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An assessment of the 2006 QDR
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Clark Murdock, Senior Adviser, International Security Program
 February 4, 2006 Although Deputy Secretary Gordon England told Defense News (on 2/1/06) that the 2006 QDR report is “a midcourse direction and not a whole new direction,” this QDR, in fact, represents a significant departure that, unlike previous QDRs, actually starts to realign the Department’s resources in support of its new strategic priorities. Many commentators have focused on the QDR’s failure to live up to its own high expectations (e.g., Principal Deputy Under Secretary for Policy Ryan Henry once described it as a “fulcrum of transition to a post-9/11 world) and to eliminate or cut “legacy” weapons systems such as the Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS), the Navy’s DD(X) destroyer or the Air Force’s F-22A. I believe, however, that the 2006 QDR report contains a wide range of initiatives that, if implemented, will significantly improve DoD’s ability to prosecute the “long war” against the global insurgency of Islamic extremists and to hedge against the emergence of a near-peer competitor. Moreover, the Department seems committed to following through – Secretary England stated at a 1 February event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies that the 2006 QDR report was “not a fire-and-forget document” and that “we will implement” the over one hundred specific actions identified in the report. At the strategic level, the 2006 QDR report flatly states (on pg. 36) that “irregular warfare has emerged as the dominant form of warfare confronting the United States” and (on pg. 42) that “[f]uture warriors will be as proficient in irregular operations, including counterinsurgency and stabilization operations, as they are today in high-intensity combat.” To dissuade future military competitions with other major powers, or hedge against them if dissuasion fails, the U.S. will invest (pg. 31) in “key strategic and operational areas, such as persistent surveillance and long-range strike, stealth, operational maneuver and sustainment of air, sea, ground forces at strategic distances, air dominance and undersea warfare.” The QDR report goes on say (on pg. 45) that “[j]oint air capabilities must be reoriented to favor, where appropriate, systems that have far greater range and persistence; larger and more flexible payloads for surveillance or strike; and the ability to penetrate and sustain operations in denied areas.” These are profound shifts in the Department’s strategic priorities and pose significant organize, train and equip challenges for the Military Services. In a marked departure from past practice, the 2006 QDR enumerates many specific policy and programmatic actions to implement the new priorities. Among the most notable are the following:
- Increase Special Operations Forces (SOF) by 15 percent, including a third more Army Special Forces battalions, a 2600-person Marine component in Special Operations Command (SOCOM), more Navy SEAL capacity and a new SOCOM UAV squadron;
- Expand PSYOPs and Civil Affairs units by 3,500 personnel and enhance the capability of the Army and the Marines to perform SOF missions;
- Field by 2018 (almost 20 years earlier than the Air Force had planned) “a new land-based, penetrating long-range strike capability” (pg. 46);
- Inside the Pentagon reported on 2 Feb 2006 that the Air Force had already issued to industry a request for information on concepts for new weapons that could “strike globally, precisely and rapidly with kinetic effects against high-payoff, time-sensitive targets in a single or multi-theater environment.”
- Accelerate procurement of Predator and Global Hawk UAVs to provide almost double the current UAV coverage;
- Accelerate procurement of Littoral Combat Ships and develop a Navy riverine capability;
- Field within two years a conventional ballistic missile on Trident submarines for conventional prompt global strike;
- Mount a $1.5 billion initiative to develop broad-spectrum medical countermeasures against the threat of genetically engineered bio-terror agents.
Although the 2006 QDR report insists (on pg. vi) that is “not a programmatic or budget document,” Inside Defense reported on 31 January 2006, that a senior civilian and a uniformed official, “each with a hand guiding the review,” said that the QDR required the “Defense Department to redirect $3 billion in new investments in FY 2007 and similarly channel $60 billion in new spending through 2011 to pay for new, needed capabilities.” In a further indication that the Pentagon is putting its money where its QDR mouth is, Bloomberg.com reported on 2 February 2006 that DoD would increase its R&D spending by 6 percent to $73.2 billion in FY 2007 in sharp contrast to its previous plan (expressed in its FY 2006 budget) to decrease it by four percent. There are grounds for optimism about the longer-term prospects for implementing the 2006 QDR. For each of the ten “joint capability areas” (e.g., joint ground, joint SOF, etc.) addressed, the QDR report defined a vision, described the progress to date and then listed specific decisions taken in the QDR to advance the vision. In these areas, at least, the Department is starting down an implementation path. In a directive signed by the Deputy Secretary in early January, DoD created eight “QDR Execution Roadmaps” and assigned each co-chairs responsible for building and then executing the roadmaps. The QDR reports states (on pg. 66) that DoD will “implement a more transparent, open and agile decision-making process.” But in a private session at CSIS on 1 February 2006 before their speech, Deputy Secretary England and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Edmund Giambastiani said that a more open, collaborative process that created buy-in from the stakeholders had emerged and was, in fact, “one of the big products” of the QDR. The senior-level body in this new process is the so-called “Group of 12,” which is chaired by the Deputy Secretary and the Vice Chairman, and consists of the five Under Secretaries in OSD, the Service vice chiefs, the Chief of the National Guard Bureau, the Director and Deputy Director of Program Analysis & Evaluation, the Principal Deputy Under Secretary for Policy, the Director of J-8 and a few other senior staffers. It is worth noting that the directive establishing the QDR execution roadmaps named the Group of 12 as the oversight mechanism. To be sure, the 2006 QDR has plenty of flaws – DoD needs to take a more forward-leaning stance with respect to homeland security in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and its recommendations on defense acquisition reform fall well short of what is expected in Congress, although DoD promises more reforms are on the way. And, yes, some major military programs should have been cut or reduced, although it seems clear that the size of the future buy of the Joint Strike Fighter is still in play. But, on the whole, the 2006 QDR has charted with considerable specificity its course forward and, unlike its predecessors, is likely to have a significant impact on how DoD copes with future challenges. |
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