The WEST 2010 Online Show Daily

Day 1 Coverage: The More Things Change, the More They Really Change

Day 2 Coverage: New Needs, New Missions Mandate a New Navy

Day 3 Coverage: Information Is the New Sextant for a Networked Navy

Defense Review Brings on Debate at West 2010

This year’s Quadrennial Defense Review, or QDR, is taking place amid a defense industry grappling with conflicting strategies of conventional and asymmetric threats, often within the same theater. Debate percolating though out this review centers on the arduous challenge of determining the real size of the threat. From there, priorities must be set in the context of the wars currently being fought and the availability of resources, both military and diplomatic. The struggle for appropriate balance points to a growing need for broad force capabilities with flexibility across all types of operations.

Accommodating this new type of hybrid warfare will require investment; but the rate of growth in defense spending in the recent past is unlikely to continue, and any growth for modernization is probably going to be small. How decision makers ultimately consolidate acquisition and force strategies will have a tremendous effect on the defense industry—in some cases shaping programs, but in other cases leading to their demise.

After months of multiple levels of Defense Department debate and review, the question remains: Will the QDR get it right? Within that topic is a focus on smart power. Gen. James E. Cartwright, USMC, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Adm.  Gary Roughead, USN, Chief of Naval Operations; and Adm. James G. Stavridis, USN, NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, will join a variety of other panelists and speakers examining this and other topics at West 2010, February 2, 3, and 4, in San Diego, California. Visit this site for daily coverage of these leading experts as they discuss how to use all the tools available for a winning strategy.

For more information on the conference, go to http://www.west2010.org.

Bookmark this page (www.afcea.org/signal/events/west2010daily) for online show coverage each day, and follow conference conversations on Twitter.com with the hash-tag #west10. SIGNAL editors will also be live-blogging the conference at SIGNAL Scape.

West 2010 is co-sponsored by AFCEA International and the U.S. Naval Institute.