Replacing the 2-MTW Standard:

The 2-MTW standard was adopted in 1993 and reaffirmed in the QDR of 1996 because it was deemed capable of meeting the emerging demands of the post-Cold War era, including deterrence of regional wars that might break out as the old bipolar order unraveled. It permitted the Clinton Administration to trim about 10% off the “Base Force” inherited from the Bush era. The Pentagon came away feeling that while the resulting posture offered less margin of safety, it likely would be large enough to get the job done. As the 1990's unfolded, the 2-MTW standard endured as a serviceable doctrine that was neither widely admired nor hotly opposed. The fact that it has survived this long is testimony to its staying power and lingering appeal: attractive features at a time when consensus on defense policy is hard to come by. Today’s criticisms of it are being launched mostly by defense specialists, not by Congressmen, other political figures, or protesters in the streets. If it is to be retired, it will not go quietly into the night without a stiff debate. Any replacement for it will need to show not only superior substantive qualities but also a similar capacity to command consensus inside and outside the Pentagon: a hard act to follow.

This standard was created in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf war, but before ethnic warfare had fully exploded in the Balkans. It postulated that U.S. military forces should be large enough to wage two large-size regional wars that might erupt with little warning and unfold in overlapping time frames. The two contingencies most commonly cited were a renewed Iraqi attack on Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, accompanied by a North Korean assault on South Korea. Both were dangerous events that would menace U.S. vital interests, activate U.S. security ties with close allies, and require major U.S. force contributions. The 2-MTW standard calculated that if U.S. forces are sufficiently large and capable of winning two such wars, they will be able to deal with the biggest existing threats on the world scene and be prepared to handle other wars and crises that might unexpectedly occur.

The 2-MTW standard thus was anchored in big-time warfighting. It did not mean that U.S. forces could be employed only to wage MTW’s. During peacetime, it allows for U.S. forces to be used for other crises and contingencies: originally called “Lesser Regional Contingencies” (LRC’s) and now dubbed Small-Scale Contingencies (SSC’s). Yet it also made clear that forces employed for these purposes must remain on a tetherhook, primed to disengage and redeploy if MTW events necessitate their presence. The 2-MTW standard thus was meant to be flexible in determining how U.S. forces might be used, but nonetheless, it was firm about the main purpose of the force posture: being prepared for MTW’s and engaging in other operations only on a “by exception” basis. In using MTW requirements to judge military adequacy for the 1990's, it declared that a 2-MTW posture would satisfactorily answer the perennial question: How much is enough? 1/

The 2-MTW standard remains alive today, and continues to enjoy support in many quarters that value its advantages. It provides the officially sanctioned rationale for virtually all U.S. active-duty combat forces and many reserve component units as well. This is the case because these forces would be needed to meet the weighty demands posed by two MTW’s erupting nearly at the same time. Basically, the standard postulates that about one-half of U.S. forces are needed for one MTW, and the other half are needed for the second MTW. The current U.S. posture includes the combat forces listed on Chart 1. The only forces falling outside the 2-MTW standard are some Army National Guard units, which provide a low-cost, mobilizable hedge against more demanding events. A typical MTW commitment would include about 6.5 Army and Marine divisions, 10 USAF fighter wings, and up to 4-5 carrier battle groups (CVBGs). These combat forces would be moved by sizable strategic mobility forces: air transports and sealift ships. Accompanying the combat forces would be command staffs, sizable logistic support units, and war reserve stocks. Total deployed manpower for a single MTW posture would be about 400,000-450,000 troops from all services. Clearly this is a large and powerful combat force, capable of major defensive and offensive operations.

Chart 1: U.S. Defense Posture (2000)

Active Reserve Component

Army Divisions (Separate Brigades) 10(2) 8 (18)

Marine Divisions & Air Wings 3 1

Air Force Fighter Wings 12 8

o Bombers 163 27

Navy Battle Force Ships 301 15

o Carriers/ARGS 12/12 –

DoD Military Manpower 1.35 million 865,000

The advantages of the 2-MTW standard are severalfold. It serves as a clear reminder that big wars similar to Desert Storm can still occur because even though the United States no longer faces a global threat akin to the Cold War, it still confronts strong regional enemies potentially willing to commit aggression. This standard also signals the continuing U.S. willingness to defend its vital interests and protect its close allies. Its emphasis on warfighting creates compelling reasons for DoD to preserve the world’s highest-quality military forces, with high readiness, modernization, and sustainment. The two wars contemplated by this standard require good mobility forces, joint operations, and the mix of ground, air, naval forces contained in the U.S. posture. The 2-MTW standard also provides support for the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), JV2010/2020, and DoD’s plan to begin a new era of procurement in a few years.

