1、iiiPrefaceResearch done at the RAND Corporation and elsewhere over the past several years has iden- tified some serious shortcomings in the ability of programmed U.S. forces to meet emerging challenges. Prominent among these challenges are those posed by the growth of advanced anti-access/area denia
2、l threats in the arsenals of U.S. adversaries, Russias use of military power against neighboring European states, North Koreas development of nuclear weapons, and the spread of violent Salafist-jihadi ideology with the emergence of the quasi-state Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Individually
3、, each of these developments places stress on U.S. and allied military capabilities. Collectively, they represent the major elements of an international security environment that is more complex and more dangerous than that to which Americans have been accustomed since the end of the Cold War.ftese
4、developments should be important factors in the Trump administrations review of National Defense Strategy. ftey should also prompt a reconsideration of the Budget Control Act of 2011, which became law before some of these threats became manifest. Clearly, the Trump administration will need to reasse
5、ss the nations defense strategy, posture, and program with an eye toward finding a better balance than exists today between the ambitions embodied in the strategy and the resources devoted to it. ftis report is offered as a contribu- tion to that effort.ftis report should be of interest to defense p
6、olicymakers, practitioners in the executive and legislative branches, analysts, the media, experts in nongovernmental organizations, and those concerned with defense planning and the role of the United States in international secu- rity affairs.ftis research was conducted within the International Se
7、curity and Defense Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and develop- ment center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defen
8、se Intelligence Community. Funding for this study was provided, in part, by donors and by the independent research and development provisions of RANDs contracts for the operation of itsU.S. Department of Defense federally funded research and development centers.For more information on the RAND Inter
9、national Security and Defense Policy Center, see www.rand.org/nsrd/ndri/centers/isdp or contact the director (contact information is pro- vided on the web page).ContentsPreface . iiiFigures . viiTables . ixSummary . xiAcknowledgments . xviiAbbreviations . xixCHAPTER ONEThe Need for a New Approach to
10、 Force Planning . 1fte Challenge Facing U.S. Forces and fteir Capability to Respond. 1 ftis Report . 2Approach in ftis Report . 3Organization of ftis Report. 5CHAPTER TWOChina: Ensuring Access to the Air and Sea Commons and Sustaining Capabilities forEffective Power Projection Operations . 7Backgrou
11、nd and Purpose . 7High Stakes and Unfavorable Trends. 8Scenario: An Invasion of Taiwan, Circa 2020 . 14Additional Regional Challenges in Northeast and Southeast Asia. 19 Implications for Force Planning. 27CHAPTER THREEResponding to Russias Remilitarization of Geopolitics in Europe . 31 Background an
12、d Purpose . 31New Security Trends in Europe . 32Scenario: Defending the Baltic States . 36fte Hybrid ftreat . 42Actions the Baltic States Can Take to Enhance Security. 43 fte Black Sea Region. 44Implications for Force Planning. 45CHAPTER FOURCountering a Nuclear-Armed North Korea. 49Background and P
13、urpose . 49vvi U.S. Military Capabilities and Forces for a Dangerous Worldfte Steady State . 52Potential Changes to the Steady State . 53Scenario: North Korea Invades South Korea . 54Post-Conflict or Post-Collapse Stability Operations . 57 A More-Stressful Scenario? . 58Implications for Force Planni
14、ng. 58CHAPTER FIVECountering Iranian Aggressiveness and Maintaining Balance in the Persian Gulf Region. 61 Background and Purpose . 61Trends in the Gulf RegionA Surprise-Free Projection. 62 Irans Military Capabilities. 68Scenario: Iranian Aggression and a Closure of the Strait. 71 Implications for F
15、orce Planning. 74CHAPTER SIXCombating Salafist-Jihadi Groups: The Roles Played by U.S. SOF . 77 Background and Purpose . 77Salafist Jihadism as a Global Insurgency . 79USSOCOM as the Fifth Service . 80fte Unique Capabilities of USSOCOM. 80USSOCOMs Major fteaters of Operation . 84Prospect of Technolo
16、gically Enabled Hybrid ftreats. 88From the USSOCOM Perspective: How Much is Enough? . 90Implications for General Purpose Forces. 92 Conclusion . 93CHAPTER SEVENAlternative Force Planning Constructs and Associated Forces . 95 Start-Small Approach to Force Planning. 96One Major War . 97Qualitative Enh
17、ancements . 99One Major War Plus One Regional War . 102Two Major Wars . 104Getting From Here to ftere . 104Concluding ftoughts . 109APPENDIXESA. The Third Offset and the Future of DoDs R conducting sustained, distributed counterter- rorist operations; and in multiple regions, deterring aggression an
18、d assuring allies through forward presence and engagement.” He went on to state that if deterrence should fail, “U.S. forces could defeat a regional adversary in a large-scale multiphased campaign, and deny the objectives ofor impose unacceptable costs onanother aggressor in another region.”2 At the
