First, the national security world is still reluctant to think strategically in the broadest sense. What is America's role in the world in the next decade and what part of the U.S. government needs to implement that role? Most of these studies emerge from the defense stovepipe, not the diplomatic, intelligence, or foreign assistance worlds. As a result, their analysis is still locked into a military perspective on our national security challenges. Only the CAP study deliberately looks at what we should do with our civilian diplomatic and assistance capabilities. Halting nuclear and biological weapons proliferation and dealing with terrorists are not predominantly military missions.
Second, most of these reports ignore the relative decline of U.S. power and the impact of military operations on the country's reputation. Locked, as some are, in the defense universe, they are searching for ways to reassert U.S. leadership and to "shape" the security universe in a way that advances U.S. interests. Even if the money is not there to dominate, they do not question our capacity to be the world's hegemon. The default position is that our allies must share the defense burden more than they do, as measured by the share of GDP they spend on defense. This is a dodge, not a policy. There is no unanimity among U.S. allies on what the burdens are, nor agreement on whether military forces are the appropriate way to deal with those burdens. And the share of GDP dedicated to defense does not help anyone answer those questions.
Third, U.S. strategic analysts are still too fascinated with using the military to defend something they call the "global commons." We gotta be out there patrolling it, or who knows what terrible things will happen. But civilian international institutions and laws govern the use of air, sea, and space. And cyber is largely a private enterprise, not subject to military control and badly in need of international agreements like the other three. If you hear the phrase "global commons," reach for your gun...or perhaps your laptop.
Fourth, not all of the reports deal with the more basic management challenge at DOD. The reason we spend too much on defense doesn't have to do with capabilities; it has to do with DOD's failure to discipline its out-of-control acquisition system, a back office that is much larger than necessary, and a pay-and-benefits system that is eating the defense budget. The Stimson study is an exception. It provides options for between $200 and $400 billion in savings from management and personnel actions, which, it argues, could reduce the need for force structure and hardware reductions, but it does not provide much detail. The CSIS report also notes the possibilities for savings on the management side. And RAND, which has done good work in the past on compensation and benefits, gives lip service to the personnel issues. But, frankly, unless DOD and Congress are willing to reduce overhead and force savings, little will be accomplished; none of the reports calls for those kinds of cuts.
Fifth, the new mantra for coping with less is "building partner capacity." It is the default position for strategists who can see that large-scale U.S. military deployments overseas are counter-productive, producing a "blowback" that runs counter to U.S. interests. Most of these reports get right on board, calling for significant DOD support for training, equipping, advising, and strengthening the security forces and institutions of other countries.
The risk of expanding these programs is three-fold: the military does not do them well, as Iraq and Afghanistan testify, especially the farther the mission strays from pure military training and into governance issues. Second, giving DOD this "governance" mission further weakens the civilian tools in our national security toolkit. And, third, we have invested too much history in arguing that the militaries of other countries should stay in their barracks to now argue that they should be deeply entrenched in governance, development, and reconstruction. (For more on this, see the report I co-authored with Becky Williams for Stimson last year.)
Shortcomings are inevitable in such reports; they reflect the modus operandi and interests of the organizations that produce them. But they tell those whose heads are buried deep in the sand of "business as usual" that it is time to wake up and pay attention. As New York Times writer Bill Keller put it, we have "a historic opportunity to push the ‘Refresh' button on our national security." It is time to get down to the kind of planning the reports recommend, for the defense budget is most surely coming down.
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