Key Risks in the New Defense Guidance

Nathan Freier, a retired U.S. Army officer and a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is out with his evaluation of the Pentagon's new strategic guidance. He finds policymakers reverting back to state-on-state conflict while taking risks with the kinds of messy disorder that many would prefer to ignore, but that won't go away.

An excerpt:

Too often the risk choice presented to public officials pits large-scale, high-tech conflicts against extended counterinsurgency campaigns, as if these were the only models DoD had to choose from to size and shape future forces. Frankly, if these were the only or most likely demands, the new strategic guidance might be lower risk. Unfortunately, contemporary conditions indicate that DoD is much more likely to have messy hybrid conflicts forced onto its agenda that are substantially less “ordered” than conventional war between states and substantially more lethal than counterinsurgency. Under these circumstances, defense responses might include opposed stabilization in key regions in the face of lethal but disordered opposition, seizing and securing critical foreign infrastructure or dangerous military capabilities, and/or active denial of criminal, terrorist, or insurgent sanctuary.

Freier explains what risks the Pentagon is covering and which are left exposed. He also explains why these bets might go awry.

Please read the whole thing.