By Harry Kazianis
The U.S. military faces a 21st century identity crisis. But despite blanket spending cuts, it has options.
More than a decade after initiating the “War on Terror,” along with invasions and occupations that brought regime change to both Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington’s defense planners face the arduous task of refocusing America’s military towards the threats of the future: defeating anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) weapons and strategies that are quickly being adopted by nations and non-state actors alike.
How will the United States deal with this challenge?
Any defense analyst will tell you that reading the tea leaves when it comes to the future of America’s military these days is a thankless task. Those of us who track such developments for a living are fed an endless stream of information that, when combined, are prone to produce information overload. Even so, two paths seem pretty clear.
The first choice is not really a choice at all. The United States could have a military that has been slashed to the bone thanks to massive cuts in spending through what is known as sequestration. Without any sort of strategy or purpose besides cutting costs and shrinking Washington’s massive budget deficit, this military would be unable to meet the challenges of the future, costing blood and treasure in the process while truly becoming “hollowed out.” Or it could have a smaller, leaner but high-tech military that can fight from long distances and that has a clear, defined strategy: defeating forces that would deny America’s military access to the global commons across multiple domains. The key to this? The ability to develop new weapons systems to strike from long distance.
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