A new RAND Corporation report maintains a significant gap exists between the nation’s strategic and defense policies and funding and personnel resources required to implement those policies successfully.
“Modernizing its nuclear deterrent over the next several decades is likely to consume most of the recent increases in the U.S. defense budget,” said Timothy Bonds, the report’s lead author and a senior fellow at RAND, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization. “The question, then, is how the United States should utilize the resources remaining to ensure that aggression that imperils U.S. interests in critical regions would fail while helping allies build the capacity to do more for their own and the collective defense.”
The analysis, conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute, recommends prioritizing investments by national importance.
This includes its interests, the size and urgency of the gap between the capabilities required to achieve defense objectives and the current posture, readiness, and capabilities of American forces.
“In the event of a major war, such as a Russian attack on the Baltics, a resumption of full-scale warfighting on the Korean peninsula, or a U.S. decision to come to Taiwan’s defense against China, posture and readiness will be the decisive factors,” Bonds said. “In addition to improving the posture and readiness of its regular forces, the DoD should improve the mobilization infrastructure to speed the activation of Guard and Reserve forces and the training capabilities needed to make all forces in the deployment pipeline ready.”