Military Officer - December 2006 - (Page 72)

own if such help is not available. It also emphasizes building and leveraging “partner capacity” as a way of providing the forces needed to defeat radical Islamists, especially those waging insurgencies, as in Afghanistan and Iraq. The QDR is somewhat less clear about how it plans to deal with China, which it euphemistically describes as a country at a “strategic crossroads.” The report notes that China is developing a worrisome set of military capabilities emphasizing electronic and cyber warfare; counter-space operations; ballistic and cruise missiles; advanced integrated air defense systems; next-generation torpedoes; advanced submarines; unmanned systems; and nuclear strike. The QDR asserts that DoD will pursue investments that “preserve U.S. freedom of action” and “provide future presidents with an expanded set of options” for addressing the potential Chinese threat. But how might China use its capabilities to threaten American security interests and freedom of action? And how will U.S. investments enable the military to dissuade, deter, or defend against such efforts? The QDR is virtually silent on these issues. Reading between the lines, it appears that DoD’s decision to accelerate the development of a new long-range strike aircraft is intended to convince the Chinese they cannot use their country’s strategic depth to create a sanctuary of sorts for key military capabilities (e.g., ballistic missiles, land-based antisatellite systems, command-and-control centers, etcetera). But this is mere speculation. It would be helpful to have the Pentagon’s perspective on how it intends to preserve a stable military balance in the Far East. This would be extremely useful in enabling Congress to make informed judgments regarding DoD’s force posture and investment priorities. The QDR is even less clear regarding how the U.S. will address the problems associated with nucleararmed rogue states or the destabilization of such states. For example, the QDR states that “The U.S. must be prepared to deter attacks; locate, tag, and track WMD materials; act in cases where a state that possesses WMD loses control of its weapons, especially nuclear devices; detect WMD across all domains; and eliminate WMD materials in peacetime, during combat, and after conﬂicts. The United States must be prepared to respond [and] employ force if necessary [to include] WMD elimination operations that locate, characterize, secure, disable, and/or destroy a state or non-state actor’s WMD capabilities and programs in a hostile or uncertain environment.” But the QDR does not clearly address the matter of how the U.S. military will accomplish these missions, 72 MILITARY OFFICER DECEMBER 2006 which are not hypothetical problems that might arise at some point in the distant future. They are today’s challenges. Consider, for example, that the QDR candidly concedes that detecting ﬁssile materials and rendering WMD devices (e.g., nuclear weapons) safe are “particularly difﬁcult operational and technical challenges.” Even collecting reliable intelligence about WMD programs and activities is judged “extremely difﬁcult.” But the QDR offers little insight as to how the U.S. will address the WMD problem Given the magnitude of the changes witnessed in the past four years, and with the prospect of more to come, one would expect major corresponding adjustments in our military forces and equipment. if these challenges cannot (as seems likely) be overcome in the foreseeable future. Nor does the QDR invest much in the way of resources to address this problem, which has been brought to the forefront by North Korea’s recent nuclear weapons test. Indeed, at present there appears to be little conﬁdence that the U.S. can conduct preventive attacks to deprive North Korea or Iran of their nuclear materials production facilities or that it can quickly identify and secure the weapons in the event of a nuclear state failure (e.g., Pakistan). Given the difﬁculties associated with taking preventive action against a country developing nuclear weapons or of detecting, tracking, and intercepting those weapons in transit, the U.S. military might have to default to the unsatisfactory option of attempting to deter enemies from using WMD. This could be risky, as the U.S. has little understanding of the cost-beneﬁt calculus of states such as Iran and North Korea when it comes to nuclear use, let alone non-state entities such as

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Military Officer - December 2006

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