Strategic Challenges And The Global Security Environment

We all know that the United States of America is one of the top powerful countries. As a powerful nation we need a strong army, fierce military forces and the enough power to use international seas and air. Also, our country must be able to protect us in any case and protect us from enemies that want to challenge our interests. According to the 2015 Index, USA can not face two major regional contingency (MRC) because we don't have the sufficient strength to face it and we are not ready to do our duties productively. Military power is about the people and the equipment necessary to control including weapons, airplanes, ships and communication systems. If the US is not able to use all this with objective and competency, we will lose. In order to

The United States from the Cold War and into the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) continues to face challenges in translating military might into political desires due to its obsession with raising an army, electing politicians and assembling a diplomatic corp that continue to gravitate towards State-to-State engagements that if not rectified could lead to substantial delays in fighting terrorism and non-terrorist adversaries or worse total failure of the United States Military’s ability to properly carry out it’s politicians objectives due to being blindsided.

In a 2015 article, “Is U.S. military becoming outdated?” written by Stuart Bradin, Keenan Yoho, and Meaghan Keeler-Pettigrew, the authors argued that despite the U.S. military maintaining a position of global dominance “without peer” during conventional operations, it is not the ideal force against current and future threats. The authors claim that there are several negative factors arising due to the past sixteen years of war against several state and non-state elements, inferior cultural differences of government bureaucracy compared to commercial firms, and a misallocation of defense spending that leaves the US military waging war inefficiently while simultaneously losing technological dominance against current and future threats.

The function of the military forces for the United States has had no choice but to evolve as wars wax and wane. As the rise of militant terrorist groups became a threat to the United States and its allies, the armed forces of the United States were deployed by the President to countries such as Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq. Instability in these countries threatened bordering allies, and after September 11, 2001, the threat was brought to U.S. soil. Each president from Clinton to Obama has had to shape the policy of how the armed forces fit into civil-military policies abroad and overseas. In a war time environment, such as Iraq, the purpose of how the military should be deployed is easier to clearly state. But in times when there is no imminent threat, it is much more difficult to transition

With Trump’s election this year, his rhetoric of “Making America Great Again” and therefore revitalizing our military will soon become a reality. Trump has formally requested a reappropriation of funds; around $54 Billion, towards the US military. Part of Trump’s campaign promises had to do with making the military more robust; ensuring America’s title of militarily strongest in the world. In order to achieve this goal. Trump’s federal government has the option of many different aspects of the military to focus on. Of these, funding weapons of mass destruction, cyber security, and further military research and development prove themselves as most relevant in the contemporary military.

Former U.S. Secretary of the Navy, Donald C. Winter, in his article “Adapting to the Threat Dynamics of the 21st Century” states that the U.S. military needs to be well prepared for unannounced attacks from “terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan, and wherever else al-Qaeda and its associates appear.” China and other nation have higher advantages in many key manufacturing areas than U.S. the military needs to have abundant funds, trained soldiers, invest in the air and sea mobility assets, and updated technologies. Winter acknowledges that a temporary reduction in some key manufacturing areas could cause the U.S. industrial stupendous harm. “It is the matter of ensuring the survival of America and the free world.”

The threat environment has expanded from a strategic, nuclear, symmetrical threat from bombers, ICBMs, and air-or-sea-launched cruise missiles, to a continuing symmetrical threat in addition to an emergent asymmetric threat, focused across all domains, borders and agencies. Accordingly, our political leaders recognized a need to transform the military for a new ‘home game’. United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) was established to assume responsibility for the defence of the US homeland, and this new Command was tasked to provide military assistance to civil authorities (MACA).

The Armed Forces of the United States stand at an inflection point. Fourteen years of sustained combat forged a seasoned force capable of success across the range of military operations from military engagement to joint and multinational major combat operations. Today, this seasoned force is tasked to reset from a decade plus of counterinsurgency operations and evolve capability and capacity to defend the Nation from an increasingly complex security environment. Furthermore, this transformation must be completed in the face of a stark fiscal federal budget.

