This report offers an examination of U.S. Army force posture in Europe amid heightened tensions between the United States and Russia. The report explores the necessary components of a sustainable and credible deterrence posture in Europe and highlights key challenges—from the strategic down to the tactical level. It offers recommendations for how to best recalibrate U.S. defense and deterrence posture in Europe over the next decade.
Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine triggered the bloodiest war in Europe since World War II and raised significant questions about the United States' role in Europe. This CSIS report examines the U.S. force posture in Europe---including the military capabilities, personnel, infrastructure, and agreements that support defense operations and plans---and makes recommendations for future U.S. posture. It finds that the United States needs a robust, long-term military force posture in Europe, focused on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) eastern flank, to deter future Russian aggression.
The U.S. Army currently faces a difficult truth: without changes to its modernization strategy, the Army risks losing qualitative tactical overmatch. A lost procurement decade and recent, significant modernization funding declines have resulted in an Army inventory that remains heavily leveraged on the “Big Five” programs, originally procured in the 1970s and 1980s. Meanwhile, technology proliferation has made potential state and nonstate adversaries increasingly capable; shrinking the U.S. overmatch advantage and in some cases surpassing it. While current and projected future Army modernization funding is below historical averages, necessitating increased modernization funding to ensure continued U.S. qualitative tactical overmatch, the Army’s modernization problem cannot be fixed only by increasing modernization funding. Additional funds also need to be accompanied by an updated Army modernization strategy that presents a compelling case for modernization funding and sets clear priorities for fulfilling future operational requirements.
Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI), the “invisible wounds” and the “signature injuries” to US service members, number over eight hundred thousand. The costs of those injuries over time have not been adequately tallied. The DoD, VA and medicine in general use an inadequate protocol that treats symptoms and fails to treat underlying brain wounds. It is fair to say that costs continue to escalate partly as a result of politics brought about by medicine’s unwillingness to accept worldwide science and evidence of new, non-standard treatments that are healing brain wounds. Annually, millions of people in the US sustain TBIs and Concussions. Over a quarter of million are hospitalized and survive. According to CDC estimates, 1.6 to 3.8 million sports and recreation related concussions occur each year in the U.S. Over 80,000 experience the onset of long-term disability. Acquired brain trauma is the second most prevalent disability in the U.S., now estimated at 13.5 million Americans. A war lasting twenty years has coincided with interrelated epidemics of suicide, opioid overdoses, and mental health deterioration in the military services. $118.1 billion per year is the current annual economic impact on our country by TBI veterans who live with untreated, undiagnosed, or misdiagnosed brain wounds. The costs are spread across a complex of known impacts. It includes Veteran homelessness, loss of state and federal income taxes, sales taxes, vehicle taxes, drug and opioid induced costs, non-taxable VA and Social Security disability payments, state incarceration and hospitalization costs, pharmaceuticals, and caregiver costs. The costs of the moral, mental, social and behavioral damage are hard to quantify. The financial modeling approach used in this study reflects the estimated economic impact to each state and our country’s annual tax revenues and expenses. A similar analysis is done to assess the costs of treating and healing brain wounds with Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) and other proven alternative, functional medicine interventions. This contrasts with the current standard of care: merely treating symptoms and palliating pain and suffering with drugs. Treating and healing brain wounds, now possible, can reverse the suicide epidemic among service members and brake accelerating costs; improve Quality of Life for the wounded and their families; and affect military readiness and national security. The cost savings are profound: Treating the estimated 877,000+ brain-wounded post-9/11 Veterans with Hyperbaric Oxygen (HBOT) and other proven alternative therapies will cost an estimated $19.7 Billion. That is less than ½ of one percent of the $4.7 Trillion 40-year lifetime costs attributable to NOT treating those brain wounds. Recommendations include: Immediate use of proven alternative therapies such as HBOT to arrest the suicide epidemic and heal wounded brains; implementation of a comprehensive plan to promote a collaborative, prospective TBI treatment agenda, with the sense of urgency that epidemics demand; URGENT DoD and VA efforts to develop coordinate, and implement a measurement-based TBI management system that documents patients’ progress over the course of treatment and long-term follow-up; highest priority assigned to ensure DoD and VA medical personnel are fulfilling their medical ethical obligations of “Informed Consent” about current alternative treatments, science and the need for immediate identification and treatment of a brain wounded service members; independent audits of all mental health statistics and numbers coming out of DoD and the VA, along with budget numbers masking total costs for TBI Veterans; and application of the principles of Functional Medicine in assessing and treating all combat veterans.
