Providing for the
Common Defense
The Assessment and Recommendations of
the National Defense Strategy Commission
Eric Edelman, Co-Chair
Christine Fox
Kathleen Hicks
Jack Keane
Andrew Krepinevich
Jon Kyl
Gary Roughead, Co-Chair
Thomas Mahnken
Michael McCord
Michael Morell
Anne Patterson
Roger Zakheim
Edelman and Roughead
Providing for the Common Defense
United States Institute of Peace
1200 17th Street NW
Washington, DC 20036
www.usip.org
Providing for the Common Defense
I
n January 2018, the Department of Defense completed the National Defense
Strategy (NDS), a congressionally mandated assessment of how the Department will
protect the United States and its national interests using the tools and resources at
its disposal. That assessment is intended to address an array of important subjects:
the nature of the strategic environment, the priority objectives of the Department
of Defense, the roles and missions of the armed forces, the size and shape of the
force, the major investments in capabilities and innovation that the Department will
make over the following ve-year period, and others. The 2018 NDS is a classied
document; an unclassied summary was released publicly.
To enhance America’s ability to address these issues, Congress also convened
a bipartisan panel to review the NDS and offer recommendations concerning
U.S. defense strategy. The members of the Commission on the National Defense
Strategy for the United States represent a group of distinguished national security
and defense experts. They analyzed issues related not just to defense strategy, but
also to the larger geopolitical environment in which that strategy must be executed.
They consulted with civilian and military leaders in the Department of Defense,
representatives of other U.S. government departments and agencies, allied diplomats
and military ofcials, and independent experts. This publication is the consensus
report of the Commission. The Commission argues that America confronts a grave
crisis of national security and national defense, as U.S. military advantages erode and
the strategic landscape becomes steadily more threatening. If the United States does
not show greater urgency and seriousness in responding to this crisis, if it does not
take decisive steps to rebuild its military advantages now, the damage to American
security and influence could be devastating.
