Cameron Fegers and Christian Helion

Chertoff Group Leaders Share Insights on the 2022 National Defense Strategy

In October, the Pentagon published its unclassified 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS), and for the first time, released the document alongside the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and Missile Defense Review (MDR). The NDS is intended to outline how the Department of Defense (DOD) will resource, plan, and contribute to the President’s National Security Strategy “ providing insights on the geopolitical outlook, United States force posture, and the U.S. role in global order.

The NDS succeeds in framing the new global threat environment, and the resourcing, campaigning, and inter-departmental collaboration required to equip and support U.S. and allied forces. While the priorities outlined indeed address the spectrum of oft-discussed risks to U.S national security, this guiding document is glaring in its failure to account for other domestic threats that the Department “ in partnership with Congress, the White House, and the broader industrial base “ can collaborate on to strengthen the U.S. defense posture.

Given the complexity and increased global challenges, we asked our senior leaders and advisors at The Chertoff Group, who have served in high-level government leadership roles, to share their insights on the latest risk and security implications.

An Increasingly Challenging World

 As we saw with the COVID-19 pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine, global strategic positioning defines our international environment. Chertoff Group Co-Founder and former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said, “Competition and conflict now stretch across multiple domains: land, sea, air, space; cyber; economic power and access to natural resources; and the domain of information. It is vital for the US to exercise all the tools of national power across all these domains to maintain its global leadership and national security.”

Lt.Gen (ret.) Scott Kindsvater, former Deputy Chairman of the NATO Military Committee said, “For the first time since the 1940s, we face competition and conflict with state adversaries in Asia and Europe. Our competitors want to erode Western influence across all elements of national power and domains of land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace.”

 Similarly, Neil Wiley, former Principal Executive in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence stated, “The strategy set forth in the document must be underpinned by an American military capable of deterring or defeating adversaries with sophisticated militaries and global diplomatic, economic, and societal reach. Current and future actions within DOD to prevail in this environment will result in changes of policy and doctrine, and the acquisition of capabilities, which will amount to a generational re-tooling of the Joint Force.”

2022 NDS: Continuity and Evolution

The 2022 NDS builds on the 2018 strategy by firmly orienting DOD away from a two-decades-long focus on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism towards a new 21st century defined by the evolving rivalry with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), threat of rogue nation states, and the dangers posed by transborder threats like cyber, space, climate change. The NDS outlines four priorities to strengthen deterrence:

1) Defending the homeland, paced to the growing multi-domain threat posed by the PRC;

2) Deterring strategic attacks against the United States, Allies, and partners;

3) Deterring aggression, while being prepared to prevail in conflict when necessary “ prioritizing the PRC challenge in the Indo-     Pacific region, then the Russia challenge in Europe;

4) Building a resilient Joint Force and defense ecosystem.

In addition, the strategy proposes specific approaches to meet these priorities, including integrated deterrence, campaigning, and other actions to build enduring advantages.

On the point of bolstering deterrence, Mira Ricardel, former Deputy National Security Advisor said, “it is striking that the NDS does not discuss defeating adversaries only deterring them and being prepared to prevail. We must be committed to prevail and thus defeat our adversaries. Deterrence can fail as we have seen since the end of World War II and conflicts can escalate as we are witnessing now in Ukraine.”

Mac Thornberry, former Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said, “while there are obvious differences, there is also a lot of continuity in this NDS from the last one. That is a good thing for the country. On the other hand, our biggest challenge continues to be turning words on a page into timely action. We cannot meet the threats described in the NDS and defend the nation if we plod along, unwilling to shake things up. Our spending and policies must match our rhetoric.”

China is the pacing threat; Russia is Secondary

The PRC is directly identified as the pacing threat to U.S. national security, driven by efforts to modernize its conventional and nuclear forces and achieve technological dominance. Yet, the Nuclear Posture Review highlights the decision by the Biden administration to cancel the nuclear sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N), despite that the Strategic Command (STRATCOM) Commander has argued that this enhances U.S. deterrence against the growing Chinese nuclear threat.

With respect to the Russian threat, Russia is listed as a second tier threat, “posing a regional conventional challenge and global nuclear threat “ but not necessarily a long-term threat like the PRC. While missile defense systems such as Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD), Aegis, and THAAD are deployed to provide protection from growing North Korean and Iranian ballistic threats, the threats that these nation-states pose are secondary priorities alongside non-state extremists and the prospect of gray zone warfare. The potential impact of a North Korean launch of intercontinental ballistic missiles against the United States, whether accidental or intentional, could be devastating if our GMD system is not modernized and upgraded in a timely manner.