In addition to usefully linking U.S. forces to clear threats and plausible wars, the 2-MTW standard reduces calculations of force requirements to a simple numerical algorithm. By proclaiming the need for a two-war posture, not one war or three wars, it has boiled defense planning down to a single-point solution. It has helped build a broad political consensus for the current posture, establishing a ceiling over the posture and a floor under it. The 2-MTW standard achieves this end with arithmetic proclaiming that more forces would be superfluous and fewer forces would be inadequate. Seasoned military officers and operations research analysts may recognize that reality is more complex than this formula. But the 2-MTW standard thus far has gotten the job done in the public arena in ways that have helped insulate the Pentagon from Washington’s political struggles. Meanwhile, it has allowed DoD to resolve its internal debates by focusing on two clearly defined wars, whose postulated features have been developed in satisfying detail to permit analysis of plans, programs, and budgets.

Most important, the 2-MTW standard has bequeathed a force posture that thus far has adequately met U.S. security requirements. While U.S. forces often have seemed over-stretched when mounting peacekeeping missions and related operations in recent years, no enemy has seen opportunity to launch MTW-style aggression in the Persian Gulf or Northeast Asia. Perhaps this situation owes to peaceful international conditions. But to an important degree, it may also owe to the fact that the U.S. military, despite its problems and shortfalls, genuinely possesses the capacity to work with allied forces to inflict decisive defeat not just on one enemy, but on two enemies at once. To be sure, this capacity is not perfect. But even so, it is sufficiently strong to ensure eventual victory in both cases and crushing defeat for enemies. Because U.S. wartime operations in one theater do not open the door to unopposed aggression in another theater, the 2-MTW standard underscores deterrence to a significantly greater degree than could be achieved by a one-war standard. Meanwhile, U.S. military forces generally have been available for other lesser contingencies, including the Kosovo conflict, that have occurred in recent years. While the Pentagon sometimes has grumbled about such events, no major crisis requirement has gone unmet. For these reasons, many defense analysts agree that a 2-MTW force posture is a cost-effective choice: it provides adequate military preparedness and safety, while not draining the federal treasury dry.

Criticisms of the 2-MTW Standard

Despite its advantages, the 2-MTW standard has been bombarded by mounting criticisms in recent months and by fault-finding on multiple grounds. Supporters of the 2-MTW standard assert that it has been misinterpreted and taken out of context. Perhaps so, but these misinterpretations have acquired a life of their own, to the point where this standard now means something that it may not originally have been intended to mean. Some critics have been calling for larger or smaller forces, but the main complaints have focused not on force size, but instead on the standard’s strategic rationale and priorities for preparing and using forces. The following portrayal focuses on eight critical arguments being advanced, not the personalities making them. In this paper’s view, no force-sizing standard can be perfect, but most of these criticisms are valid to one degree or another. The looming question is: What should be made of them? Are they mere chinks in the 2-MTW standard’s armor, or are they strong enough to justify overturning it? This question is for readers and the U.S. government to answer.

One criticism is that the 2-MTW standard allegedly fails to focus on the normal business of the Department of Defense and U.S. military forces. It is totally preoccupied with preparing U.S. forces to fight two major regional wars at the same time. To be sure, staying prepared for such calamitous events is critically important. It provides DoD a compelling rationale to keep U.S. forces ready for prime time and to improve them as opportunities arise. But regional wars--even one war at a single time, to say nothing of two wars--occur infrequently. The vast majority of the time, U.S. forces are engaged in far-flung, demanding activities of a different sort: e.g., training, developing collaborative practices with allies, reaching out to new partners, patrolling troubled areas, peacekeeping, striking at terrorists, and conducting minor crisis interventions. The 2-MTW standard implicitly assumes that if U.S. forces are prepared to wage regional wars, they will be able to perform all these other missions. But is this truly the case? Because critics fret that it may not be true, they worry that an exclusive focus on MTW’s can result in other vital force needs and program priorities being neglected.

A second, related criticism is that because the 2-MTW standard is preoccupied with fighting wars, it allegedly says nothing about the larger role played by U.S. forces in carrying out the national security agenda abroad. To be sure, the U.S. national security strategy of shaping, responding, and preparing calls attention to the important peacetime purposes of U.S. military forces. But the connection of these strategy precepts to the 2-MTW standard seems tenuous. This especially is the case because the quite-important shaping function plays no role in the analytical process by which DoD gauges its force requirements for the 2-MTW standard. The wrong-headed implication, critics allege, is that U.S. forces exist mainly to wage war and only distantly to help achieve key political and strategic goals in peacetime.

This self-preoccupied focus on warfighting allegedly leaves DoD force planning curiously disengaged from the central thrust of U.S. foreign policy in today’s world: keeping the peace and molding the future international system. Several observers, including the Secretary of State, have expressed mystification at this detached attitude, which was not the case during the Cold War, when the Pentagon had a good reputation for grasping the political purposes of military power. The ultimate effect, some critics fear, will be to weaken the U.S. military’s credibility and importance in the public eye. They argue that the Congress and American people may not be willing to continue supporting a military capable of waging two hypothetical wars with the most vigorous warplans and highest-technology assets imaginable. But most fair-minded observers will be more-inclined to support a force posture of this size and strength if it powerfully contributes to keeping the peace and influencing how countries respect U.S. interests. Unfortunately the 2-MTW standard does not call attention to this important role of U.S. military power.

