Strategically, the military recognises new, non-traditional threats ranging from failed states to cyber-warfare to climate change. But there is little change in the military spending habits of the Obama Pentagon versus that of his predecessor.
The new Quadrennial Defence Review, a congressionally mandated report on the direction of U.S. national security strategy, marks several major breaks from past reports. Whereas previous QDRs have had at their heart a strategy in which the country is able to fight two separate conventional wars, Monday's report shifts the focus to multiple and diffuse simultaneous threats.
"We have learned through painful experience that the wars we fight are rarely the wars we plan," Defence Secretary Robert Gates told reporters at the Pentagon Monday afternoon.
New threats require new responses, and the report emphasises having increased numbers of special forces, drones and helicopters as well as preparing for conflicts that take place in the realms of counterinsurgencies and cyberspace.
"Although it is a manmade domain, cyberspace is now as relevant a domain for DoD activities as the naturally occurring domains of land, sea, air, and space," the report notes.
The report no longer lays out just how many conflicts the military should be called on to fight.
Charles Knight, co-director of the Commonwealth Institute's Project on Defence Alternatives, sees this as problematic.
"They had never in the past defined what they meant [by a two-war strategy] but at least it had the number two in it... now you can go on forever dreaming up possible military engagement," he said.
Among the objectives of the Pentagon's strategy is the aphoristic "prevail in today's wars," which Gates noted is appearing in a QDR for the first time. "Success in wars to come will depend on success in these wars in progress," he explained.
By: Brant
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