On March 4, the US Department of Defense released its Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), the blueprint for defense spending and defense strategy over the course of the next four years. All eyes in Washington DC and beyond were on the 2014 QDR, as it comes at the end of the war in Afghanistan, the rise of a new crisis in Ukraine, and a new security landscape that has witnessed the emergence of new global players.
On March 5, the Atlantic Council convened top leading experts on the US Department of Defense, including Gen. James Cartwright (ret.), Barry Pavel, Steve Grundman, and Mathew Burrows, to discuss the 2014 QDR and its impact on broader US strategy.
The panel discussed how the unfolding crisis in Ukraine would impact the QDR and US defense commitments to European security, how the Department of Defense could carry out this strategy given its limited and reducing budget, and how cutting-edge technologies such as cyber capabilities and directed energy weapons will alter the United States’ warfighting ability.