Defense Review Aims at Terrorism, Stresses Continual Reassessment and Flexibility

The 2006 edition of the U.S. Defense Department’s Quadrennial Defense Review, released February 6, 2006, emphasizes the irregular nature of the long war against terrorist networks. The document’s recommendations center around agility, flexibility, speed, responsiveness and pre-emption, urging substantial increases in special operations capabilities, according to Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, USN, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Completion of the current Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) was shifted to coincide with the president’s fiscal year 2007 budget request. This change enabled the Defense Department to include some of the initiatives in the budget submission for the upcoming year instead of putting them in the queue for the following budget cycle. The previous QDR was released on September 30, 2001.

The first and fundamental imperative of the 2006 QDR is to reorient the department’s capabilities and forces to be more agile. The second imperative is to implement enterprisewide changes to ensure that organizational structures, processes and procedures effectively support the department’s strategic direction. Part of this process requires that the Defense Department adopt a model of continuous change and reassessment.

Four priorities are defined in the 2006 review: defeat terrorist networks, defend the homeland in depth, shape the choices of countries at strategic crossroads, and prevent hostile states and non-state actors from acquiring or using weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). These elements do not represent the full range of operational possibilities for the U.S. military, but they are the ones of most current concern.

Based on these priorities, the report suggests adjustments to capture the realities of a long war. It better defines the department’s responsibilities for homeland defense within a broader national framework, increases emphasis on the war on terrorism, and accounts for and draws a distinction between steady-state force demands and surge activities over multi-year periods.

The review builds on the military’s current transformation initiative, providing new direction for sharpening the focus on the needs of combatant commanders and developing portfolios of joint capabilities rather than individual stovepiped programs. It is a chance for the Defense Department to make “vector changes” on the transformation of the U.S. military, Adm. Giambastiani explains.

Also addressed in the QDR is the need for an information age human capital strategy. The strategic environment of the 21st century places new burdens on the Total Force Concept of active and reserve military, civilian and contractor personnel. To address these matters, the department must continue to develop the best mix of people equipped with the skills combatant commanders need. The review calls for the Defense Department to increase investments that center on developing and maintaining appropriate language, cultural and information technology skills and to adopt new personnel systems to reward performance rather than longevity.

Among the key programmatic decisions the QDR proposes in fiscal year 2007 is to increase special operations forces by 15 percent and special forces battalions by one-third. The U.S. Marine Corps has added 2,600 Marines to the Special Operations Command, and the U.S. Army is increasing its number of units in both the Special Operations Command and Army Special Forces. The U.S. Navy is adding SEAL (sea, air, land) teams and the U.S. Air Force is adding squadrons to the command. Conventional force operational arms also will grow by shifting people from combat service and support jobs into combat jobs. This will be done without adding to authorized overall staff levels.

Another effort is to fund a $1.5 billion initiative over the next five years to develop broad-spectrum medical countermeasures against the threat of genetically engineered biological agents. The program would include advanced detection and deterrent capabilities.

In addition, the department also needs to develop a wider range of conventional and non-kinetic deterrent options while maintaining a robust nuclear presence, the review states.

The QDR also focuses on improving the nation’s ability to deal with the dangers posed by states that possess WMDs and the possibility of terrorists gaining control of them. The U.S. Strategic Command will be the lead combatant command for integrating and synchronizing the effort to combat WMDs. The Defense Department also will establish a deployable joint task force headquarters for WMD elimination to provide immediate command and control of forces for executing those missions.

Among the visions detailed in the review are intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, network-centricity, and joint command and control. The QDR also looks at the business challenges of the Defense Department and includes recommendations about the defense acquisition process.

Achieving the vision set out in the QDR will require maintaining and adapting the United States’ enduring alliances and using them as models for the breadth and depth of cooperation that the United States seeks to foster with others around the world. The QDR’s agenda seeks to reinforce these links.

The foundation of this QDR is the National Defense Strategy, published in March 2005. The strategy calls for the United States to continue to reorient capabilities to address a wider range of challenges. Senior civilian and military leaders of the Defense Department worked during 2005 to develop the new QDR. In doing so, they tested the conclusions of the 2001 QDR, applied the lessons learned from more than four years of the global war on terrorism and tested assumptions about the continuously changing world.