Surprise has always been an element of warfare, but the return of great power competition—and the high-level threat that it poses—gives urgency to thinking about surprise now. Because the future is highly uncertain, and great powers have not fought each other for over 70 years, surprise is highly likely in a future great power conflict. This study, therefore, examines potential surprises in a great power conflict, particularly in a conflict’s initial stages when the interaction of adversaries’ technologies, prewar plans, and military doctrines first becomes manifest. It is not an attempt to project the future. Rather, it seeks to do the opposite: explore the range of possible future conflicts to see where surprises might lurk.
As the U.S. National Defense Strategy recognizes, the United States is currently locked in a great-power competition with Russia. This report seeks to define areas where the United States can compete to its own advantage. It examines Russian vulnerabilities and anxieties; analyzes potential policy options to exploit them; and assesses the associated benefits, costs, and risks, as well as the likelihood of successful implementation.
Future NATO looks at the challenges facing NATO in the 21st century and examines how the Alliance can adapt to ensure its continued success For more than 70 years, the North Atlantic Alliance has helped to preserve peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area. It has been able to adjust to varying political and strategic challenges. We must ensure that NATO continues to be effective in the future. This requires looking ahead, challenging habitual approaches, exchanging ideas, and advancing new thinking. I highly recommend Future NATO to policymakers, military professionals and scholars alike, as it offers necessary critical and constructive analysis of current and future challenges posed to our security and defence.Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Minister of Defence, Germany Since 1949, NATO has successfully upheld common principles and adapted to new realities. As Future NATO examines, the Alliance is facing a new set of external and internal challenges in the decades to come. The Alliance and its partners need to remain committed to future changes. I recommend this excellent study to all, but especially to the younger generation of scholars and future policymakers. Trine Bramsen, Minister of Defence, Denmark Over the last 70 years, Europe has lived in peace and prosperity because of NATO, with unity as our most important weapon. We may have our differences, but we will continue to work on our common cause to promote peace, security and stability. To effectively do so, NATO needs to continuously adapt to changing security situations. An important current challenge is to ensure European Allies take more responsibility for their security. But we also need to look at future challenges and find innovative solutions for them. Future NATO offers a useful analysis that can help us prepare for what is to come for the Alliance. Ank Bijleveld, Minister of Defence, The Netherlands
Twenty-five years of relative calm and predictability in relations between Russia and the West enabled European governments largely to neglect their military capabilities for territorial defense and dramatically redraw Northern Europe’s multilateral, regional, and bilateral boundaries, stimulating new institutional and cooperative developments and arrangements. These cooperative patterns of behavior occurred amid a benign security environment, a situation that no longer obtains. Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, its military incursion into eastern Ukraine, its substantial military modernization efforts, heightened undersea activity in the North Atlantic and Baltic Sea, and its repeated air violations, the region’s security environment has dramatically worsened. The Baltic Sea and North Atlantic region have returned as a geostrategic focal point. It is vital, therefore, that the United States rethink its security approach to the region—what the authors describe as an Enhanced Northern Presence.
The role that nuclear weapons play in international security has changed since the end of the Cold War, but the need to maintain and replenish the human infrastructure for supporting nuclear capabilities and dealing with the multitude of nuclear challenges remains essential. Recognizing this challenge, CSIS launched the Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI) in 2003 to develop the next generation of policy, technical, and operational nuclear professionals through outreach, mentorship, research and debate. PONI runs two signature programs—the Nuclear Scholars Initiative and the Annual Conference Series—to engage emerging nuclear experts in thoughtful and informed debate and research over how best to address the nuclear community’s most pressing problems. The papers included in this volume comprise research from participants in the 2016 Nuclear Scholars Initiative and the PONI Conference Series. PONI sponsors this research to provide a forum for facilitating new and innovative thinking and to provide a platform for emerging thought leaders across the nuclear enterprise. Spanning a wide range of technical and policy issues, these selected papers further serious discussion in their respective areas.
