Small Wars Journal

Strategy in a Time of Austerity

Mon, 11/12/2012 - 12:02pm

Strategy in a Time of Austerity by Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., Foreign Affairs.

Over the next decade, the U.S. military will need to undertake the most dramatic shift in its strategy since the introduction of nuclear weapons more than 60 years ago. Just as defense budgets are declining, the price of projecting and sustaining military power is increasing and the range of interests requiring protection is expanding. This means that tough strategic choices will finally have to be made, not just talked about. As the British physicist Ernest Rutherford once declared to his colleagues, "We haven't got the money, so we've got to think."