Does the Biden administration’s National Defense Strategy make the grade?
Last month, the Pentagon released its National Defense Strategy (NDS), a chance for the Biden administration to single out the biggest threats on the world stage and lay out how the US military will counter them. Experts from the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security pulled out their red pens to grade the strategy on five separate criteria. Below are their full assessments for the latest edition of the Scowcroft Strategy Scorecard.
Don’t miss our other expert analysis of the NDS—eight things you need to know about the strategy, and a full markup of the document.
Clementine Starling
Director, Forward Defense practice, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security
This is a fine strategy that builds on the central challenges presented by strategic competition and laid out in the 2018 NDS, with its own twist. The strengths of the strategy lie in its characterization of the threat environment—its clear elevation of China as the most dangerous long-term challenge to US security, placing of allies as a center of gravity, and broadening of security to feature climate change and gray-zone threats more prominently. The strategy calls out the right priorities to adapt the Department of Defense (DOD) to meet the moment from a concepts, capabilities, and technology perspective. However, the strategy’s success will depend on resolving ambiguities in its lines of effort and setting clear implementation guidelines that can be matched with necessary resources.
Distinctiveness
Is there a clear theme, concept, or label that distinguishes this strategy from previous strategies?
This strategy is not entirely distinct from the last NDS, rather it builds on the major themes of great-power/strategic competition laid out in the 2018 NDS while emphasizing China, gray-zone threats, and layered deterrence slightly differently. What distinguishes this strategy is its clear elevation of China as the top strategic challenge facing the United States. Rather than putting China and Russia on equal footing, it clarifies Russia as an “acute” threat—immediate and fierce—but not a “pacing” competitor like China, which is described as an all-domain and pervasive challenge. In addition, the strategy advances two concepts, “integrated deterrence” and “campaigning,” as the ways in which it will pursue its goals. While the framing is new, the two concepts are defined ambiguously and the substance does not appear to be particularly novel. Overall, this strategy is not wildly distinct from years past, but there is a healthy progression from the previous strategy to this one, which is what one should want from long-term strategic documents.
Sound strategic context
Does the strategy accurately portray the current strategic context and security environment facing the United States? Is the strategy predicated on any specious assumptions?
The strategic context outlined in the strategy is sound. The document characterizes “strategic competition” with China, and to a lesser extent Russia, as being the defining feature of security in the next decade. It rightly broadens the scope of security threats to include a greater emphasis on climate change and gray-zone threats as having potentially decisive effects on the strategic environment. In a laudable attempt to prioritize China as “the most comprehensive and serious challenge” to US national security, the NDS has made certain assumptions that diminish other threats—notably, the assumption that Russia is a less severe long-term threat to the United States. The strategy risks underselling the longevity of the Russian threat and its destabilizing potential beyond Europe. That said, the NDS owns and “accept[s] measured risk” from this deprioritization. The other assumption baked into the document (and the National Security Strategy) is that the United States has a “decisive decade” in which to make strides toward its goals. Unfortunately, this timeframe may be unrealistically long to effectively deter China from invading Taiwan. US adversaries have a vote, and Xi Jinping has made clear his goal of making China’s forces more capable by 2027.
Defined goals
Does the strategy define clear goals?
The strategy does a decent job of outlining its goals, though some of the goals are so broadly defined that they could be interpreted in different ways and will therefore be harder to measure. The NDS outlines four top-level goals: “defend the homeland,” “deter strategic attacks against the United States, our Allies, and our partners,” “deter aggression and be prepared to prevail in conflict when necessary,” and “building a resilient Joint Force and defense ecosystem.” I appreciate that this is a much shorter list than the eleven objectives laid out in the prior NDS, though because they are fewer, they are not as well defined. The latter two goals could mean different things to different people: It will be hard to measure success if the defense community doesn’t all agree what kind or level of “aggression” the United States is trying to deter or what precisely a “resilient” defense ecosystem should look like.
Clear lines of effort
Does the strategy outline several major lines of effort for achieving its objectives? Will following those lines of effort attain the defined goals? Does the strategy establish a clear set of priorities, or does it present a laundry list of activities?
The strategy falls down in the lack of clarity of its lines of effort. It advances its concepts of “integrated deterrence,” “campaigning,” and “building enduring advantages” as the three core approaches for achieving its goals, yet—even while elaborated on in supplementary fact sheets—they are still ambiguously defined and not well understood. This leaves room for multiple interpretations, which will make it challenging to set tasks and measure implementation.
