March 19, 2019
Evaluating DOD Strategy: Key Findings of the National Defense
Strategy Commission
On January 19, 2018, the Department of Defense (DOD, or
the Department) released an unclassified summary of the
congressionally mandated National Defense Strategy
(NDS). On November 14, 2018, the congressionally
appointed bipartisan National Defense Strategy
Commission (NDSC, or the commission) issued its report,
Providing for the Common Defense. The NDSC’s mandate
was to critique the NDS in order to provide Congress some
alternative ideas for improving DOD. All quotations are
from the NDSC report unless otherwise specified.
The National Defense Strategy (NDS)
Consistent with comparable documents issued by prior
Administrations, the NDS maintains that there are five
central external threats to U.S. interests: China, Russia,
North Korea, Iran, and terrorist groups with global reach.
The NDS mandate requires DOD to prioritize those threats.
In a break from previous Administrations, the NDS views
retaining the U.S. strategic competitive edge relative to
China and Russia as a higher priority than countering
violent extremist organizations. Further, the NDS appears
conceptually consistent with the National Security Strategy
regarding the notion that “peace through strength,” or
improving the capability and lethality of the joint force in
order to deter warfare, is essential to countering these
threats. It also contends that, unlike most of the period since
the end of the Cold War, the joint force must now operate
in contested domains where freedom of access and
maneuver is no longer assured.
The NDS organizes DOD activities along three central
“lines of effort”—rebuilding military readiness and
improving the joint forces’ lethality, strengthening alliances
and attracting new partners, and reforming the
Department’s business practices, and argues that all three
are interconnected and critical to enabling DOD to advance
U.S. objectives effectively.
The National Defense Strategy
Commission: Key Findings
The commission evaluated the NDS as well as the activities
and priorities of the Department of Defense more broadly.
Overall, the NDSC endorses DOD’s strategic approach,
particularly its orientation toward strategic competition with
other great powers. Nevertheless, the commission believes
that successive Administrations and Congresses have
significantly underestimated the scale of this reorientation,
the urgency with which it must occur, and the resources
required in order to do so. Two key trends led the NSDC to
this conclusion:
1. “Changes at home and abroad that are diminishing
U.S. military advantages and threatening vital U.S.
interests (p. v).” The NSDC argues that the United
States is both in competition and conflict with an array
of challengers, including China, Russia, Iran, and North
Korea. The United States must also contend with
transnational organizations that pose threats to the
United States and its allies, to include the Islamic State
(IS). Finally, the proliferation of sophisticated
technologies is enabling adversaries to challenge U.S.
military supremacy in innovative and dangerous ways.
In other words, the United States must contend with
more, and more severe, national security challenges
than in previous decades.
2. “Due to political dysfunction and decisions made by
both major political parties across administrations
… America has significantly weakened its own
defense” (p. vi). In the NDSC’s view, the combination
of DOD budget reductions and the lack of stable,
predictable defense funding have negatively affected
the size and readiness of U.S. forces. Further, DOD’s
ability to buy the equipment it needs in order to contend
with challenges presented by other militaries has been
hampered.
Failure to address these challenges has led to what the
NDSC refers to as a “crisis of national security for the
United States,” because “U.S. military superiority is no
longer assured and the implications for American interests
and American security are severe” (p. vi).
The 2017 National Security Strategy argues that since the
1990s, the United States has “displayed a great degree of
strategic complacency,” (p. 27) largely as a result of
overwhelming and unchallenged U.S. military and
economic superiority. Operations in the Balkans, Africa,
Afghanistan, and Iraq, while challenging and complex
undertakings, did not existentially challenge the capabilities
and strategies of the United States. Yet both China and
Russia appear to be developing capabilities and concepts
that potentially demonstrate technological superiority over
U.S. military capabilities. As a result, the NDSC, in
assessing whether DOD is adequately prepared to meet
these challenges, concludes that the U.S. “might struggle to
win, or perhaps lose, a war against China or Russia” (p. vi).
This analysis rests on the commission’s concern with six
areas that, taken together, touch upon the structures,
intellectual capabilities, priorities, and funding of DOD.
Realizing the Vision of the National Defense
Strategy?
The commission agrees with the NDS’s assessment of the
strategic environment and its prioritization of great power
competition, the enduring value of alliances, and its focus
