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Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, our Nation has fought a global war against violent extremists who use terrorism as their weapon of choice, and who seek to destroy our free way of life. Our enemies seek weapons of mass destruction and, if they are successful, will likely attempt to use them in their conflict with free people everywhere. Currently, the struggle is centered in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we will need to be prepared and arranged to successfully defend our Nation and its interests around the globe for years to come. Th is 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review is submitted in the fifth year of this long war.
In developing this Quadrennial Defense Review, the senior leaders of the Department of Defense – civilian and military – worked side by side throughout 2005 to:
- test the conclusions of the 2001 QDR;
- apply the important lessons learned from more than four years of war against a global network of violent extremists; and
- test assumptions about the continuously changing nature of the world in which we find ourselves.
There is a tendency to want to suggest that documents such as this represent a “new beginning.” Manifestly, this document is not a “new beginning.” Rather, this Department has been and is transforming along a continuum that reflects our best understanding of a world that has changed a great deal since the end of the last century. Th is study refl ects the reality that the Department of Defense has been in a period of continuous change for the past five years.
