A congressionally mandated defense commission concludes that the United States “faces the most serious threats since the end of World War II” and that it could “lose” a future major war.
In 2022, Congress established the National Defense Strategy Commission as an independent body to evaluate the 2022 US defense strategy.
The Commission’s members are described as non-governmental national security experts, and the influential anti-government think tank RAND provided analytical and administrative support to the final report released over the summer.
It concludes that “The United States confronts the most serious and the most challenging threats since the end of World War II” and can no longer be confident of defeating its enemies militarily.
“The United States could in short order be drawn into a war across multiple theaters with peer and near-peer adversaries, and it could lose”, it proclaims.
“Weakened position”
The Commission writes that the strategy developed in 2022 “does not account for ongoing wars in Europe and the Middle East and the possibility of a larger war in Asia”, and that a new strategy should instead be developed that includes these scenarios.
“Continuing with the current strategy, bureaucratic approach, and level of resources will weaken the United States’ relative position against the gathering, and partnering, threats it faces”, it says.
Instead, it wants the US to embrace a security strategy that encompasses “all elements of national power” and “spending smarter and spending more across the national security agencies of government”.
More of everything
“According to the Commission, the time to make urgent and major change is now. That change will mean fundamental alterations to the way DoD operates, the strategic focus of other government agencies, and the functionality of Congress, as well as closer US engagement with allies and mobilization of the public and private sectors”, it says.
Among other things, the report recommends that US policymakers make the Pentagon less bureaucratic and more efficient, intensify cooperation with allies, increase military production, focus more on recruiting, and increase the budget and spend more on building the “future force”.
“The United States faces the most challenging global environment with the most severe ramifications since the end of the Cold War. The trends are getting worse, not better“, the Commission assesses.