Beyond this, the new administration will need to ask an all-important strategic question: How many U.S. forces are needed to keep Europe stable, to dampen the Middle East’s chaotic affairs, and to guide Asia toward a new security architecture as China’s power grows? The 2-MTW standard cannot address this question, much less answer it. Its allegedly lame response is that forces sized to fight two regional wars presumably will be big enough, and properly configured, to achieve these core political goals. If this proves to be the case, it will be by accident, not design. What if U.S. force needs for these goals prove to be greater than, or different from, requirements for warfighting? In this event, the 2-MTW standard could leave U.S. national security strategy flying blind or at least weakened. During the Cold War, U.S. forces were sized and publicly justified not merely to wage war, but also to contribute to such larger strategic precepts as containment, deterrence, forward defense, flexible response, and alliance preparedness. Critics allege that the time-honored value of this dual focus on peacetime missions and warfighting has been lost in the 2-MTW standard.

A third criticism of the 2-MTW standard is that it anchors the U.S. defense rationale too single-mindedly in fleeting threats and too narrowly in an outdated form of threat-based planning. Iraq and North Korea have served as the principal threats of the past decade. But they are not necessarily permanent fixtures for the coming decade. Indeed, they could fade from the scene quickly if Saddam Hussein’s government is overthrown and if the Korean peninsula unifies. What would happen to DoD’s force requirements then? Would a major disarmament be possible? Or will new threats appear on the scene? Indeed, should the United States remain heavily armed even in a setting where no major wars loom on the immediate horizon because new dangers could eventually appear, far faster than a disarmed United States could prepare for them?

More fundamentally, this criticism alleges that the 2-MTW standard is trying to use two middling-sized adversaries, with backward economies and no alliance ties to each other, to create a replacement for the role of permanent, multi-theater enemy played by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. To be sure, permanent enemies help make things simple, unchanging, and free of controversy over such thorny issues as goals and priorities. They allow defense planning to be reactive, sparing it the need to be proactive. The problem, critics allege, is that this type of threat-based planning has gone the way of the Cold War. In today’s fluid world, the primary task is to advance U.S. interests, not to ward off ceaseless and growing military threats. Permanent big-time enemies no longer exist. Whereas today’s enemies may be unthreatening tomorrow, countries that seem quiescent today may become major trouble-makers a few years from now. The task facing U.S. defense planning allegedly is to remain flexible in ways that deal with this ever-shifting strategic scene, rather than rigidly lock itself into a threat-based framework that may bear little relationship to how the future actually evolves.

Most critics likely would agree that threat-based planning should remain a contributing factor in U.S. defense planning. But they also argue that it should not be carried to the point of obscuring the need for the United States to stay well-armed in a still-dangerous world irrespective of the comings and goings of particular threats. The United States is a global power with far-flung interests, security commitments, and involvements in troubled regions that are capable of unexpectedly exploding into conflict almost overnight. The two major wars of the past decade, in the Persian Gulf and Kosovo, both caught the United States by surprise: neither Iraq nor Serbia were identified as full-fledged threats before they suddenly invaded their neighbors. Given these realities, the current U.S. defense posture of 13 active Army and Marine divisions, 20 USAF fighter wings, and 12 Navy CVBGs and ARGs is a sensible capability even in a setting where no war-producing threats immediately exist. Over-reliance on threat-based planning risks losing sight of this key strategic judgment, thereby exposing the U.S. posture to damaging turbulence in a fluid setting where threats appear and disappear with regular frequency. U.S. defense planning requires stable continuity: in today’s world, the old form of threat-based planning allegedly fails to provide it.

A fourth criticism is that the 2-MTW standard is too-beholden to the allegedly faulty premise that two regional wars menacing U.S. interests may occur simultaneously. While the world remains a dangerous place, the reality is that for the past fifty years, regional wars involving U.S. forces have occurred only one at a time, not two at once. The same pattern, this criticism alleges, is likely to hold true in the future. U.S. forces won the Persian Gulf war and the Kosovo war so decisively that politically isolated countries like Iraq and North Korea seem unlikely to be willing to risk major war with the United States and its allies. Even if one country or the other is tempted to commit aggression, they are unlikely to launch concurrent attacks because they are not allies, are located far apart, and respond to dissimilar situations. When the time is ripe for one country to attack, it likely will not be ripe for the other. Seasoned defense planners grasp the need to be prepared for two wars so that a strong response can be mounted in one region without fear that an enemy in another region will be given opportunity to attack. But to the man in the street, the expensive act of spending many billions of dollars on being ready for two wars can come across as a wasteful exercise in worst-case planning, if not bureaucratic self-indulgence. Possessing large forces as a back-up insurance policy against two wars makes sense provided these forces are also needed for other high-priority purposes. But possessing them solely or even primarily for such insurance is something else again.

