Risky Business: Future Strategy and Force Options for the Defense Department

Introduction

The Biden administration is in the process of updating the National Defense Strategy (NDS) and has just submitted the President’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 Budget request. The NDS identifies priority threats and missions and links these to the size and shape of the force that is required to satisfy these tasks, which in turn drives resourcing. President Joe Biden has outlined the broad contours of his administration’s strategy, which are “leading first with diplomacy” and only using military force “when the objectives and mission are clear and achievable” and as a “last resort.”¹ The Biden administration also has elevated the threats of climate change and biothreats, while retaining the 2018 NDS’s focus on China as the pacing nation-state threat. Although some senior national security officials have outlined their priorities and the Biden administration has issued an Interim National Security Strategic Guidance (interim NSS), these do not substitute for a fully vetted and comprehensive defense strategy.

Questions remain about the prioritization of different threats and missions and the force-sizing construct that accompanies the 2022 NDS. Does the Biden administration maintain an exclusive focus on China or does it elevate other threats? Even if it remains focused on China, does it focus on strengthening conventional deterrence and warfighting or does it also focus the DoD on competing below the threshold of conventional conflict? This paper considers several alternative strategies that the Biden administration could adopt, determines how they could be resourced given a flat topline defense budget, and identifies the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. Finally, we develop a framework to assist with NDS implementation and use it to explore the direction the FY22 budget suggests that the administration is going in. This framework helps with policy oversight, which asks the fundamental question of whether the DoD is spending its money in a way that it is likely to achieve its goals.² Such a framework should help policymakers evaluate the alignment of future defense budgets and the 2022 NDS.

To conduct this type of strategy oversight, the following must be considered: what are the priority threats identified by the strategy? What missions and operations does the joint force need to be able complete to counter these threats? Finally, how does a program enable the execution of these missions? The 2018 NDS, for instance, made “inter-state strategic competition—not terrorism,” especially competition with China and Russia, “the primary focus of U.S. national security.”³ Specifically, the U.S. military’s goal was “preserving the status quo by favorably managing escalation to win limited wars” by “defeating the other side’s theory of victory, and particularly the fait accompli strategy.”⁴ Defeating a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, for instance, would require successfully executing a number of critical missions, such as identifying, targeting, and damaging or destroying ships in a contested environment.⁵ The succeeding defense budgets should have made investments in capabilities that allowed the joint force to rapidly close kill chains and sink ships in a denied environment.⁶

Just as previous administrations have failed to sufficiently link resources to strategy, the Biden administration is in danger of this misstep. While the FY22 defense budget request illuminates some of the Biden administration’s likely areas of emphasis, subsequent budgets must be more strongly linked to the new strategy and lay the groundwork for the execution of this new guidance.

We analyze the different directions that the next NDS may go and what each of these paths would mean for joint force structure and the budget. As a first step in this process, we developed three alternative defense strategies. Although all three alternatives align with the strategic priorities articulated by the administration thus far, they differ in several key dimensions. These alternatives are ideal type strategies that are designed to illustrate clear distinctions among potential priorities to illuminate tradeoffs. From these ideal type strategies, we developed representative force structures that are budget neutral, but tailored to counter the threats emphasized in that particular strategy. Next, we tested the three force structures using tabletop exercises (TTXs) focused on high-end warfighting and sub-conventional conflict scenarios against China and Russia to see how they fared and to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. We developed the alternative strategies and ran the TTXs with our Decision Science partners at Govini, although we each reached our own conclusions from these events.

In reality, there is often a wide gulf between an articulated strategy and its execution. It is particularly challenging to digest something as complicated as the U.S. defense budget, let alone align it with a defense strategy. To help identify areas where a budget may stray from the strategy’s expressed goals, we developed a framework with budgetary signposts that indicate that the strategy is moving in a certain direction. One can use this structure to evaluate whether and how future budgets support the 2022 NDS to ensure that resources are being aligned in a way that implements the strategy. We conclude with clear recommendations for strategy development, force design, and resourcing requirements.

