Politics
Obama announces new defense strategy
Dempsey praised the strategy and the work of crafting it, calling it inclusive and comprehensive.
“It’s not perfect,” the general said. “There will be people who think it goes too far. Others will say it doesn’t go nearly far enough. That probably makes it about right. It gives us what we need.”
Obama said the strategy overhaul is designed to contend with hundreds of billions of dollars in budget cuts and refocus the United States’ national security priorities after a decade dominated by the post September 11 2001 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The strategy, devised through a comprehensive review by civilian and military leaders, centered on the military the country needs after the “long wars of the last decade are over,” Obama said.
Panetta said that smaller military budgets will mean some trade-offs and that the U.S. will take on “some level of additional but acceptable risk.” But Panetta said that at this point in history, in a changing world, the Pentagon would have been forced to make a strategy shift anyway. He says the money crisis merely forced the government’s hand.
The president announced that the military will be reshaped over time with an emphasis on countering terrorism, maintaining a nuclear deterrent, protecting the U.S. homeland, and “deterring and defeating aggression by any potential adversary.”
Those are not new military missions, and Obama announced no new capabilities or defense initiatives. He described a U.S. force that will retain much of its recent focus, with the exception of fighting a large-scale, prolonged conflict like the newly ended Iraq mission or the ongoing war in Afghanistan.
“As we end today’s wars and reshape our armed forces, we will ensure that our military is agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies,” the president wrote in a preamble to the new strategy, entitled, “Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense.”