19、 same time, thenGen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated that, notwithstanding planned investments in U.S. military capabilities, he expected “the risk of interstate conflict in East Asia to rise, the vulnerability of our platforms and basing to increase, our technology
20、 edge to erode, instability to persist in the Middle East, and threats posed by extremist organizations to endure.”3 Within Congress, some elected officials decry the poor state of readiness of U.S. forces and point with alarm to growing threats from China, Russia, North Korea, Islamic State in Iraq
21、 and Syria (ISIS), and elsewhere. At the same time, other voices in Congress insist that the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) budget should be reduced substantially.Many reasons can be cited for the poor quality of this “debate” about the state of the U.S. armed forces, but one reason surely is that
22、 Americans no longer have a credible and widely agreed-on standard against which to measure the adequacy of forces. During the Cold War, Americans always had the forces (both conventional and nuclear) of the Soviet Union and scenarios depicting Soviet aggression against NATO or an attack on the Unit
23、ed States itself as standards. And following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, U.S. general purpose forces were evaluated against the requirement to be able to fight and win conflicts against two regional adversaries, such as Iraq and North Korea, in overlapping time frames.DoD has continued
24、 to use that Two Regional Wars standard, although it now bears little relationship to what the administration and the nation expect the force to be ready and able to do. Consider the following:1 By state of the armed forces, we refer to the extent to which the force, today and in the future, would b
25、e able to carry outthe missions for which it is directed to prepare or which it might reasonably be called upon to undertake.23Chuck Hagel, Quadrennial Defense Review, U.S. Department of Defense, March 4, 2014, p. 22. Hagel, 2014, p. 61.xii U.S. Military Capabilities and Forces for a Dangerous World
26、 Important national interests today are being challenged by two major powersRussia and Chinathat pose operational and strategic challenges that far outstrip those posed by the regional adversaries that animate DoDs current force planning construct. With its growing arsenal of nuclear weapons and bal
27、listic missiles, North Korea today presents threats for which U.S. and allied forces lack satisfactory answers. Despite the previous administrations earlier plans and expectations, U.S. forces are deployed in significant numbers in both Afghanistan and Iraq, striving to help the gov- ernments of tho
28、se countries re-establish control over large areas of their own territories. Although the United States and its allies and partners have made considerable headway in blunting the threat posed by al Qaida and its affiliates, U.S. forces must expect to be engaged in the struggle with Salafist-jihadi g
29、roups, such as ISIS, globally for many years to come.In short, the actual security environment in which U.S. forces are operating and for which they must prepare is, in important ways, more complex and more demanding than the one that heretofore has been used for developing and evaluating them. This
30、 disjuncture is partly to blame for the fact that the United States now fields forces that are, at once, larger than needed to fight a single major war, failing to keep pace with the modernizing forces of great power adversaries, poorly postured to meet key challenges in Europe and East Asia, and in
31、sufficiently trained and ready to get the most operational utility from many of its active component units. Put more starkly, assessments in this report will show that U.S. forces could, under plausible assumptions, lose the next war they are called upon to fight, despite the United States outspendi
32、ng China on military forces by a ratio of 2.7:1 and Russia by 6:1. fte nation needs to do better than this.Adopting a force planning construct that better reflects the realities facing U.S. forces and stands some chance of gaining broad acceptance by stakeholders in the defense com- munity cannot, b
33、y itself, remedy all that ails todays forces. However, it can help. An agreed standard of performance for the forces as a whole is a necessary predicate for any meaningful debate about the adequacy of any defense program. And DoDs continued adherence to the two-war criterion has hamstrung its own pl
34、anning and its articulation of priority needs by placing something of a floor under its force structure, crowding out investments in important modernization projects.DoD should consider adopting a force planning construct that more clearly reflects the primary security challenges facing the United S
35、tates today. We recommend any of the fol- lowing three, all of which were developed from assessments of the demands of scenarios that involve one of five adversaries: China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Salafist-jihadi groups. We recommend the following force planning constructs for consideration: One Major War: Defeat the forces of any single adversary, including either of the major powers (China or Russia), in a localized conflict. fte joint force that we judge to be appropria
