Dunford: Next US Military Strategy Document Will Be Classified
Dunford: Next US Military Strategy Document Will Be Classified by John Grady, USNI News
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the next military strategy document will be kept classified, a recommendation often called for in House and Senate armed services committee hearings that began in the fall on “defense reform.”
Speaking Tuesday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C., think-tank, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford said, “Today we go from policy to OPlans [operational plans], a process that “doesn’t give you intellectual rigor” to meet trans-regional threats covering challenges from land, air and sea to cyber and space.
Using North Korea as an example of the limits of having a purely regional focus in organization, he said that 15 years ago the threat from Pyongyang was centered on the peninsula. Now and in the future the threat could involve Pacific, Northern, and potentially Strategic and Cyber commands because of North Korea’s continued development of long-range missiles, a nuclear weapons program and cyber capabilities threatening other nations far removed from northern Asia.
As another example of change needed after 15 years of war, he added, “We are divesting ourselves [in the Joint Staff, particularly] of some things . . . we did in the past.” Later, in answer to a question, he termed it “kind of de-layering”—at the Joint Staff level—programs such as family readiness, wounded warrior and veterans’ outreach and returning them to the services. “I don’t think I need to do that” on the Joint Staff…
