Every five years, DoD prepares a review of global defense capabilities extending to 2005 & beyond. This review focuses on the adjustment of forces to reflect the demise of the Warsaw Pact, reductions in DoD infrastructure, a service focus, & other changes. Contents: design, approach, & implementation of the Quadrennial Defense Review; the global security environment; defense strategy; alternative defense postures; forces & manpower; force readiness; transforming U.S. forces for the future; achieving a 21st century defense infrastructure; comments by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Glossary. Assessment by the Nat. Defense Panel.
In March 1993, Secretary of Defense Aspin initiated a comprehensive review of the nation's defense strategy, force structure, modernization, infrastructure, and foundations. He felt that a department-wide review needed to be conducted "from the bottom up" because of the dramatic changes that have occurred in the world as a result of the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. These changes in the international security environment have fundamentally altered America's security needs. Thus, the underlying premise of the Bottom-Up Review was that we needed to reassess all of our defense concepts, plans, and programs from the ground up. This final report on the Bottom-Up Review provides the results of that unprecedented and collaborative effort. It represents the product of hundreds of individuals' labor and dedication. It describes the extensive analysis that went into the review and the recommendations and decisions that emerged.
Describes the events which led to the first major overhaul of United States military strategy since World War 2. Includes the basic elements of the Base Force Concept along with principal personalities and entities involved with its development, such as General Colin Powell and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
William J. Perry and Ashton B. Carter, two of the world's foremost defense authorities, draw on their experience as leaders of the U.S. Defense Department to propose a new American security strategy for the twenty-first century. After a century in which aggression had to be defeated in two world wars and then deterred through a prolonged cold war, the authors argue for a strategy centered on prevention. Now that the cold war is over, it is necessary to rethink the risks to U.S. security. The A list--threats to U.S. survival--is empty today. The B list--the two major regional contingencies in the Persian Gulf and on the Korean peninsula that dominate Pentagon planning and budgeting--pose imminent threats to U.S. interests but not to survival. And the C list--such headline-grabbing places as Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda, and Haiti--includes important contingencies that indirectly affect U.S. security but do not directly threaten U.S. interests. Thus the United States is enjoying a period of unprecedented peace and influence; but foreign policy and defense leaders cannot afford to be complacent. The authors' preventive defense strategy concentrates on the dangers that, if mismanaged, have the potential to grow into true A-list threats to U.S. survival in the next century. These include Weimar Russia: failure to establish a self-respecting place for the new Russia in the post-cold war world, allowing it to descend into chaos, isolation, and aggression as Germany did after World War I; Loose Nukes: failure to reduce and secure the deadly legacy of the cold war--nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons in Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union; A Rising China Turned Hostile: failure to shape China's rise to Asian superpower status so that it emerges as a partner rather than an adversary; Proliferation: spread of weapons of mass destruction; and Catastrophic Terrorism: increase in the scope and intensity of transnational terrorism.They also argue for
This report stems from a congressional request for an independent report about the U.S. Department of Defense s capabilities for joint analysis and ways to improve them. Congressional concerns largely involved the activity called support for strategic analysis (SSA) and whether to revise it. The report recommends making fundamental revisions to the overall planning construct to which SSA contributes."
Addresses the challenges of this changed world, the difficulties for defense planning these challenges engender, and new analytic techniques for framing these complex problems.
The end of the Cold War ushered in an era of profound change in the international arena and hence in the policymaking environment as well. Yet the changes that have characterized the post-Cold War era have often proceeded at different paces and have at times moved in opposing directions, placing unprecedented strain on policymakers seeking to shape a new national security and military strategy. This report describes the challenges policymakers have faced as seen through the lens of the three major force structure reviews that have taken place over the past decade: the 1990 Base Force, the 1993 Bottom-Up Review, and the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review. The report focuses on the assumptions, decisions, and outcomes associated with these reviews as well as the planning and execution of each. It concludes that all three reviews fell short of fully apprehending the demands of the emerging threat environment, and the budgets that would be needed and afforded, resulting in a growing imbalance between strategy, forces, and resources over the decade. Accordingly, the report recommends that future defense planners adopt an assumption-based approach in which key planning assumptions are continually reassessed with a view toward recognizing--and rapidly responding to--emerging gaps and shortfalls.