Strategic Priorities

The new administration has already offered a sketch of its strategic vision in a number of speeches and in the interim NSS. A core tenant of the interim NSS is that “diplomacy, development, and economic statecraft should be the leading instruments of American foreign policy,” while a powerful military is a tool of last resort.⁷ Additionally, the administration has adopted an expanded view of national security, in which domestic policy and foreign policy are inextricably linked.⁸ According to this view, domestic policy concerns such as racial inequality, anti-democratic movements, and economic challenges to the working class are critical drivers of American security.⁹ With this logic, shoring up American power through domestic economic prosperity and democratic renewal enables the United States to model democratic values, work with allies and partners, and counter authoritarian regimes to “lean forward, not shrink back.”¹⁰

The Biden administration has also taken an expanded view of security challenges. Officials have cited transnational threats that “respect no borders or walls,” such as COVID-19 and climate change, as top challenges with which the United States and its partners will have to contend.¹¹ The rise of authoritarian populism and shifts in the balance of power fueled in part by rapidly changing technology have made continued strategic competition with China and, to a lesser extent, Russia a priority.¹² Already, China has emerged as the key threat for the administration, and China’s autocratic government poses an ideological challenge to the United States’ democracy.¹³ The administration has also cited regional adversaries, in the form of state and non-state groups, as continued threats.¹⁴

Taken altogether, the Biden administration has adopted an expanded and holistic view of security threats and sources of American power. In an effort to make that shift, the administration is pursuing a “diplomacy first” strategy.¹⁵ This strategy requires renewing alliances and partnerships and joining international institutions, while placing military power in support of diplomacy and other soft power tools. The Biden administration’s interim NSS highlights a key role for the DoD: “Promote a favorable distribution of power to deter and prevent adversaries from directly threatening the United States and our allies, inhibiting access to the global commons, or dominating key regions.”¹⁶ This suggests that the priority mission of the U.S. military is to protect the U.S. homeland and to compete against and deter great-power adversaries, while maintaining U.S. commitments to allies and partners.

U.S. Department of Defense officials, including Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, have reinforced this approach. The DoD has cited China as the department’s “pacing challenge,” which guides the development of capabilities, concepts, and plans to retain U.S. military advantages.¹⁷ The DoD has reiterated the need for the U.S. military to respond to transnational challenges and “credibly deter” state and non-state threats, as well as compete against these actors under the threshold of conflict.¹⁸ The inclusion of transnational threats, such as COVID-19 and climate change, has elevated additional missions to the DoD and U.S. military beyond traditional warfighting responsibilities. However, given the unique role of the DoD within the interagency, the U.S. military will be expected to respond to emerging military threats and deter China and, to a lesser extent, Russia.¹⁹

Responding to these challenges requires modernizing conventional forces, investing in cutting-edge technology, and fielding new capabilities and technologies to maintain the United States’ slipping military technological edge.²⁰ The administration has also recognized the need to maintain the nuclear triad and intends to review ongoing nuclear modernization programs in order to counter top U.S. rivals.²¹ Moreover, the DoD is pursuing new warfighting concepts and altering posture to enhance its ability to compete with and deter adversaries.²²

The development of a new U.S. National Defense Strategy is underway. Already, there are some aspects of this strategy that can be discerned from DoD officials. Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hicks has noted some continuity with the 2018 NDS, but that the 2022 NDS would address the China challenge more distinctly than the threat posed by Russia and address new threats such as climate change.²³ Additionally, Undersecretary of Defense Colin Kahl has touted “integrated deterrence” as the cornerstone of the forthcoming NDS.²⁴ In line with the interim NSS guidance and the Biden administration’s priorities, integrated deterrence is framed as a whole-of-government approach that spans the diplomatic, information, military, and economic (DIME) spectrum. It also spans across competition and conflict, and integrates all domains, to include space, cyber, and information, as well as allies and partners.²⁵ From the military angle, this approach not only relies on developing and testing cutting-edge weapons and technologies, but also combines with them the right existing capabilities to achieve an effective mix of systems to deter adversary aggression.²⁶

Despite the overarching strategic priorities laid out by the Biden administration and initial indicators provided by the DoD, it is unclear how the next NDS will handle two critical questions. The first question addresses the prioritization of threats—will the DoD clearly prioritize China (and, to a lesser extent, Russia) over other threats, or will it hedge and more equally prioritize across the expanded list of threats detailed in the interim NSS guidance? The second question examines the primary role for the DoD—is it to compete below the threshold of armed conflict, or is it to prepare the force to defeat a great-power adversary in the event of conflict, should deterrence fail? Answering these questions is critical to developing a clear strategy that emphasizes the right priorities, activities, and resources.