A fifth criticism is that the 2-MTW standard allegedly creates blinders to theaters, missions, and contingencies that lie outside its focus on regional wars in the Persian Gulf and Northeast Asia. The strategic reality is that although this standard focuses on only two theaters, the United States has major security involvements and military commitments in three theaters, and occasionally carries out operations in others as well. When the 2-MTW standard was initially adopted, it seemed to relegate Europe and NATO--previously a centerpiece of U.S. defense strategy--to the backwaters. Even so, the United States chose to keep fully 100,000 or more troops in Europe (its biggest overseas troop deployment) and to continue accepting major roles in NATO’s war plans for projecting large forces in and around Europe. But the forces allocated to these war plans, including troops in Europe and reinforcements from the United States, were also assigned major missions in the defense of other theaters. To put matters mildly, this perplexing behavior left Europeans confused. Their confusion grew when the United States subsequently announced policies to enlarge NATO and to adapt alliance forces to new power-projection missions in which European units would be expected to carry out modern doctrine with high-technology U.S. forces. One of the great ironies of the late 1990's is that when a major war erupted in Kosovo, it occurred in the one theater apparently assumed by U.S. defense planning to be immune from the threat of war. The United States responded effectively by concentrating large air and naval forces for NATO’s campaign, but the step required controversial decisions to deploy some units that were assigned to other regional commanders and war plans.

The problem of allegedly inflexible defense plans that can leave regional CINCs high and dry goes beyond Europe. A few years ago, the United States was required to deploy aircraft carriers toward Taiwan in order to help dampen an impending crisis between China and Taiwan. The carriers were sent, but they had to be temporarily extracted from forces earmarked for the defense of South Korea. In the coming years, CINCPAC may face regular needs to deploy forces to multiple spots in Asia and the Pacific for peacetime shaping missions and crisis response. If force commitments to the Korean contingency are treated inflexibly, in ways that hamstring not only forces stationed in South Korea but also units based elsewhere in the Pacific and the United States, CINCPAC’s ability to respond could be impeded. Indeed, all three major regional commanders--CINCEUR, CINCPAC, and CINCCENT--could face constraints on their ability to carry out missions and respond to crises that depart from the canonical scenarios of the 2-MTW standard.

For all key regions, one concern is that future big wars may not take the shape of today’s MTW contingencies, which contemplate major ground attacks across the borders of U.S. allies. Because proliferation is accelerating, such wars may involve use of WMD systems and asymmetric strategies aimed at clouding the political situation and slipping the U.S. military punch. Even some wars employing conventional forces in traditional ways may mostly take the form of long-range air and naval operations, and they may not be waged over control of borders and territory. The implication is that while the United States should remain prepared for big wars, its defense planning should examine the full spectrum of possible conflicts, not merely those that replicate Desert Storm and occur only in the Persian Gulf and Northeast Asia. A force posture optimized to wage today’s two MTW conflicts does not guarantee success if the big war that actually erupts is so different from these conflicts that U.S. forces are unable to meet its demands. For example, current U.S. defense plans call for swift deployment of small forces capable of sending a deterrent signal and contesting enemy advances, followed by buildup of much larger forces, over a period of several weeks, for an eventual counterattack. This response worked in the Persian Gulf war, but what if a future war requires deployment of medium-sized strike packages, with counter-WMD assets, at a faster pace than now planned? Worrisome events of this sort are reason for thinking beyond the narrow confines of today’s MTW contingencies.

An equal concern arises over the ability and freedom of U.S. forces to react to wars and operations that are significantly smaller than today’s MTW contingencies. The controversies that have erupted in response to the U.S. military performing peacekeeping missions make clear that the problem of constraints created by MTW commitments remains real, not merely theoretical. On the surface, force commitments for such missions seem modest: normally, no more than 2-3% of active U.S. military manpower. Yet such missions disrupt some training for warfighting, cause other forms of turbulence, and often result in the sustained deployment of units that have assignments in MTW war plans. Some observers complain about U.S. forces allegedly being run ragged by non-warfighting missions and express nervousness about the damage done to MTW preparedness, which is central to U.S. defense strategy. Skeptics counter by deriding the prospect of the entire U.S. military being kept of the shelf, standing guard against two regional wars that are unlikely to erupt, and being unavailable to deal with important events and missions that actually are occurring. Thus far, DoD has always responded flexibly by making available the necessary forces for each operation. But to critics, the debates that have accompanied these actions reflect an inherent flaw in U.S. defense planning, one that can result in an inability to see the forest through the trees. After all, they say, military forces are created in order to be useful when they are needed, not treated as a precious asset that can be applied only in a few extreme cases that seldom, if ever, occur.

