Strategy in the 21st Century

[Bill Moore]

The Reagan National Defense Forum has been annual event for the past few years where several leaders in national security come to share their ideas. This year NSA McMasters provided an overview of the tenants of President Trump's emerging National Security Strategy (NSS), which is anticipated to be signed and published within the new few weeks.

The following article captures some of the key points that LTG McMasters shared with the audience.

https://www.defense.gov/News/Article...rity-strategy/

National Security Advisor Hints at Basis of Trump’s National Security Strategy

He drew an interesting parallel to President Reagan vision of renewing America's confidence to address our national malaise after the Vietnam War, and subsequent retreat from the world stage under President Carter (my view). McMaster asserts the Trump administration will do the same, and the NSS will enable this moral factors recovery.

Confidence in the United States and the nation’s influence abroad were at a low point, McMaster said. “The Soviet Union appeared to be on the rise and America, it seemed, was in decline,” he said. “President Reagan ushered in a dramatic rethinking of America’s role in the world and a dramatic renewal of American confidence. America would not only triumph in the Cold War and beyond but reach a new height of influence and prosperity.”

It was also fitting to discuss the Trump administration’s national security strategy, which will be released shortly, since Reagan signed the first national security strategy in 1987, the general said.

The key threats identified in McMaster's speech were the existing 4+1 (China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Violent Extremists), and he emphasized that North Korea was the most immediate threat to U.S. interests.

As during Reagan's time, McMaster emphasized the need to dramatically rethink national security based on these threats and our core interests.

He identified the four core national interests as:

1. Defending the homeland (traditionally this includes U.S. citizens overseas and our allies, not sure if that will be the case in this NSS)
2. Prosperity (you can't be a superpower without super economy, he emphasized fair trade)
3. Preserving peace through strength (ensuring a rules based international order, it is also worth noting we can't sustain economic growth without a rules based international order.)
4. Increasing U.S. influence (discussed the importance of our values, but not imposing our way of life upon others).

I like that he addressed the importance of understanding the dynamic and competitive nature of the security environment. He also noted that with competition comes interaction and change, so we must be prepared to change. That tells me we need to shed some our legacy views of the world.

This introduction to the draft NSS leaves many questions, and it appears it will continue to cling to the key tenants of previous NSSs, but pursue our aims more aggressively than President Obama's approach, but not as idealistically based as the Bush administration. In short, we'll regain our confidence to the shape the world, and in so doing, our allies and partners will be assured that we intend to protect our core interests (which more often than not are shared interests with our allies).

It still begs the question how we can afford this? Even in the unlikely event the proposed tax cuts generate more tax income for the government due to greater productivity of the U.S. economy we still have a massive and growing national debt. We are still facing a government shut down this month if Congress doesn't pass a budget or a continuing resolution. DoD is challenged to address force modernization due to budget uncertainty. The military requires a significant increase in its budget to rebuild its force, and simultaneously it will have to sustain it global war on violent extremists. How we continue to wage this war and how we modernize the force both need to be relooked if we're going to arrive at feasible solution for resourcing the NSS.

The rebuilding of the defense force can't simply consist of repairing broken legacy equipment (tanks, plans, helicopters, vehicles, etc.). Instead, DoD must build a 21st century force that can defend our interests from 21st Century threats. These threats range from cyber, WMD, and advanced weapons systems that may neutralize many of our current capabilities. Does more ships for the Navy matter if our adversary increasingly has the means to put them at the bottom of the ocean? Can a J35 defend us against an UAV swarm? Do we really have the means and policies to protect ourselves from sophisticated cyber attacks against our infrastructure? A cyber expert earlier in this thread points out we don't.

Developing what we hope will be a feasible strategy is extremely difficult, and implementing it will be harder. Rice bowls will need to be broken, bureaucratic processes re-wickered, the budget must be aligned to support the strategic means, and many people in key positions who can't adapt to the new strategy will need to be sidelined.