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662. The Pentagon's New Mission Set: A Sustainable Choice?
- Author:
- Carl Conetta
- Publication Date:
- 10-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Project on Defense Alternatives
- Abstract:
- Today, the United States enjoys an abundance of military power, but it is a uniquely expensive asset. During the past 20 years we have sought new ways to put this asset to work. Reviewing the change in the Pentagon's mission set, several broad trends are discernible: Mission objectives have grown much more ambitious, generally. The geographic scope for intensive US military efforts has widened significantly. Across the globe, the focus of US military action and investment has become less discriminate and more sweeping or comprehensive. Missions that put US “boots on the ground” in foreign nations in either a direct action, advisory, or capacity- building role have grown much more prominent. US policy continues to emphasize multinational approaches to addressing security issues, however the trend has been for the United States to play an ever more prominent role as the convener, governor, and quartermaster of joint action.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, and Debt
- Political Geography:
- United States
663. Strategic Adjustment to Sustain the Force: A survey of current proposals.
- Author:
- Charles Knight
- Publication Date:
- 10-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Project on Defense Alternatives
- Abstract:
- The essential challenge in the art of strategy is how to achieve objectives within the demanding reality of resource constraints. Agile strategists must always be prepared for changing resource conditions and quickly adapt accordingly.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, and Debt
- Political Geography:
- United States
664. Pentagon cuts in context: No reason for "doomsday" hysteria
- Author:
- Carl Conetta
- Publication Date:
- 10-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Project on Defense Alternatives
- Abstract:
- Recent Obama administration defense budget requests and proposals all fall within a narrow range of possible expenditures for the 2013-2023 period. All have kept the Pentagon's base budget above Cold War spending peaks. The President's 13 April proposal is no exception. It is a modest step that, at best, aims to retract future budget plans by 6.5 percent or $400 billion. The resulting average annual Pentagon base budget f or 2013-2023 would be close to today's level in real terms. The President's slice into non-security discretionary spending plans is audacious by comparison, reversing the proportionately suggested by his Fiscal Commission, and increasing the proportion of discretionary spending allocated to the Pentagon. The President's proposed new constraints on Pentagon budget growth hardly risk America's role in the world, as some contend, and by themselves do not necessitate a strategic review. Still, the President's launch of a such a review is a welcome development. It can help return America' s military posture to a reasonable and sustainable footing – provided that it elicits broad debate, solicits alternative viewpoints, and reaches beyond a $400 billion crease in the Pentagon's future budget plans.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy, Cold War, and Debt
- Political Geography:
- United States and America
665. Continuing Resolution: Congress Goes Easy on DoD Rebalances Budget in Pentagon's Favor
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Project on Defense Alternatives
- Abstract:
- The struggle over a full-year Continuing Resolution (CR) shows that both houses of congress are “going light” on DoD, pointing toward a discretionary budget balanced more heavily in favor of the Pentagon. Within the so-called “security basket,” International Affairs is set to be the big loser. Setting aside war costs, the Pentagon budget constitutes about 50% of discretionary spending. The Pentagon accounted for an even greater proportion of the rise in discretionary spending during the past ten years of debt accumulation. Nonetheless, both the House and Senate efforts to cut spending for FY-2011 allocate much less than 50% of the pain to DoD's base expenditures. The House allocates only 15% of its proposed cuts to DoD. The Senate, about 38%.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, and Debt
- Political Geography:
- United States
666. The Pentagon and Deficit Reduction: FY-2012 Budget Retains Exceptional Level of Defense Spending
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Project on Defense Alternatives
- Abstract:
- President Obama's 2012 budget plan maps out a future of steady increases for the National Defense account (apart from war costs, which the budget presumes will decline). The budget sets the base or peacetime portion of national defense to rise from $551.9 billion in 2010 to $637.6 billion in 2016 - a boost of about 15.5%. This increase exceeds the expected rate of inflation by about seven-tenths of a percent per year.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, and Debt
- Political Geography:
- United States
667. The Strategic Logic of the Contemporary Security Dilemma
- Author:
- Max G. Manwaring
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
- Abstract:
- From the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 to the end of World War II and beyond the Cold War period, the prevailing assumption was that interstate warfare would continue to be the dominant threat to global peace and prosperity. Today's wars, by contrast, are intrastate conflicts that take place mainly within—not across—national borders. As a consequence, the disease of intrastate conflict has been allowed to rage relatively unchecked across large areas of the world, and has devastated the lives of millions of human beings. At the same time, indirect and implicit unmet needs (e.g., poverty) lead people into greater and greater personal and collective insecurity.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Security, Defense Policy, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
668. Forecasting Zero: U.S. Nuclear History and the Low Probability of Disarmament
- Author:
- Jonathan Pearl
- Publication Date:
- 11-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
- Abstract:
- When four luminaries of U.S. policymaking—Cold Warriors, all—penned a 2007 op-ed calling for global nuclear disarmament, a shock wave emanated through the policy community in Washington and abroad. Had age or the stress of public life finally taken its toll on these elder statesmen? How could the goal of disarmament be practically achieved? Was their plea, in fact, a cynical ploy to strengthen a conventionally dominant United States? Were not communist sympathizers, naïve world government types, or a periodically randy anti-nuclear movement the only ones who took disarmament seriously? Perhaps most important, did their statement reflect a convergence of sentiment in the United States in favor of abolition? Might the United States abolish nuclear weapons in our lifetime?
- Topic:
- Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Political Geography:
- United States
669. Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future
- Author:
- Stephen J. Blank (ed.)
- Publication Date:
- 11-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
- Abstract:
- As of November 2010, the so-called “New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty)” treaty between the United States and Russia that was signed in Prague, Czech Republic, on April 8, 2010, awaits a ratification vote in the Senate. Regardless of the arguments pro and con that have emerged since it was signed, it is clear that the outcome of the ratification vote will not only materially affect the Obama administration's reset policy towards Russia, but also the strategic nuclear forces of both signatories. Indeed, throughout the Cold War, both sides built up their forces based on what each was thought to have or be building. Although the Bush administration (2001-09) rhetorically announced its intention to sever this mutual hostage relationship, it failed in that regard. As a result, critical aspects of that relationship still survive in Russia's orientation to the United States and in the language of the treaty, especially in its preamble, which explicitly affirms a link between nuclear offense and defense.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, and Czech Republic
670. Israeli arms transfers to sub-Saharan Africa
- Author:
- Siemon T. Wezeman
- Publication Date:
- 10-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
- Abstract:
- Israel accounted for less than 1 per cent of transfers of major weapons to sub-Saharan Africa for the period 2006–10. Deliveries consisted mainly of small numbers of artillery, unmanned aerial vehicles, armoured vehicles and patrol craft. However, in addition to major weapons, Israel also supplied small arms and light weapons, military electronics and training to several countries in the region. Israeli weapons, trainers and brokers have been observed in numerous African trouble spots and may play a bigger role than their numbers imply.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Israel