Natl Defense Strategy: Balance

Note that Secretary of Defense Gates is referencing “Defense” strategy – a balanced concept is also needed for the National Security Strategy that would more effectively integrate the “whole-of-government” approach.

ESSAY: A Balanced Strategy, Reprogramming the Pentagon for a New Age, Robert M. Gates From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2009

The defining principle of the Pentagon’s new National Defense Strategy is balance. The United States cannot expect to eliminate national security risks through higher defense budgets, to do everything and buy everything. The Department of Defense must set priorities and consider inescapable tradeoffs and opportunity costs.

The strategy strives for balance in three areas:

— between trying to prevail in current conflicts and preparing for other contingencies,

—  between institutionalizing capabilities such as counterinsurgency and foreign military assistance and maintaining the United States’ existing conventional and strategic technological edge against other military forces, and

— between retaining those cultural traits that have made the U.S. armed forces successful and shedding those that hamper their ability to do what needs to

What is dubbed the war on terror is, in grim reality, a prolonged, worldwide irregular campaign — a struggle between the forces of violent extremism and those of moderation.