A QDR for All Seasons?
A QDR for All Seasons?
The Pentagon is Not Preparing for the Most Likely Conflicts
by Dr. Roy Godson and Dr. Richard H. Shultz, Jr.
Joint Force Quarterly has kindly granted Small Wars Journal permission to publish this forthcoming JFQ article.
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The end of the Cold War and the massive changes in the conflict environment that ensued launched the United States on a transformational path in military force planning. In 1996, the first Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) set out a vision of the two regional contingencies model, with the Nation equipped and able to dominate in two major conventional wars at the same time. But the outlines of a different kind of conflict setting began to emerge as the United States attempted to protect its interests in several different regions. The first decade of the 21st century has shown clearly that the way the Nation thought about and prepared for war in most of the 20th century requires a major overhaul. But change comes slowly.
The years following the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq were filled with adversity and indecision among the military leadership about how to overcome a different type of foe. The 2006 QDR appeared to be an attempt to refocus the Pentagon’s warfighting approach to meet the challenge. In that assessment, the Department of Defense (DOD) acknowledged that a serious gap existed between the changed nature of conflict and the doctrine and means it had available for fighting it. DOD stipulated that irregular warfare (IW) had become a vital mission area for which the Services needed to prepare. Post-9/11 combat was depicted as “irregular in its nature.” Enemies in those fights were “not conventional military forces.” Rather, they employed indirect and asymmetric means. Adaptation was the way forward.
The 2006 QDR also set in motion IW initiatives inside DOD leading up to the December 2008 release of DOD Directive 3000.07, “Irregular Warfare.” That directive was unambiguous about 21st-century conflict, declaring: “Irregular warfare is as strategically important as traditional warfare,” and it is essential to “maintain capabilities . . . so that the DOD is as effective in IW as it is in traditional [conventional] warfare.” Moreover, according to Directive 3000.07, the capabilities required for each type of fight were different.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had been among the most vociferous advocates, reinforcing the message in numerous statements, lectures, congressional testimony, and popular articles. Gates was by no means alone in the Pentagon and administration. But despite direction at the top, consensus was elusive. Many within the Joint Chiefs organization, Defense bureaucracy and industry, and Services viewed post-9/11 irregular fights as anomalies—ephemeral trends generated by particular circumstances. Furthermore, they held that conventional or general purpose forces could handle them.
Download the Full Article: A QDR for All Seasons?
Dr. Roy Godson is President of the National Strategy Information Center, a Washington, DC–based nongovernmental, nonpartisan educational organization. Dr. Richard H. Shultz, Jr., is Professor and Director of the International Security Studies Program in the Fletcher School at Tufts University.
