The Pentagon Needs a New Way of War
The Pentagon Needs a New Way of War by Robert Haddick, War on the Rocks
Can the Pentagon do the same with less? That seems to be what the White House expects. The U.S. Department of Defense recently released the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), the Pentagon’s latest attempt to explain its global military strategy for the medium term. But far more revealing than the QDR itself was the “Chairman’s Assessment” of the QDR, written by General Martin Dempsey and appended to the end of the report. Dempsey’s tepid and qualified endorsement of the QDR (also discussed by WOTR’s Bryan McGrath) and his candid accounting of geostrategic risks that will compound over the next decade, provide a bracing contrast to the main text. In his second paragraph, he warns, “With our ‘ends’ fixed and our ‘means’ declining, it is therefore imperative that we innovate within the ‘ways’ we defend the Nation.” …
