CSIS expert speaks on the U.S. defense budget’s capacity to address current and future global threats

On October 3rd, 2016 Mark Cancian, a senior fellow in the International Security Program at CSIS, spoke about American military strategy and capabilities under current fiscal constraints imposed by federal sequestration. His report describes the five possible directions in which U.S. military strategy can head. These strategies were “global engagement”, “Asia engagement”, “Europe engagement”, “combating terrorism”, and “Great Power competition”.

Mr. Cancian found that current financial resources were inadequate to address threats and potential crises. These deficits were largest in the event of peer-competitor conflict with strategies such as “global engagement”. Global engagement represented a moderate, balanced, and hedged approach that lacks the surge capacity needed to address several possible crises. Although defense strategies proved generally inadequate across the board under current financial constraints, the Great Power competition strategy and Asia engagement strategy were the best equipped to handle the gravest of crises such as conflict with China, Russia or on the Korean peninsula.

A video of this event can be found here.