Realistic implementation guidelines
Is it feasible to implement this strategy? Are there resources available to sustain it?
DOD proposed a $773 billion defense budget in fiscal year 2023, an increase of about $30 billion above 2022. However, adjusting for inflation, that would represent a funding decrease. As high inflation erodes US defense buying power, the vast array of goals laid out in the strategy will be hard to achieve with the resources available. We will have to see what the fiscal year 2024 budget holds and whether it matches the level of ambition laid out in this strategy.
Michael Groen
Nonresident senior fellow, Forward Defense practice, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security; retired US Marine Corps lieutenant general; former director of the Department of Defense’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center
While postulated as the strategy for a “decisive decade,” the 2022 NDS lacks a decisive articulation of how the United States intends to win the competition with China. Most promising is a “campaigning” approach, which has great potential to be effective if applied with discipline and accountability, and in an integrated way. While the strategy offers some promising methodologies, it is indecisive in its articulation of ends and means. This gap, and the reactive tone of the strategy writ large, misses the opportunity to press the great advantages the US defense ecosystem already has to compete and win.
Distinctiveness
Is there a clear theme, concept, or label that distinguishes this strategy from previous strategies?
This NDS emerges in an environment of rapid digital transformation for the United States, its opponents, and the global defense ecosystem. While many aspects of transformation are present in the strategy, it falls short of the necessary and distinctive clarion call that would focus DOD on the competition with rapidly modernizing opponents, both large and small. The articulation of distinctive methodologies (“integrated deterrence,” “campaigning,” and “enduring advantages”) is sound, but these don’t add up to the kind of call for transformation required by this historic moment.
Sound strategic context
Does the strategy accurately portray the current strategic context and security environment facing the United States? Is the strategy predicated on any specious assumptions?
The 2022 NDS carries forward a familiar litany of threats. It is well-articulated—but it is always disconcerting to read how US opponents seemingly gain advantage from emerging trends while the United States, somehow, does not. Dwelling on threats, it cedes the initiative to US opponents. By not calling out the contextual advantages for the United States and its allies, it misses an opportunity for a positive, forward-looking strategy that transitions from industrial age defense processes to transformational capabilities.
Defined goals
Does the strategy define clear goals?
The strategy does not do a lot of specific goal-setting. On the optimistic side, the articulation of a “campaigning” strategy does provide a methodology for addressing DOD goals as they become clear. Campaigning potentially sets the table for a focus on achieving goals and “sprints” toward the enduring advantages the strategy hopes to capitalize on. DOD culture remains fixated on legacy hardware-based processes, an approach that is strategically untenable in an era of software-based capabilities. The NDS missed an opportunity to set goals for addressing the transformation of internal processes, cultures, and legacies.
Clear lines of effort
Does the strategy outline several major lines of effort for achieving its objectives? Will following those lines of effort attain the defined goals? Does the strategy establish a clear set of priorities, or does it present a laundry list of activities?
The three clearly articulated lines of effort provide the ways of strategy, even if they are not complemented by ends or means. The articulation of ”Transforming the Foundation” of the future force is encouraging and truly necessary to achieve technological change at scale. Clearly articulated capability goals within lines of effort regarding US competition with China would have added focus and heft to the strategy.
Realistic implementation guidelines
Is it feasible to implement this strategy? Are there resources available to sustain it?
Implementation of the NDS is feasible. Lacking ends and means, it is a no-fail proposition. The strategy does leave the services to wrestle with competing demands for recruiting, modernization, readiness, digital transformation, and competition. We will certainly see a rapidly modernizing threat environment from actors large and small that will drive the US military to transform. Against that backdrop, the US defense ecosystem has keen advantages over its adversaries and competitors in innovation, resources, and high-quality talent. It will be critical for joint and service-based implementation strategies to bring these advantages to bear.
The Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security works to develop sustainable, nonpartisan strategies to address the most important security challenges facing the United States and its allies and partners. The Center’s Scowcroft Strategy Initiative serves to directly advance this core mission and embody its namesake’s commitment to strategic thinking. Toward this end, the initiative releases report cards analyzing the key strategies developed by the United States, its allies and partners, and multilateral bodies such as NATO. Through this analysis, the initiative aims to help leaders, strategists, and other decisionmakers hone their strategic thinking in pursuit of a rules-based international system that fosters peace, prosperity, and freedom for decades to come.
