The Changing Challenges of U.S. Defense Spending

Ten Challenges the US Must Now Face

• Challenge One: extent to which strategic and planning problems in Iraq and in meeting other US strategic commitments have created the present strains on our forces.
• Challenge Two: determining the level of burden that defense should place on the national economy and federal spending.
• Challenge Three: meeting the needs of the US active and reserve military.
• Challenge Four: measuring the extent to which the US has too few forces or the wrong forces.
• Challenge Five: determining what kind of force transformation is affordable and needed, and the extent to which it can or cannot deal with the other aspects of overstretch.
• Challenge Six: dealing with the legacy of Cold War transformation programs and past efforts at force transformation that are fundamentally unaffordable.
• Challenge Seven: creating new approaches to interoperability and alliances on the national level, such as creating effective Iraqi forces and effective Iraqi capabilities for governance that are necessary to allow the US to reduce its presence and expenditures in Iraq.
• Challenge Eight: dealing with the problem of alliances, international cooperation, and interoperability at the regional and global level.
• Challenge Nine: creating an effective interagency capability to perform national security missions
• Challenge Ten: responsibility.