A sixth criticism is that the force calculations used for the 2-MTW standard seem questionable in ways that can result in the tail wagging the dog. Why is it that the same number of forces--one-half of the U.S. posture in each case--is needed to wage two wars that differ vastly in enemy and allied forces, the terrain, and strategic circumstances? The idea that U.S. forces of 6-7 divisions, 10 USAF fighter wings, and 4-5 carriers are needed to defend the Persian Gulf seems reasonable. But the same judgment applies less clearly to Korea. During the Cold War, when the situation was more precarious than now, the United States planned to defend South Korea with smaller forces. The idea was to rely on the South Koreans to meet the bulk of force requirements, with the United States providing only modest air and naval support. The South Koreans, blessed by a booming economy and a population of 46 million, seem capable of performing this task today. In particular, their army of about 25 divisions is amply large to populate densely a peninsula that is only 200 kilometers wide and marked by rugged terrain and prepared positions. The notion that large U.S. ground forces might be needed to launch a powerful counterattack late in the battle seems a stretch: it assumes that most South Korean units have been destroyed but the North Korean army has suffered only lightly. Surface appearances suggest that a smaller U.S. force allocation might suffice. This step could free some units for missions other than the 2 MTW’s, but it also would mean that a sizing concept broader than 2 MTW’s is being used. Allocating this many forces to the Korea contingency maintains the simple clarity of the 2-MTW standard, but perhaps at the cost of the flexibility needed to perform other missions. If the U.S. force posture lacks adequate flexibility owing to the rigidity of its own planning standard, the tail seems to be genuinely wagging the dog.

A seventh criticism is that DoD allegedly does not take being fully prepared for two regional wars seriously in its own programming and budgeting, even though failure to do so can come across as a major deficiency in U.S. defense preparedness. This criticism has its origins in the reality that at a time of fiscal constraints, DoD naturally sets priorities in how it allocates funds. Programs of primary importance normally receive full funding, but less-critical programs sometimes are short-changed to one degree or another. In the eyes of this criticism, DoD seems intent on being highly prepared for one regional war while attending to readiness and modernization, but is willing to accept some shortfalls in being able to mount a second MTW response. Critics point to alleged shortfalls in strategic lift, war reserve stocks, and specialized assets, and in the practice of relying on reserve component forces to provide logistic support. Some critics decry the damage allegedly done to the top priority of U.S. defense strategy: being prepared for two regional wars. Others question the need to be fully prepared for two wars. What unites both camps is that they are fingering an alleged disconnect between strategy and budgets: the kind of disconnect that, if carried too far, can result in serious trouble for U.S. defense preparedness because of failure to establish clear priorities.

An eighth criticism, normally advanced less strongly than the other seven, holds that the 2-MTW standard misjudges the size of the U.S. defense posture that should be maintained in the coming era. Some critics assert that the 2-MTW standard inflates U.S. force requirements. They argue for smaller forces either to trim allegedly wasteful defense spending or to focus additional money on military pay, readiness, and procurement. Other critics allege that the 2-MTW standard underestimates force needs. They call for a bigger posture in order to carry out missions that are deemed likely to grow in the coming years. Their primary goal is to assemble enough additional forces to safeguard against MTW’s while carrying out other missions, including peacekeeping and peacetime shaping. Critics from this school thus agree that the 2-MTW falls short in its core function of accurately gauging force requirements, but they disagree sharply on the remedial steps to be pursued.

How seriously should these eight criticisms of the 2-MTW standard be taken? To those clamoring that the 2-MTW standard should be junked, they are a devastating indictment. To those who still see major advantages in the 2-MTW standard, they are not sufficient to justify throwing out the baby with the bathwater. But even supporters of the 2-MTW standard would be hard-pressed to deny that its problems should be fixed, if possible. The real issue is not whether the 2-MTW standard is fatally flawed or still-serviceable, but whether a better replacement can be found. This is an issue that requires careful thought, for while criticizing the 2-MTW standard is easy, designing something better is harder.

Toward a New Approach to Force-Sizing:

Assessing the Options

A fair appraisal of the 2-MTW standard is that it made sense in 1993 and for several years thereafter. But in the period since it was adopted nearly a decade ago, the world has changed a great deal, and U.S. foreign policy and national security strategy have also changed. The early 21^st century promises even greater changes. In the fluid era ahead, DoD will need to gain maximum strategic mileage from resources that may be less than ideal. A main problem is not that the 2-MTW standard grossly misidentifies total force needs, but that it can give rise to a narrow, rigid focus on a single strategic purpose at a time when a flexible, adaptable focus on multiple strategic purposes will be needed. The emerging situation requires an approach to force-sizing and the other dimensions of defense planning that addresses the future, not the past.

Some of those who favor retaining the 2-MTW standard argue that the United States can solve its defense dilemmas by focusing its military forces solely on being ready for major wars while eschewing other burdensome missions. Presumably responsibility for these missions would be assigned to allies and partners. While this approach sounds appealing at first blush, it breaks down when its adverse consequences are considered. The core problem is that U.S. military forces would not be available to support national interests in many non-war situations that will have a major impact on how the international system evolves. Too often, U.S. forces would be left standing on the sidelines, and U.S. foreign policy would be denied one of its most important instruments. U.S. influence abroad would decline, and sooner or later, U.S. forces might be compelled to fight more regional wars than otherwise will be the case.

Could allies and partners be relied upon to act in ways that protect American interests? Almost certainly not, skeptics allege. These countries have their own interests to serve, their military forces are not adequate for serious power projection missions, and they rely upon U.S. leadership to mobilize their own capacity to act. The idea of exercising restraint in the use of U.S. forces, demanding greater allied contributions, and forging a better division of labor with them makes sense. But withholding U.S. forces from critical new-era missions that are here to stay is an ostrich approach to the coming era, one that seems doomed to fail and backfire.

