Thomas Mahnken, head of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, says both conventional and nuclear forces need to be rebuilt instead of favoring one over the other. The U.S. has historically relied more on strategic nuclear weapons during periods of lower defense spending and spent less on those systems during conventional buildups. But after 15 years of counterinsurgency warfare in the Middle East and recent drawdowns at a time of heightened conflict in Iraq and Syria, both forces need rebuilding, Mahnken says, particularly because Russia and China have gained ground militarily. “We are now in a period characterized by the reality of great‐power competition and the increasing possibility of great‐power conflict,” he says. “The ‘wars of the future’ may no longer lie that far in the future.”
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