The United States military has never been as weak as it is under Barack Obama. In a time where the world is getting more dangerous every day, whether it is the growing threat of ISIS, Russia or North Korea, the current president insists on continuously making cuts to the military. According to an independent panel appointed by the pentagon and congress, “the shrinking U.S. armed forces, which are being downsized to fit that strategy and budget cuts, is a serious strategic misstep on the part of the United States and is inadequate given the future strategic and operational environment.” This essentially means that these cuts are weakening the military so much, that it will be ineffective to deal with global threats.

should adjust its priorities and spending to address the changing nature of threats in the world: What all these potential adversaries—from terrorist cells to rogue nations to rising powers—have in common is that they have learned that it is unwise to confront the United States directly on conventional military terms. The United States cannot take its current dominance for granted and needs to invest in the programs, platforms, and personnel that will ensure that dominance's persistence. But it is also important to keep some perspective. As much as the U.S. Navy has shrunk since the end of the Cold War, for example, in terms of tonnage, its battle fleet is still larger than the next 13 navies combined—and 11 of those 13 navies are U.S. allies or partners." (Staff,

The military should focus on prioritizing the Joint Force requirements our Nation needs the most to survive the current fiscal constraints.9 The military still needs to be able to address security threats and current demands.10 By prioritizing what is more important or needs to be done sooner helps decide what to focus on and use resources for. This leads to being able to plan budgets and be prepared. A Strategic Framework has three priorities of Taking Care of People, Balancing Readiness and Modernization, and Making Every Dollar Count.11 This sets a vision and goals to work towards. Through prioritization, focus is placed on what is important to be able to succeed in the mission.

The foreign policy strengths for the privatized combat role includes policy flexibility, force agility, and reduced political barriers. Policy flexibility is defined as the variety of options available and the scope in which they can be applied. The resulting collection of choices which may be mapped and compared to other choices can be referred to as the option space. In the case of the military, some of the policy options available can include mission types and the variety of roles from non-combat to combat. Force agility is defined as an armed force’s scalability, physical mobility, and adaptability. Force agility is mostly understood as a tactical level capability but the potential to provide agile capabilities can

The Cold War had split the world in two halves and had broken traditional concepts of power. Therefore, it was possible for USSR to be a military superpower and at the same time an economic dwarf. Contrastingly, Japan was an economic giant and militarily irrelevant. The post-Cold War world changes these patterns. On the one hand, the victor of the Cold War (USA) is still the world’s leading superpower, however, its relative military power is steadily diminishing and without a clearly defined enemy, the voices calling for cuts on the US military spending are getting louder. The ISIS and the post 9/11 terrorist threat are merely slowing down this process.

Combating a constrained fiscal environment, U.S. leadership rebalanced the national strategic environment directly impacting the DoD acquisition of the F-22A – Raptor. In that, President Obama’s 2010 NSS cited an enduring interest protecting the security of the U.S., its citizens, and allies and partners. [NSS, p.7] Furthermore, the 2010 NSS emphasized withdrawal of U.S. forces from controversial wars in the Middle East, continued participation in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and rebalanced focus to the Asia-Pacific Region to deepen ties with Asian allies and partners. [NSS, p. 42] In essence, increasing U.S. fiscal uncertainty and elevated defense spending by Russia and China, including air defense and fighter production, closing the capabilities gap with the U.S. military [Gates, p. 3] Additionally, nations (North Korea, Iran) are procuring and developing means to disrupt U.S. influence, narrowing military options, and denying freedom of movement and action in regions of strategic importance (South China Sea).

Clausewitz defines war as an “act of force to compel our enemy to do our will.” The nature of war is enduring yet the character of war changes over time. Current US strategic guidance is advancing the point of view that since the character of war has changed to focus on irregular wars then the US military should prepare for a future of irregular wars. This shift in focus forgets that the nature of war is enduring and in order to be successful, we must prepare for all types of conflict. This paper will define the types of conflict and the likelihood of each followed by a discussion of US strategic guidance and ending with an analysis of the training resources and force structure requirements needed to achieve success for all types of