1999 Fletcher Conference
Opening Presentation:
Transforming National Defense in the 21st Century
Senator Joseph I. Lieberman
Analysis
Despite the fact that the Defense Department has accepted transformation as a fundamental policy goal, future plans mandated by the 1997 QDR were essentially a restatement of the status quo. Nevertheless, the current force structure of the Services will become increasingly less able to deal with new threats in a rapidly changing security environment. The periodic crises and overseas deployment decisions of recent years have inhibited the formulation of a military strategy designed to address future threats sufficiently. The Services are mired in high readiness, operations and maintenance costs while modernization programs have lagged behind. Most notably, the defense budget for science and technology, the basis for military innovation, has dropped to a precipitously low level.
Without fundamental changes, the current force structure and level of readiness will be unsustainable. Unless the Defense Department takes action now, our forces will be smaller and less modern. The "alternative worlds" described by the National Defense Panel (NDP) provide a more forward-looking prescription for the transformation of America's military strategy. The Panel posited four distinct and plausible futures (international stability, baseline projection of the current international order, classic balance of power between hostile alliances, and chronic chaos) that might influence security planning in 20102020. According to the NDP, while the range of potential threats has grown substantially, our ability to develop forces to defeat these threats has also increased. If we act now, time is available to prepare for the future. In order to exploit this window of opportunity, the United States must reevaluate the military's approach to transformation.
In light of existing political and military constraints, the current doctrine of applying overwhelming force is not likely to be a feasible option in most future conflicts. Instead, the Services will be constrained in the use of force to attain political and military objectives. This will require greater lethality and also a better understanding of enemy vulnerabilities. Future military operations will be based on joint and combined operations. In order to achieve true jointness, the Services must clarify the priorities of Joint Vision 2015 and accelerate its implementation. The Defense Department must also improve the process by which future military requirements are identified. Current efforts undertaken by the newly formed Joint Forces Command are spearheading a new path for QDR resource decisions. This Command must be given sufficient resources to succeed with the complex tasks assigned to it.
page created 31 October 2000
Return to Fletcher Conference Front Matter