1988 to 1991 and as economic officer and 

counselor in Saudi Arabia from 1984 to 1988. She has held a variety of other 

economic and political assignments, including in the Bureau of Interamerican Affairs, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs.

She received the State Department’s superior honor award in 1981 and 1988, 

its meritorious award in 1977 and 1983, and a Presidential honor award in 

1993. She has also received the Order of the Congress, from the Congress of 

Colombia, and the Order of Boyaca, from the Government of Colombia, for 

her work in that country. She was also recognized by the Government of El 

Salvador with the Order of Jose Matias Delgado.

Ambassador Patterson was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas. She graduated 

from Wellesley College and attended graduate school at the University of 

North Carolina. She is married and has two sons.
97

Mr. Roger I. Zakheim was appointed to the Commission by House Armed 

Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-TX).

Mr. Zakheim is the Washington Director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential 

Foundation. Prior to his appointment at the Ronald Reagan Presidental Foundation, he served as Partner at the law firm Covington & Burling LLP and 

practiced in the firm’s Public Policy and Government Affairs practice group, 

where he served as co-chair, as well as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and Government Contracts practice groups. 

Mr. Zakheim provided advisory and advocacy support to clients facing policy and regulatory challenges in the aerospace, defense, and national security 

sector.

Before joining the firm, Mr. Zakheim was General Counsel and Deputy Staff 

Director of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee. In this role, 

Mr. Zakheim managed the passage of the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The NDAA is the annual defense policy bill that authorizes the Defense Department’s budget.

Mr. Zakheim’s previous experience includes serving as Deputy Assistant 

Secretary of Defense, where he managed the department’s policies and programs related to the Iraq and Afghanistan coalition affairs.

Mr. Zakheim frequently speaks and writes on national security and defense 

issues. His views have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, 

Politico, National Public Radio, Fox News, CNN, BBC, The Weekly Standard, and National Review, among other media outlets.

Defense News called Mr. Zakheim one of the “100 Most Influential People 

in U.S. Defense,” noting that he is widely “regarded as one of the top GOP 

young guns.” Foreign Policy magazine recently named him one of the “Top 

50 Republicans in GOP Foreign Policy.”
98

Appendix F

Commission Staff

Paul Hughes

Executive Director

Hal Brands

Lead Writer

Thomas Bowditch

Senior Adviser

Raphael Cohen

Matthew Costlow

Mackenzie Eaglen

Giselle Donnelly

Mara Karlin

Mark Lewis

LMI Support Staff to the Commission

George Sinks

LMI Support Lead

Jessica Bryan

Wayne Cragwell

Adam Schmidt

David Walrath

U.S. Government Liaison 

Webster Bridges

DOD Liaison to the National Defense Strategy Commission

Christopher Maletz

Chief of Staff, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense

for Strategy and Force Development
United States Institute of Peace

1200 17th Street NW

Washington, DC 20036

www.usip.org

Providing for the Common Defense

I

n January 2018, the Department of Defense completed the National Defense 

Strategy (NDS), a congressionally mandated assessment of how the Department will 

protect the United States and its national interests using the tools and resources at 

its disposal. That assessment is intended to address an array of important subjects: 

the nature of the strategic environment, the priority objectives of the Department 

of Defense, the roles and missions of the armed forces, the size and shape of the 

force, the major investments in capabilities and innovation that the Department will 

make over the following five-year period, and others. The 2018 NDS is a classified 

document; an unclassified summary was released publicly. 

To enhance America’s ability to address these issues, Congress also convened 

a bipartisan panel to review the NDS and offer recommendations concerning 

U.S. defense strategy. The members of the Commission on the National Defense 

Strategy for the United States represent a group of distinguished national security 

and defense experts. They analyzed issues related not just to defense strategy, but 

also to the larger geopolitical environment in which that strategy must be executed. 

They consulted with civilian and military leaders in the Department of Defense, 

representatives of other U.S. government departments and agencies, allied diplomats 

and military officials, and independent experts. This publication is the consensus 

report of the Commission. The Commission argues that America confronts a grave 

crisis of national security and national defense, as U.S. military advantages erode and 

the strategic landscape becomes steadily more threatening. If the United States does 

not show greater urgency and seriousness in responding to this crisis, if it does not 

take decisive steps to rebuild its military advantages now, the damage to American 

security and influence could be devastating.