The deep change which the new budget rather vaguely discloses is the shift from a military doctrine focused on land wars to one much more oriented towards naval and air conflict. First, as the "Strategic Guidance" which the Pentagon issued earlier this month states, "U.S. forces will no longer be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations" -- i.e., no more wars of occupation like Iraq or Afghanistan/.../
It is no longer obvious, as it was only a few years ago, what the Army is for anymore. This is not some sort of metaphysical question. As Andrew Krepinevich, director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis says, "In the Cold War, the Army was the supported force, not the supporting force. The same was true in Afghanistan and Iraq." The Navy's job over the last decade was mostly to haul fighter planes around on top of aircraft carriers. But all that has been reversed. The military is now very much focused on projecting power in regions where strong states, not stateless actors, are developing the capacity to exclude us. Krepinevich is one of the authors of the so-called "AirSea Battle Concept," whose goal is to counter the threat that China's long-range missiles, anti-satellite and cyberwar capacity, space-based and land-based surveillance systems pose to U.S. forces stationed in Asia and to America's Asian allies. AirSea Battle, as the name implies, involves coordinating efforts by the Navy and the Air Force. Krepinevich flatly dismisses the possibility of a land war against China. The Army's role in Asia, he says, will consist largely of training allies and partners, such as Japan, Korea, and the Philippines.