A newly published report from the American Enterprise Institute, authored by Mackenzie Eaglen, Repair and Rebuild: Balancing New Military Spending for a Three Theater Strategy, should be required reading for the entire national security establishment. The report’s author must be complimented for addressing the disconnect between the magnitude and variety of core U.S. national interests and vital security commitments on one side of the ledger, and the inability of the current U.S. military to defend them all, on the other side. Repair and Rebuild rejects the false choice often found in the current defense debate between the need to shore up current readiness and the requirement to modernize in anticipation of future threats. Instead, it recognizes that the military must do both with an emphasis on ameliorating current weaknesses and capability gaps. Repair and Rebuild provides detailed recommendations for both near-term actions to repair the damage done to the military by decades of underfunding and overuse and initial investments that begin the process of rebuilding its erstwhile preeminence. I discuss the report’s findings and recommendations in detail for RealClearDefense here.
Daniel Goure is a Vice President with the Lexington Institute, a nonprofit public-policy research organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. He is involved in a wide range of issues as part of the institute’s national security program. Dr. Goure has held senior positions in both the private sector and the U.S. Government. Most recently, he was a member of the 2001 Department of Defense Transition Team. Dr. Goure spent two years in the U.S. Government as the director of the Office of Strategic Competitiveness in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He also served as a senior analyst on national security and defense issues with the Center for Naval Analyses, Science Applications International Corporation, SRS Technologies, R&D Associates and System Planning Corporation.
The views and opinions expressed in this issue brief are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of GPI.