The Quadrennial Defense Review: Rethinking the US Military Posture by Andrew F. Krepinevich Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments 2005 ABOUT THE CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND BUDGETARY AssEssMENTS The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments is an independent, non-partisan policy research institute established to promote innovative thinking and debate about national security strategy and investment options. CSBA’s goal is to enable policymakers to make informed decisions in matters of strategy, security policy, and resource allocation. CSBA provides timely, impartial and insightful analyses to senior decision makers in the executive and legislative branches, as well as to the media and the broader national security establishment. CSBA encourages thoughtful participation in the development of national security strategy and policy, and in the allocation of scarce human and capital resources. CSBA’s analysis and outreach focuses on key questions related to existing and emerging threats to US national security. Meeting these challenges will require transforming the national security establishment, and we are devoted to helping achieve this end. The author would like to thank General (Ret.) Richard Hawley, Steve Kosiak, Michael Vickers and Barry Watts for their very helpful comments and suggestions on early drafts of this report. Also deserving thanks is Christopher Sullivan for his fine research support. Alise Frye was most helpful with the report’s copy editing. Any shortcomings in this report are the author’s alone. CONTENTS Executive Summary .............................................. i Three Enduring Challenges .......................... i The Planning Environment: Key Assumptions ......................................... i The Challenges and the Color Plans ........... ii Deterrence, Dissuasion and Reassurance.. iv The Program-Budget Disconnect ............... iv I. Core Challenges and Planning Assumptions .............................................. 1 A Different World ....................................... 1 Radical Islamists ................................... 3 Nuclear Proliferation ............................. 4 China ..................................................... 6 A Relevant Transformation? ....................... 8 A Matter of Timing and Balance ................ 11 The Heart of the Matter ............................ 13 Critical Planning Assumptions .................. 15 The Missile/Anti-Missile Competition Will Remain Offense Dominant ............ 18 Stealth Will Endure ............................. 18 Identifying and Defeating Time-Sensitive and Deep Underground Targets Will Remain Difficult ............... 19 Efforts to Deny Sanctuary Will Grow in Importance ......................................... 20 The United States Sanctuary Status will Erode Further ............................... 22 Information Operations Will Not, of Themselves, be Decisive ..................... 23 Highly Networked Military Operations are Possible Within the Planning Horizon ............................................... 24 Implications ............................................. 25 II. Toward a New Planning Construct ............ 27 Strategic Metrics ...................................... 27 The National Defense Strategy ................. 29 Catastrophic Challenges ........................... 30 Allies and Partners .............................. 32 Irregular Challenges ................................ 33 Allies and Partners .............................. 37 Traditional Challenges .............................. 38 Outsourcing ........................................ 39 Disruptive Challenges .............................. 39 Power Projection and the Anti-Access/Area-Denial Challenge ..... 41 Space .................................................. 43 Sea Control, Sea Denial and Threats to Maritime Commerce ............................ 43 Advanced Irregular Warfare ................ 44 Urban Eviction ..................................... 45 Allies and Partners .............................. 51 Complex Contingencies ....................... 51 Conclusion ........................................... 52 III. Meeting the Challenge: The Color Plans ... 53 What Kinds of Wars? ................................ 53 Refocusing Defense Planning ................... 54 The Color Plans ........................................ 56 Which Color Plans? ................................... 57 Plan Yellow: China ............................... 59 Plan Red: North Korea ......................... 61 Plan Green: Pakistan Implosion .......... 63 Plan Purple: Islamist Insurgency ........ 65 Plan Black: Global Energy Network Defense ............................................... 67 Plan Orange: Global Commons Defense ............................................... 70 Plan Blue: Homeland Defense ............. 73 The Risks of Taking a Narrow View .......... 77 IV. The “Forgotten” Pillars of Defense Strategy: Beyond War Fighting................. 79 Beyond War Fighting ................................ 79 Allies: What Kind of US Presence? ....... 82 Allies: Roles and Missions ................... 83 Allies: Reviewing the Portfolio ............ 86 Strange Bedfellows ............................. 88 The Global Basing Infrastructure and Positional Advantage ............................... 89 V. Minding the Plans—Resources Gap ........... 93 Introduction ............................................. 93 Increase Defense Budgets .................. 93 Defense Efficiencies ............................ 94 Reduce Commitments ......................... 95 Rebalancing Risk ................................. 95 Outsourcing to Allies ........................... 96 Transformation .................................... 97 Summary .................................................. 98 VI. What Kind of Military? .............................. 99 Reshaping the Defense Program .............. 99 The Army ................................................ 104 Special Operations Forces .......................111 Maritime Forces: The Navy and Marine Corps ......................................................112 The Air Force ...........................................117 Conclusion.............................................. 125 Appendix A: Potential Base Types .................... 127 Sanctuaries ....................................... 127 Peripheral Bases ............................... 127 Distributed Bases .............................. 128 Mobile Basing .................................... 130 Export Bases ..................................... 130 Rapid Base Development ....................131 Appendix B: Glossary ....................................... 135 Executive Summary This report provides a point-of-departure framework for developing a post-9/11 defense posture. Its purpose is to assist those charged either with crafting the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) or evaluating it. Three Enduring Challenges Recent events have reduced much of the uncertainty under which defense planning occurred in the decade between the Soviet Union’s collapse and the radical Islamist attacks on New York and Washington. The ongoing war against radical Islamists and continued military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq presents America with an immediate and likely enduring challenge to its security. Second, since 1998, the “nuclearization” of Asia has proceeded apace. Both India and Pakistan have detonated nuclear weapons and built nuclear arsenals. North Korea has declared its possession of nuclear weapons, and Iran has accelerated its efforts to develop a nuclear weapons capability. Finally, China’s continued rise as a great power has yet to be matched by evidence that Beijing will seek to resolve its outstanding strategic objectives through peaceful means. These three enduring security challenges are likely to dominate US defense planning for the next decade or two, and perhaps longer. The Planning Environment: Key Assumptions Some assumptions must be made about the geopolitical and military- technical environment in which defense planning occurs. One assumption is that the level of effort required by the US military to secure the nation’s vital security interests is almost certain to increase substantially over the next decade or two, while the emphasis on deterrence will decline in favor of greater relative focus on war-fighting, dissuasion and preemptive/preventive war. Furthermore, it seems i reasonable to assume that allies will prove less durable and reliable than during the Cold War era, or even during the recent past. Ironically, the United States will need allies much more than it has over the last 15 years. • Among the key military competitions, the following is assumed: • The missile/anti-missile competition will continue to favor the offense; • The stealth/counter-stealth competition will continue to favor the former; • Detecting and destroying time-sensitive and deep underground targets will remain difficult; • Enemy attempts to establish sanctuaries against US forces will increase, while the US homeland’s sanctuary status will erode, perhaps precipitously; • Information warfare operations will not prove decisive at the strategic level of warfare; however, they will prove increasingly important in prevailing at the operational and tactical level of war; and • Highly distributed, highly networked forces can be fielded in significant numbers. The Challenges and the Color Plans The three enduring challenges stated above are captured in Defense Department planning documents