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As presidential candidates debate America’s national security, a new report by the American Enterprise Institute’s Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies team provides a detailed plan to rebuild American military strength and capabilities by identifying the strategy, forces, and budgets needed to protect US interests through the next four years and decades to come. It contains a quantitative assessment of the nuclear, land, air, maritime, missile defense, special operations, space, and cyber capabilities demanded by a three-theater standard. It also identifies the needed programs and technologies for research, development, and procurement.
The report’s key points are:
The US military is being asked to “do more with less.” Despite demand for ongoing military presence in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and East Asia and continued threats from Iran, Russia, and China, defense spending and the number of active duty service members continues to shrink. US weaponry remains outdated and overused.
US military power has traditionally been viewed as the ability to protect four vital interests: (1) defense of the American homeland; (2) assured access to the sea, air, space, and cyberspace; (3) preservation of a favorable balance of power across Eurasia; and (4) preservation of the international order.
US forces must be resized, restructured, and repostured. A new US military strategy should be based on the ability to preserve the peace by deterring powers such as Russia and China from aggression in Europe and East Asia respectively. In the Middle East, the US should be able to restore a more favorable balance of power through the projection of US military power in the region. This strategy also requires a robust set of alliances and partnerships across the globe.
To adequately plan for the country’s defense, the next administration must (1) adopt a “three-theater” force to deter adversaries in Europe and East Asia through the constant presence of powerful US forces and secure our interests in the Middle East by striving to reverse the rising tide of Iran, ISIS, and al Qaeda and its associates; (2) increase its military capacity to field a force sufficient for the three-theater posture; (3) introduce new capabilities quickly by buying and building what it needs for the coming decade; and (4) increase and sustain the defense budget at steady levels.
No administration since the end of the Cold War has made the long-term investments necessary to sustain the armed forces. The next president should return the defense budget, by 2018, to the 2012 Gates budget level—the last plan made before the Budget Control Act and sequestration. Predictable, stable defense budgets must then be established by loosely tying defense spending to 4 percent of GDP.
To read the full report, “To rebuild America’s military,” click here.
AEI’s Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies seeks to define the ends, ways, and means necessary to restore US military preeminence and preserve a balance of power in favor of freedom. Codirected by Thomas Donnelly and Gary Schmitt, the center’s team of scholars includes an array of former policymakers, Pentagon officials, and senior congressional staff dedicated to detailing a program to reform and enhance America’s military and provide policy options to address the country’s security requirements.
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