Thinking about war is unpleasant, and preparing for it is expensive. It isn’t surprising that many policymakers prefer to spend their time and energy hoping for peace. But there’s a cruel paradox: If we’re negligent in anticipating and preparing for military threats, we will be less capable of conducting successful diplomacy, achieving disarmament agreements and harvesting economic fruit. Ignoring the potential for war increases its chances of happening, as well as the danger of our defeat.
With these thoughts in mind, the Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States took on its congressionally mandated task of assessing how well the U.S. is positioned to deal with military threats over the coming decades. The commission is composed of 12 experts appointed by bipartisan congressional leadership in 2022. Brookings Institution fellow Madelyn R. Creedon was its chairwoman, and I was its vice chairman.
Together we submitted a unanimous report to Congress in October 2023 with 131 findings and 81 recommendations for how the U.S. can enhance its ability to deter war with China and Russia. Congress would do well to consider our conclusions during the next several weeks as it prepares to write the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act and following appropriations bills.
The U.S. is facing a historically unique global threat environment. Washington is on the cusp of having two nuclear peer adversaries—in Beijing and Moscow—each with ambitions to disrupt the international status quo, by force if necessary. We didn’t expect this and thus are unprepared to respond to it.
Two developments drove the commission’s assessment of our nation’s strategic posture. First, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. allowed its nuclear force to atrophy. At the time we considered Russia to be a competitor, not an adversary, and China a less serious challenge.
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Author: Ruth King
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