Defense Planning for the Long Haul: Scenarios, Operational Concepts, and the Future Security Environment
Abstract
Senior defense officials face a host of critical issues when assessing the nation's military posture. Most importantly, they are responsible for determining which threats the United States must be prepared to address, what capabilities will be required to do so, and how the US military should be organized, trained, equipped, and employed to counter these threats successfully if and when they materialize. Answering these questions is difficult enough when preparing for existing challenges or threats that appear to be on the immediate horizon. For instance, the United States is currently fighting irregular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which are likely to persist for some time. Yet there is still no consensus in the Pentagon or the wider defense policy community on whether these conflicts represent the types of challenges the United States should expect to confront in the years ahead, whether the armed forces should be reoriented away from conventional warfare and toward counterinsurgency and stability operations, and how this might be done. When preparing for a distant and uncertain future, however, resolving issues such as these becomes far more difficult.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2009
- Accession Number
- ADA522190
Entities
People
- Evan B. Montgomery