US military says no longer appropriate to speak of major regional conflicts and it must prepare to take on a multiplicity of threats.
On Monday February 1, 2010 the Pentagon published a major strategy document known as the Quadrennial Defence Review.
The QDR is an every four years assessment of the threats and challenges faced by the US military now and in the future.
For decades the Pentagon's been geared up to fight at least two major wars simultaneously ... but that worldview is changing.
In its Quadrennial Defence Review, Defence Secretary Robert Gates admitted it's no longer appropriate to speak of major regional conflicts and the military must prepare to take on a multiplicity of threats from terrorists using satellite and cyber technology to a greater number of nuclear armed countries. He said:
"The department's leadership now recognises that we must prepare for a much broader range of security challenges on the horizon ... they range from the use of sophisticated new technologies to deny our forces access to the global commons of sea, air, space and cyber-space to the threat posed by non-state groups developing more cunning and destructive means to attack and terrorise."
To overcome the thinking that has dominated US military planning since the cold war the QDR sets out four main goals:
1. To prevail in today's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - the first time that's appeared in a QDR
2. To prevent and deter conflict around the world
3. To prepare for a broader ranger of threats not confined to traditional country-on-country conflict
4. To preserve the all-volunteer force - which secretary Gates called the US military's greatest asset.
Analyst Mark Gunzinger, from the Centre for Strategic Budgetary Assessment, says it's a big change in emphasis that's been gradually swelling at the Pentagon for some time, In other words the military is acknowledging that warfare will soon extend into other domains.
"We have to maintain our conventional capabilities ... be able to defeat a high end aggressor if that war again occurs. At the same time we need to be able to do stability operations, we need to be able to build partner capacity globally - defeat al-Qaeda and so forth."
As with the $708bn Pentagon budget which was also published on Monday, the QDR is only a recommendation and will now be picked over by congress.
History shows that the US has rarely fought the wars it planned for, so publication of the 2010 QDR, with its emphasis on new and emerging threats, is the Obama administration's attempt - led by the Pentagon - to prepare for what may lie ahead.
