Nathan Freier Livres

As an era of greater austerity rushes in, policymakers face numerous difficult choices about how to prioritize shrinking resources. This study is an effort to inform those choices in the particular area of U.S. ground force capabilities, based on an examination of how well current plans align with potential future challenges ground forces might be called upon to address. The study team employed a straightforward approach. First, the team surveyed the existing literature and solicited expert opinion to inform a characterization of the types of operations in which ground forces might engage over the next decade. Second, to amplify that understanding, the team explored in more detail the primary tasks those operations would involve. Finally, the team assessed, at a very high level, the current and planned capabilities that future leaders might be able to call upon to conduct those missions. The results indicate that future investments in two areas stability operations and security force assistance may exceed what will be needed. Capabilities in three other areas strategic responsiveness, armored maneuver, and forcible entry are particularly important, and either are or may become areas where, should they be cut back too far, U.S. options to meet key threats would be severely constrained.

"At Our Own Peril is the product of a year-long U.S. Army War College (USAWC) research effort ... The work is intended to add to the inevitable debates on risk and risk assessment accompanying forthcoming defense strategy development. The report endeavors to inform the defense strategy discussion by evaluating the components, high-level assessment, and articulation of risk by the Department of Defense (DOD) at the strategic and military levels of analysis, as well as across the operational and future challenges time horizon. Moreover, in doing so, it answers a single simple question: How should DOD adapt its current risk identification and assessment conventions to accommodate an environment defined by persistent, disruptive change? To arrive at actionable findings and recommendations, the USAWC study team examined DOD's risk assessment challenge in four principal areas of inquiry: describing risk, identifying risk, assessing risk, and effectively communicating risk. The study team found three very clear vulnerabilities or shortcomings in current risk convention. First, it is excessively focused on near-term military threats. Second, it lacks a meaningful connection back to concrete defense objectives. Finally, third, it has proven to be an insufficient catalyst for essential post-primacy defense innovation and adaption. These are reflected in a general dissatisfaction among many DOD stakeholders on the state of risk as it relates to corporate-level strategy. In response, this study recommends that risk become the persistent business of DOD's senior leadership. It further argues that corporate-level risk judgments should revolve around a new post-primacy risk concept and its four governing principles of diversity, dynamism, persistent dialogue, and adaptation"--Page xv