Publications

During the 1920s and 1930s, even as it was engaged in a series of “small wars,” the Marine Corps dedicated itself to solving the “Gallipoli problem”: how to conduct amphibious assaults against a heavily defended shore. To do so, the Corps had to develop new concepts of operation, tactics and techniques, equipment, and organizations that enabled it to apply combat power against the enemy more effectively. The most daunting tactical challenge for the Corps was gaining a foothold on an enemy shore and steadily building combat power while under constant attack. The Navy and Marines thus developed an operational concept that included extensive shore bombardment from Navy ships and naval aircraft, amphibious landing craft by which the Marines could get to the beach, and various techniques for methodically breaking through and reducing enemy defensive positions. The fruits of the Corps’ labor were seen in the many amphibious successes of the United States military in World War II, in both the Pacific and European theaters.

For more than half a century, the US military has been well known for developing and employing the most advanced weapon systems in the world. However, over the years, perhaps nothing has contributed more to the effectiveness of the US military than the quality of its personnel. Indeed, in order to be effective, the US military must have adequate numbers of high-quality military personnel, with the right experience, training and skills.

The emergence, during the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower, of a peacetime defense industry of significant proportions was an unprecedented event in the history of the American republic. Two geopolitical developments made its emergence more or less unavoidable for a nation committed to leadership of the Free World after World War II. One was the onset of the US-Soviet Cold War in the late 1940s and the formulation, in response, of the strategy of trying to contain Soviet power. The other was North Korea’s invasion of South Korea in June 1950, which precipitated the large increases in defense spending called for in Paul Nitze’s formulation of containment in April 1950. The standing military-industrial complex that these developments brought into being endures to this day.

The Bush Administration has requested $611 billion for national defense in fiscal year 2009. This includes $541 billion for the “base” defense budget — $518 billion for the Department of Defense, and $23 billion for Department of Energy and other  defense related activities. The base defense budget is intended to cover the military’s longterm — essentially peace-time — force structure, readiness and modernization costs.

The United States is currently in a situation comparable to the one it confronted in the early days of the Cold War, when US civilian and military leaders were faced with a new and daunting challenge in the form of the Soviet Union. To address this  challenge, a long-term national strategy to preserve American security was developed. In the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse, the United States entered a period of relative calm — a “unipolar moment” in which its power was unrivaled and emerging threats to its security had not yet fully formed. Unfortunately, that period has been succeeded by a more dangerous era, as the United States now confronts several formidable challenges that may grow even more threatening in the years to come. The purpose of this report is to provide an overview of the three existing and emerging strategic challenges that are most likely to preoccupy senior decision-makers in the coming years:

This report addresses the critical issue of allocating resources to deal with current and future discontinuities in the security environment. For the Defense Department, strategy is fundamentally about making choices as to how limited resources can best be used to provide for the nation’s security. One of the most difficult choices is  between apportioning resources to deal with current challenges confronting the military, or devoting them instead to creating novel or even revolutionary military capabilities that address emerging challenges. To help strike the appropriate balance between these two options, this report provides a framework for thinking about investment strategies at a time when the United States is at war, and facing the need to transform its military owing to the likelihood of significant shifts in the character of the military competition. The first section of the report addresses how the competitive environment has dramatically changed since the Cold War’s end, and notes how the Defense Department’s existing investment strategy is ill equipped to address these changes.