Restoring the Power Projection Capabilities of the U.S. Armed Forces
Abstract
Good morning, Chairman McCain, Ranking Member Reed, members of the committee, and staff. I appreciate the opportunity to share insights that my colleagues and I have gained from more than a decade of analyzing emerging threats to U.S. military operations. Our work has revealed some serious and growing gaps in the capabilities of U.S. forces, raising questions about their ability to accomplish the strategically important mission of deterring and defeating aggression by adversary states. I therefore applaud the committee's efforts to focus attention on how the Department of Defense (DoD) can best act to reverse the deterioration in the military balance of power in key regions. The security environment in which U.S. forces operate and for which they must prepare is, in important ways, more complex and more demanding than the one that DoD has used to build and evaluate todays force. To be clear: Our force planning prior to Russias attacks on Ukraine did not take account of the need to deter large-scale aggression against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); We also have not moved quickly enough to provide the capabilities and basing posture needed to meet the manifold challenges posed by Chinas rapidly modernizing armed forces; The prospect of deliverable nuclear weapons in the hands of North Korea and, potentially, Iran poses challenges for which we do not have satisfactory answers.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 16, 2017
- Accession Number
- AD1027356
Entities
People
- David Ochmanek
Organizations
- RAND Corporation