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Quadrennial Defense Review: Overview and Implications for National Security Planning
Summary
On February 1, 2010, the Defense Department released a report on the 2010 Quadrennial Defense
Review (QDR), a legislatively mandated assessment of defense strategy and priorities. The
review is the sixth full scale assessment of U.S. defense policy since the end of the Cold War,
beginning with the 1990 Base Force analysis and the 1993 Bottom-Up Review and continuing
with QDRs completed in 1997, 2001, 2006, and 2010. These official reviews have been
supplemented by assessments of independently chartered panels.
The four QDRs reflect an ongoing evolution of strategic thinking away from planning for smaller
versions of Cold War-era conventional conflicts, on the model of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and
toward planning to cope with a much more diverse array of challenges. By the time of the 2006
and 2010 QDRs, the basic strategic assumptions guiding military planning had shifted
dramatically. One premise is that no future adversary is likely to confront U.S. conventional, Cold
War-era military capabilities directly. Instead, any foe, ranging from violent, radical non-state
terrorist groups to a technologically advanced near-peer competitor, will try to exploit weaknesses
in U.S. defenses through asymmetric means. A related premise is that the notion of a spectrum of
conflict, ranging from unsophisticated insurgents or terrorists at the low end to sophisticated
national armies at the high end, is becoming blurred, with "low-end" terrorist groups using
advanced technologies and near-peer competitors likely to use indirect means of attack.
The 2010 QDR concludes that changes in the global security environment require some
adjustments in the balance of investments among elements of the U.S. military force posture. It
argues for an emphasis, first of all, on prevailing in current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and
against Al Qaeda elsewhere. It revises force planning to put diverse, overlapping scenarios,
including long-duration stability operations and defense of the homeland, on a par with major
regional conflicts in assessing the size and composition of the force. And, it calls for new
investments in critical joint missions, including countering "anti-access strategies" aimed at
defeating U.S. power projection forces; building the capacity of partner states; and ensuring
access to cyberspace. The 2010 report also proposes measures to reform institutional procedures
that it sometimes describes as "relics of the Cold War," including acquisition, security assistance,
and export control processes.
Critiques of the current and earlier QDRs raise a number of issues: Is the review overly
constrained by budget limitations? Does it make sufficiently disciplined choices among the many
priorities it cites? Does the focus on current conflicts come too much at the expense of
preparations for future conflicts? Does the review realistically assess threats from Russia and
China? A fundamental issue is whether the quite radical reassessment of global security
challenges in recent QDRs has been matched by sufficiently far-reaching changes in the
composition of the force.
A question for future QDRs may be whether the reviews should be tasked to address broader
security policy issues as a means of assessing defense plans in a more complete context. Potential
policy issues to address include when to use military force, the effects of global financial trends
on U.S. defense plans, the effects of domestic economic and budget trends on defense resources,
the evolution of alliances to reflect post-Cold War era challenges, the prospects for more
cooperative global security rules and institutions to enhance security, and the integration of U.S.
defense planning with broader, interagency policies to address global trends.Congressional Research Service
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Quadrennial Defense Review 2010: Overview and Implications for National Security Planning, report, May 17, 2010; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc805231/m1/2/: accessed March 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.