Duty Now For The Future

An ever increasing defense budget clearly demonstrates the priorities of the U.S government/military. Freedom of movement and the ability to engage multiple enemies on multiple fronts will characterize warfare in 2010 and beyond. The disingenuous demagogue Obama had promised to end these type of conflicts, yet more than a year after his election we are expanding our presence aggressively in several new areas of operation and are continuing the derided policies of the Bush administration. Will this ever end?

Matthew Berger: America’s “War without Borders”

WASHINGTON – A report and budget request from the U.S. Defense Department released Monday reveal both new and old priorities for President Barack Obama’s Pentagon.

Strategically, the military recognizes new, non-traditional threats ranging from failed states to cyber-warfare to climate change. But there is little change in the military spending habits of the Obama Pentagon versus that of his predecessor.

The new Quadrennial Defense Review, a congressionally mandated report on the direction of U.S. national security strategy, marks several major breaks from past reports. Whereas previous QDRs have had at their heart a strategy in which the country is able to fight two separate conventional wars, Monday’s report shifts the focus to multiple and diffuse simultaneous threats.
“We have learned through painful experience that the wars we fight are rarely the wars we plan,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters at the Pentagon Monday afternoon.

New threats require new responses, and the report emphasizes having increased numbers of special forces, drones and helicopters as well as preparing for conflicts that take place in the realms of counterinsurgencies and cyberspace.

“Although it is a manmade domain, cyberspace is now as relevant a domain for DoD activities as the naturally occurring domains of land, sea, air, and space,” the report notes.
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