What can be done to keep U.S. forces properly focused on MTW’s while still being available for other missions? If DoD’s upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review decides to retain the 2-MTW standard, greater flexibility perhaps can be gained by trimming allocations to the Korea contingency and using the resulting forces to form a strategic reserve for other missions. Essentially a new sizing standard would be created: forces for two MTW’s and one SSC. The current force posture might be able to carry out this approach in the short term, but over the long haul, larger forces could be needed to make it viable. The reason is that a slimmed-down Korea commitment is a generic MTW posture on the cheap. In any event, this approach amounts to applying a bandage to one key problem, but it does not solve all of the problems arising from the 2-MTW standard. A more fundamental change, aimed at replacing the 2-MTW standard with a new and innovative approach, may be needed.

The act of contemplating how to carry out such a change must begin with a clear-eyed appraisal of how the world is evolving in the early 21^st century. In essence, world affairs are being transformed by globalization. The growing tempo of international activity in trade, finances, information, technology, and values is drawing once-distant regions closer together in time and space, making them more interdependent. As a consequence, the United States must learn to think and act globally, for its interests are enlarging, and it is now becoming vulnerable to events at the far corners of the world, including places that were once deemed outside the perimeter of its defense planning.

Global economics and security affairs now share center stage, and they are interacting in complex ways to shape the future. While the ultimate outcome is impossible to know, new opportunities are being created, but so are new dangers that are more serious than is often realized. A positive trend is that the U.S.-led democratic community, which now covers nearly one-half of the world, is benefitting from globalization, becoming wealthier, and drawing closer together in peaceful cooperation. But the tumultuous regions comprising the rest of the world are a different matter. Already beset by troubled politics and economics, many of these regions are being both helped and harmed by globalization. The consequence is growing chaos and unstable security affairs that have the potential to produce heightened military tensions, conflict, and war.

Especially menaced is the so-called “southern belt”, stretching from the Balkans in Europe, through the Middle East and Persian Gulf, across South Asia, and along the great Asian crescent from Southeast Asia to Japan. U.S. military forces will need to remain committed in such traditional places as Europe and Northeast Asia, while being capable of operations in Africa and Latin America when the need arises. But the stressful events of the past decade, including two wars, make clear that in the coming years, U.S. forces likely will be called upon to operate along the southern belt more often than during the past. Indeed, the southern belt could become a new main geographical focus of U.S. military activity. If so, this situation will bring about major changes in how the United States thinks about using military power in order to protect its interests, control chaos, and foster stable security affairs so that the progress-producing side of globalization can take hold.

Owing to new geography and other trends, including WMD proliferation, future U.S. military strategy seems destined to be less positional and less continental than in the past. In the coming decade and beyond, it will be animated more by maritime concepts, flexible joint operations, and adaptive responses than before. It will be placing a growing premium on versatile peacetime strategic shaping and on swiftly projecting military power in varying forms to ever-shifting places, some of them well-removed from existing bases and facilities, in crisis and war. It will be confronting new dangers, new threats, new conflicts, and new adversaries intent on frustrating U.S. strategic designs. Meanwhile, it will be presiding over U.S. military forces that themselves are being transformed in response to the information era, the RMA, new doctrine, and coming procurement efforts.

The core issue facing DoD is one of crafting a new approach to defense planning that reacts sensibly to these major changes, accurately measures force needs and priorities, and offers a credible strategic rationale that can endure--both inside the Pentagon and in the public arena. The act of adopting a new approach is one that should be pursued carefully, for many issues must be considered. Broadly speaking, there are three approaches to force-sizing: new contingency-based standards, capability-based standards, and strategy-based standards. Contingency-based standards would continue to size and design U.S. forces on the basis of wartime needs: e.g., enough forces for 1.5 MTW’s or 2.5 MTW’s instead of today’s 2.0 MTW’s. Capability-based standards would aspire to determine the force characteristics needed for a wide spectrum of operations: e.g., sufficient land forces to provide a robust mixture of infantry, armored, mechanistic, and air assault units. The same applies to air and naval units. Strategy-based standards would look beyond wartime contingencies and combat capabilities to determine the forces needed to carry out the key precepts of national security strategy. All three approaches have their advantages and disadvantages. The tradeoffs need to be evaluated carefully before making a decision. The key point is that today’s standard is not frozen in concrete. If another approach is deemed better, the door can be opened to adopting it.

Without pretending to settle this issue, this paper reasons that strategy-based standards, supplemented by analysis of contingencies and capabilities, may work best. This approach’s key advantage is that it would anchor force planning in a stronger strategic foundation than solely being prepared for hypothetical wars. This approach was used successfully during the Cold War, during which U.S. forces were sized to carry out national strategy through a broad spectrum of capabilities, while also responding to the dictates of wartime contingency plans. Back then, U.S. defense strategy was often called “flexible response”, a political and military term that said a great deal about the virtues of not becoming too locked into single prepared scripts that overlooked something important or could be overturned at the drop of a hat. After all, Dwight Eisenhower once wisely said that “plans are nothing but planning is everything”. In the old but new approach put forth here, U.S. forces would be sized to help carry out the three key precepts of national security strategy: shaping, responding, and preparing--or their successors. Once this key task is accomplished, forces can be fine-tuned to perform specific contingency plans and provide a flexible portfolio of assets.

