A New Approach to Power Projection

Since the Cold War, U.S. defense strategy has been predicated on military forces that were superior in all domains to those of any adversary. But the nature of warfare has evolved, and that superiority is gone. Put another way, U.S. defense strategy and posture have become insolvent: The tasks that we expect our military forces and other elements of national power to execute internationally now exceed the means available to accomplish those tasks. Fixing this will require not only more and better weapon systems; it will also call for changing the posture of U.S. forces abroad and, above all, adopting innovative operational concepts.

The RAND National Security Research Division convened a moderated panel discussion that focused on emerging approaches to projecting power against the United States' most capable adversaries and the implications of these new approaches for defense planning.

S. Clinton Hinote, retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General, gave keynote remarks. The panel discussion featured Lt Gen Hinote; Andrew Hoehn, senior vice president for Research and Analysis at the RAND Corporation; and David Ochmanek, a senior international and defense researcher at the RAND Corporation and lead author of Inflection Point: How to Reverse the Erosion of U.S. and Allied Military Power and Influence. Co-authors Anna Dowd, Jeffrey W. Hornung, and Michael J. Mazarr were also panelists.

Caitlin Lee, director of the Acquisition and Technology Policy Program within the RAND National Security Research Division, moderated the panel discussion.

Topics

• Asymmetric Warfare
• China
• Geopolitical Strategic Competition
• North Atlantic Treaty Organization
• Russia
• Taiwan
• Ukraine