Consistent with the Biden administration’s domestic emphasis on climate change policies, climate change is considered a threat. To address these collective challenges, the NDS calls for an approach of “integrated deterrence” to ensure DOD matches and coordinates funding, policy, and actions to address specific threats in a jointly orchestrated fashion. This includes working in close partnership with U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and other regions to coordinate collaborative campaigning efforts, expand defense cooperation and promote technological interoperability.

Integrated Deterrence

Of the multiple NDS-proposed approaches for bolstering U.S. defense, the two most compelling are integrated deterrence and campaigning (others include supporting allies & partners, force planning, building enduring advantages, and risk management). Integrated deterrence seeks to use every tool at the Department’s disposal to ensure that potential foes understand the folly of aggression, and do so by aligning policies, investments, and activities to sustain and strengthen deterrence.

Secretary Chertoff said, “The concept of integrated deterrence is not new, but it is especially salient in today’s geopolitical landscape of nation-state competition. This will not be easy. It will require focused integration of deterrence, response planning and execution with deliberate and persistent coordination by the U.S. government across multiple agencies and with domestic and international partners.”

The visions of integrated deterrence and campaigning represent a doubling-down of sorts of DOD’s ongoing efforts to make interoperable the disparate DOD Service Components “systems integration and warfighting doctrines,“ evidenced by major recent investments across the Services for codifying all-domain warfighting concepts and data-sharing.

Lt. Gen. (ret.) Stephen Twitty, former Deputy Commander of the U.S. European Command stated, “We must be prepared to compete and fight across all domains with all instruments of our national power, and with support of our allies and partners to defend the homeland and safeguard U.S. vital interests both at home and in multiple theaters simultaneously.”

NDS Gaps and Shortfalls

Oddly, while DOD’s first-time concurrent production and publication of the National Defense Strategy, Nuclear Posture Review, and Missile Defense Review is itself an example of matching resources and strategic planning proposed by an integrated deterrence approach, the failure to acknowledge JADC2 – the Department’s most significant, ongoing undertaking on Joint Force integration, calls into question how closely the Department is following its own vision, and how close it is to achieving a Joint Force information advantage.

Questions remain as to how DOD will work in tandem with partner agencies, such as State, Energy, Homeland Security, Justice and Commerce, on an integrated deterrence approach to combat cybersecurity and “gray zone” concerns. The fact that homeland defense – the topmost priority – is squarely focused on the threats posed by the PRC understates very real threats to DOD and U.S. domestic critical infrastructure as well as interests abroad from foreign and domestic actors, to include Russia, Iran, and North Korea. It is essential that investments in U.S. missile defenses be increased to ensure a robust integrated defense across the homeland.

While the Global Positioning System (GPS)- and Satellite Communication (SATCOM)-disruption capability of our near-peer adversaries and other actors is accounted for, the NDS could benefit from a more intentional strategy to circumvent the impact of severe weather events on our basing efforts, navigation systems, and GPS capability. For example, the growing frequency of solar storm activity may pose impediments to certain military electronics and long-distance communications systems.

Climate change is weighted towards force planning at the expense of boosting resiliency in fielded electronics, Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) and GPS. On the fourth priority, “building a resilient defense ecosystem,” the NDS lacks specificity, which begs the question of how DOD plans to apply its lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine. It fails to account for: a) how the DOD can mitigate shortfalls in the logistics and sustainment tails in the Pacific theater; b) how to improve acquisition speed and fielding of critical weapon systems and air and missile defenses; c) how to offer contracting flexibility for small businesses and the broader industrial base; and d) how to accelerate – beyond merely mentioning – fielding promising commercial technologies with military relevance. The omission of these issues prompts skepticism both as to whether the United States can support an additional, sustained conflict “ and the extent to which it acknowledges the struggles we may face.

 Bottom line: Priorities and enablers need to be resourced

 Despite what practical approaches are offered for new visions such as integrated deterrence and campaigning, what is missing is a discussion of enablers critical to achieving U.S. defense goals in a timely manner to meet emerging threats. These include concrete steps to unify Joint Force planning and equipping efforts, plans to modernize traditional acquisition mechanisms, including those for accelerating production of emerging technologies, an achievable vision for strengthening the U.S. industrial base, and tangible recommendations to bolster our readiness and sustainment tails.

The NDS must be translated into an actionable plan that advances U.S. national security objectives and strengthens our global posture.

Charlie Allen, former Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence and Analysis, emphasized the importance of resourcing, “The NDS strategy, of course, is not a net assessment and does not take into account the immense strategic investments needed to develop and field the weapons and systems required to protect the homeland and our close allies over the decade to come. In that respect, vital trade-off decisions will have to be made, which the strategy does not identify.”

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