Illustratively, a strategy-based approach can be brought to life by anchoring U.S. defense plans in a nested hierarchy of three new standards that together provide a reliable measure of enduring military needs and a credible strategic rationale for the resulting posture. The first two standards are primary: chief mechanisms for determining force needs because they focus on the most common strategic missions of U.S. forces and high probability events. The third standard is complementary, ensuring effective forces in more demanding, but less-probable events. The idea behind this strategy-based approach is to determine requirements and priorities for each of these standards, and then to choose the kind of balanced, multifaceted force posture that does the best job of serving all three standards.

Instead of replacing today’s single standard with a different single standard, this approach thus creates three sensible standards, and calls upon DoD to anchor force-sizing and planning in a synthesis of all three of them. It asks a simple question: Why have one standard when three standards are needed to provide a reliable guide to strategic planning? After all, if modern business corporations can grapple with the task of assessing multiple strategic purposes, so can the Department of Defense. Countless books on the theory of corporate decision-making have argued that sound strategic plans are best made not by rigidly employing one line of reasoning but by employing several lines and blending them together in sensible ways. Indeed, DoD regularly considered multiple standards during the Cold War and used them to make a steady stream of wise decisions. It needs to recover this lost art. The three new standards are: 2/

Standard 1: Forces for Normal Global Missions. Its purpose is to ensure that during conditions short of major war (i.e., 95% of the time), the principal U.S. regional military commands--especially EUCOM, CENTCOM, and PACOM--always have enough forces available to them to perform their normal duties, such as training, working with allies, outreach, peacekeeping, and responding to small-to-medium crises and conflicts. Such forces would include overseas-stationed assets plus units based in the United States that could be drawn upon when necessary. Illustratively, this standard might assign or make readily available a posture of three divisions, five fighter wings, two CVBGs, and an ARG to each of these three commands. Remaining forces would be withheld as a strategic reserve under national command, for flexible use in other missions and regions.

Standard 2: Forces for a Single MTW, While Performing Normal Missions Elsewhere. Its purpose is to ensure that U.S. forces swiftly can concentrate to win a single big regional war in varying places, while not seriously denuding the other major CINCs of forces needed to carry out their normal missions. In event of a Persian Gulf war, for example, this standard would commit forces already assigned to CENTCOM plus draw upon the strategic reserve to create an adequate wartime posture. Meanwhile, EUCOM and PACOM would retain control of most or all of the forces normally assigned to them. Thus their normal operations would not be severely degraded. A similar calculus would apply to wars in other theaters.

Standard 3: Forces for More Wars, or Different Wars, or Bigger Wars. Its purpose is to ensure that in event of more demanding wartime situations than Standard 2, U.S. forces will be adequate to the task if full use is made of the opportunity to concentrate them and employ them adaptively. This standard would examine needs for two MTW’s in overlapping time frames. It also would examine force needs should a different war or a bigger war, well-larger than today’s MTW conflicts, erupt.

The main effect of these standards is to establish a new, broader frame of reference for articulating and pursuing the main strategic purposes and priorities of force planning. Above all, they place the need to be ready for two MTW conflicts in a larger context and they devote separate treatment to other concerns of equal or greater importance. Essentially, they say that U.S. forces should be made capable of carrying out three strategic purposes: 1.) normal peacetime missions and crisis-response duties, which themselves are demanding; 2.) fighting one big war, while keeping other theaters stable; 3.) in extremis, waging two big wars or similarly demanding conflicts at the same time. Rather than assuming that Standard 3 preparations will produce adequate forces for Standards 1 and 2, they call for a careful examination of force needs and program priorities for all three standards on an individual basis.

These standards also provide a more diverse and potentially better way to think about how U.S. military forces are combined together and used in the shifting array of operational circumstances likely to confront them. The current standard provides a single approach to force employment: two large force packages for two MTW’s. By contrast, the new standards provide a wide spectrum of flexible packages. For normal conditions, they disperse forces by creating four medium-sized packages: three for the major overseas CINCs and one held in strategic reserve. For dealing with a single MTW in any one of multiple theaters, they concentrate forces to create a single big and properly tailored package, while maintaining two medium-sized packages for use elsewhere. For dealing with more, different, and bigger wars, they concentrate forces even more, to create two big packages or an even bigger single package. Their common theme is that they focus on creating appropriate force packages for the full set of purposes and missions ahead, not just for the low-probability event of waging two MTW conflicts at the same time.

Their intent is to help provide a fresh sense of perspective for judging ways to enhance the U.S. military’s flexibility, adaptiveness, and across-the-board performance in the coming era. They will help provide alternative lenses for viewing the strategic priorities of U.S. national security strategy, CINC requirements, service program directions, and force improvement opportunities. They will provide a framework for rewarding investment programs that provide powerful strategic benefits in more ways than one. For example, they will cast a favorable light on measures for creating better infrastructure in new geographic regions, where new bases and facilities might not be needed for future MTW’s, but might be essential for new peacetime shaping missions and for responding to small crises and conflicts. They will also help call attention to other attractive measures that may not be given full attention in service programs that today focus on two MTW’s.

