Rogue Cousins Agree – Important Weekend Reading
Via e-mail and Andrew Exum at Abu Muqawama – some important weekend reading – Strategy for the Long Haul: An Army at the Crossroads by Andrew Krepinevich at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. An excerpt from the Preface follows:
The United States faces three primary existing and emerging strategic challenges that are most likely to preoccupy senior decision-makers in the coming years:
– Defeating both the Sunni Salifi-Takfiri and Shia Khomeinist brands of violent
Islamist radicalism;
– Hedging against the rise of a hostile or more openly confrontational China and the potential challenge posed by authoritarian capitalist states; and
– Preparing for a world in which there are more nuclear-armed regional powers.
Addressing these specific challenges should be at the forefront of the incoming administration’s strategic calculations, particularly during the 2009 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), which will help shape US defense strategy, planning, and force structure over the next twenty years.
