March 19 2019 Evaluating DOD Strategy Key Findings of the National Defense Strategy Commission On January 19 2018 the Department of Defense DOD or the Department released an unclassified summary of the congressionally mandated National Defense Strategy NDS On November 14 2018 the congressionally appointed bipartisan National Defense Strategy Commission NDSC or the commission issued its report Providing for the Common Defense The NDSC’s mandate was to critique the NDS in order to provide Congress some alternative ideas for improving DOD All quotations are from the NDSC report unless otherwise specified The National Defense Strategy NDS Consistent with comparable documents issued by prior Administrations the NDS maintains that there are five central external threats to U S interests China Russia North Korea Iran and terrorist groups with global reach The NDS mandate requires DOD to prioritize those threats In a break from previous Administrations the NDS views retaining the U S strategic competitive edge relative to China and Russia as a higher priority than countering violent extremist organizations Further the NDS appears conceptually consistent with the National Security Strategy regarding the notion that “peace through strength ” or improving the capability and lethality of the joint force in order to deter warfare is essential to countering these threats It also contends that unlike most of the period since the end of the Cold War the joint force must now operate in contested domains where freedom of access and maneuver is no longer assured The NDS organizes DOD activities along three central “lines of effort”—rebuilding military readiness and improving the joint forces’ lethality strengthening alliances and attracting new partners and reforming the Department’s business practices and argues that all three are interconnected and critical to enabling DOD to advance U S objectives effectively The National Defense Strategy Commission Key Findings The commission evaluated the NDS as well as the activities and priorities of the Department of Defense more broadly Overall the NDSC endorses DOD’s strategic approach particularly its orientation toward strategic competition with other great powers Nevertheless the commission believes that successive Administrations and Congresses have significantly underestimated the scale of this reorientation the urgency with which it must occur and the resources required in order to do so Two key trends led the NSDC to this conclusion 1 “Changes at home and abroad that are diminishing U S military advantages and threatening vital U S interests p v ” The NSDC argues that the United States is both in competition and conflict with an array of challengers including China Russia Iran and North Korea The United States must also contend with transnational organizations that pose threats to the United States and its allies to include the Islamic State IS Finally the proliferation of sophisticated technologies is enabling adversaries to challenge U S military supremacy in innovative and dangerous ways In other words the United States must contend with more and more severe national security challenges than in previous decades 2 “Due to political dysfunction and decisions made by both major political parties across administrations … America has significantly weakened its own defense” p vi In the NDSC’s view the combination of DOD budget reductions and the lack of stable predictable defense funding have negatively affected the size and readiness of U S forces Further DOD’s ability to buy the equipment it needs in order to contend with challenges presented by other militaries has been hampered Failure to address these challenges has led to what the NDSC refers to as a “crisis of national security for the United States ” because “U S military superiority is no longer assured and the implications for American interests and American security are severe” p vi The 2017 National Security Strategy argues that since the 1990s the United States has “displayed a great degree of strategic complacency ” p 27 largely as a result of overwhelming and unchallenged U S military and economic superiority Operations in the Balkans Africa Afghanistan and Iraq while challenging and complex undertakings did not existentially challenge the capabilities and strategies of the United States Yet both China and Russia appear to be developing capabilities and concepts that potentially demonstrate technological superiority over U S military capabilities As a result the NDSC in assessing whether DOD is adequately prepared to meet these challenges concludes that the U S “might struggle to win or perhaps lose a war against China or Russia” p vi This analysis rests on the commission’s concern with six areas that taken together touch upon the structures intellectual capabilities priorities and funding of DOD Realizing the Vision of the National Defense Strategy The commission agrees with the NDS’s assessment of the strategic environment and its prioritization of great power competition the enduring value of alliances and its focus https crsreports congress gov Evaluating DOD Strategy Key Findings of the National Defense Strategy Commission on lethality and readiness It also agrees with the Department’s assertions that almost two decades of war combined with fiscal uncertainty in recent years have led to an erosion of DOD capabilities in power projection antisubmarine warfare and electronic warfare that are generally believed necessary to win current and future fights against a near-peer adversary However the commission assesses that the concepts and programs that DOD has proposed in order to better prepare the military for great power competition such as “dynamic force employment” and “expanding the competitive space ” lack sufficient