Joint Warfare Analysis: The Key to Shaping DoD's Future

Affordability will dominate the US military s planning for the foreseeable future. America has a history of reducing defense spending following a war, and large-scale operations in our longest war are now coming to a close so defense funding is going down. Because of the debt and deficit situations that the nation faces today, it is likely that these developing reductions in defense spending will endure for a longer period of time than in previous drawdowns. The US military is caught between the funding constraints of this national budget environment and the steadily increasing capability demands of pacing new and globally proliferating technologies that sharply target US military strengths. Focusing flat or declining defense resources on the capabilities that matter most will be critically important over the next decade.