analytic rigor Further complicating the scale of the analytic and strategic challenge some states are deliberately blurring the lines between “conventional” and “irregular” conflict and sowing confusion as to what constitutes “civilian” versus “military” activities The NDS Commission assesses that “ a bsent 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” p vii Operational Challenges and Concepts The NDSC notes that for the past 25 years the United States has focused on prosecuting crisis management and counterinsurgency operations against adversaries that had relatively limited ability to contest U S and coalition forces As a result it argues DOD has lost its intellectual appreciation for how to fight and win against capable adversaries such as Russia or China In the NDSC’s view operational concepts a key tool DOD uses to develop theater-level plans and campaigns and in so doing link strategic objectives with capabilities and budgetary priorities urgently need updating in order to understand how to win future fights p vii 26-27 What then follows is acquiring capabilities modifying doctrine and training and other modifications across DOD in order to do so National Security Innovation Base NSIB Although not currently defined in any publicly available document the NSIB is a concept that appears to refer to industries and infrastructure that support innovation for national security purposes The NDSC agrees with DOD’s emphasis on innovation generally understood as the rapid inventing prototyping and fielding of new technologies that can have an impact on battlefield success However the NDSC argues that while this innovation is necessary it is not sufficient relative to the scope of the challenge This is especially due to the fact that “America’s edge is diminishing or has disappeared ” with respect to many key technologies that have underpinned U S military superiority As an example they point to Chinese 5G wireless technology which is a Beijing-orchestrated “whole of society” effort that “may yield great economic geopolitical and military benefits for Beijing – and equally great dangers to the United States” p viii Near- and Mid-Term Force Priorities The commission explored augmentations to U S capabilities in Asia the Middle East and Europe to better prepare for near-term challenges In all instances maintaining a “forward posture”—a U S military presence in all these regions—is viewed by the NDSC as essential to “deterring competitors and adversaries and thereby reducing the chances of conflict” p ix Readiness Overall the NDSC agrees with DOD’s emphasis on improving military readiness Still the NDSC contends that preparing the military to win tomorrow’s wars will require that soldiers sailors and airmen be trained to operate in a broader more technologically sophisticated range of missions In the NDSC’s view doing so will require more resources as well as improving DOD’s analytic toolkit to measure readiness Civilian-Military Relations Civilian control and authority over military forces has been a core principle by which the United States has designed and managed its forces The NDSC expresses concern however that the relationship between civilians and the military overall is currently unbalanced As a result civilian views on a variety of issues across DOD have been “muted ” Further the NDSC maintains that recent efforts to centralize global force management under the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff could lead to “profound strategic problems ” This is because “put bluntly allocating priority – and allocating 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” p xi Resources The NDSC did not prepare a precise cost estimate for the programs it suggests DOD adopt Instead the commission notes that available resources are currently insufficient to meet DOD’s goals as articulated in the NDS It also underscores that cost savings resulting from efficiencies in business practices are unlikely to offset the expense of reorienting DOD for great power competition Reactions to the NDSC Report Some observers have expressed skepticism regarding the NDSC’s key conclusions in particular that the United States has reached a point of national security “crisis ” and that prior Administrations have failed to adequately and predictably fund DOD Others including members of the Senate Armed Services Committee have indicated they intend to use the NDSC report as a “blueprint” for overseeing DOD’s activities budgets and programs in the coming years Further Reading CRS Report R45349 The 2018 National Defense Strategy Fact Sheet by Kathleen J McInnis CRS Insight IN10842 The 2017 National Security Strategy Issues for Congress by Kathleen J McInnis Kathleen J McInnis Specialist in International Security IF11139 https crsreports congress gov Evaluating DOD Strategy Key Findings of the National Defense Strategy Commission Disclaimer This document was prepared by the Congressional Research Service CRS CRS serves as nonpartisan shared staff to congressional committees and Members of Congress It operates solely at the behest of and under the direction of Congress Information in a CRS Report should not be relied upon for purposes other than public understanding of information that has been provided by CRS to Members of Congress in connection with CRS’s institutional role CRS Reports as a work of the United States Government are not subject to copyright protection in the United States Any CRS Report may be reproduced and distributed in its entirety without permission from CRS However as a CRS Report may include copyrighted images or material from a third party you may need to obtain the permission of the copyright holder if you wish to copy or otherwise use copyrighted material https crsreports congress gov IF11139 · VERSION 2 · NEW