Like all standards, these standards must be applied sensibly, with their interplay in mind. Standard 1 should be employed not only for its own purposes, but also to help create adequate capabilities for Standards 2 and 3. Likewise, Standard 2 should be broadly targeted, in ways that have positive effects on the other two standards. Standard 2 calls for being prepared to fight a single regional war, but not only one war in one place. Rather, it means that U.S. forces should be able to wage different kinds of wars, varying in location, strategy, and operations in all three major theaters. The flexible capacity to wage these different kinds of wars will provide an inherent capacity to wage more than one war at a time, should this step become necessary. Standard 3 will no longer rule the roost, but it will still play an important role. It can be used to identify cost-effective measures that help U.S. forces fight not only two wars, but also one war. Examples include strategic mobility, C4ISR systems, war reserve munitions, and stocks: areas where preparing for multiple wars still will make sense.

Together, these three standards will help impart U.S. defense planning with a more comprehensive strategic focus and a better sense of balance. They will put first things first, yet devote proper attention to the full spectrum of critical defense assets. They will help ensure that the still-important requirement of being able to fight two wars does not come at the expense of neglecting other critical measures, especially peacetime operations and strategic shaping missions. Likewise, they will buffer against the reverse risk: that as DoD pays greater attention to Standards 1 and 2, it does not give short-shrift to retaining a two-war capability as a credible insurance policy. By prioritizing this way and allocating funds on the basis of greatest marginal returns, DoD will be better able to build forces that are fully capable of meeting Standards 1 and 2, while still preserving a robust and credible capacity for Standard 3. To be sure, these three standards can be fulfilled only if an adequate defense budget is funded. But these three standards provide an improved strategic formula for gauging force posture and budget requirements, and for determining how priorities can best be established, and scare funds can best be spent, in the event that budgetary shortfalls occur.

In using these three standards, this strategy-based approach will be more complex and harder to explain than the 2-MTW standard, which purchases simple clarity at the expense of strategic sophistication. But this new approach is no more complex than Cold War thinking, which was readily grasped by the Congress and the American people. Within DoD, it would help ensure that defense preparations are targeted not primarily at improbable events, but instead at enabling U.S. forces and CINCs to perform the peacetime and wartime missions that most often must be carried out in today’s world. Yes, DoD’s PPBS process will be stretched, as will joint operational planning by the Joint Staff and the CINCs. Preparing the Defense Planning Guidance, Service POMs, and CINC OPlans will be harder to accomplish. But surely, the Pentagon, in this information age, can carry out defense planning on the basis of three standards, not just one standard--especially since considering all three standards is a good way to determine how to place the defense effort on the right track.

A key payoff of this approach is that senior civilian and military leaders will have significantly better information at their disposal for making the tough decisions facing them. The bottom line is that this new approach will help create a public rationale that rings true. In addition, it will contribute to creating a better-construed defense effort that supports the full strategic purposes of national security policy and defense strategy. It offers the potential of making the United States and its overseas interests more secure in a still-dangerous and turbulent world where security may be at a premium.

Conclusion: Keeping Things in Perspective

What are the implications of this new approach for the future size of U.S. military forces? This question will need to be addressed through careful analysis, but given the directions in which the world seems headed in the coming period, these three standards seemingly point to a future posture in the vicinity of today’s model, not appreciably larger or smaller. If so, the challenge facing DoD will be one of using similar forces wisely, not building far larger forces or making do with far less. Clearly these three standards do not point toward major force drawdowns: although one standard might require fewer forces than now, the other two standards likely will call for a larger number, similar to now. Indeed, the U.S. government may ultimately conclude that the act of keeping the peace and shaping the world’s future requires more forces than fighting the nation’s wars.

In any event, these three standards create no single-point requirement, below which the remaining forces will be clearly inadequate, and above which, added forces are transparently superfluous. But small differences at the margin can make a big difference in strategic performance. If a decision is made to enlarge the force posture somewhat, it likely will focus on adding critical capabilities in areas of deficiency: e.g., “Low Density/High Demand” (LDHD) units, C4ISR assets, logistic support assets, peacekeeping assets, ready reserve component units, and ships and airplanes. A force posture that is 10-15% larger than now may be needed, one supported by a defense budget that grows slowly but steadily. But much will depend upon specific assessments of requirements and affordability in the future. At the moment, the important task is to create a sound approach to force-sizing and defense planning, so that such decisions can be made with the best analysis and information available.

The new approach put forth here, with its three standards, is an illustration, not a fixed blueprint. What it helps illustrate is that the past need not be prologue. The existing 2-MTW formula offers one option for navigating the future, but it is not the only viable option. Creative thinking can produce other approaches with attractions of their own. They can be articulated in enough detail to provide concrete guidance for sizing forces, allocating them among missions, and setting sound program priorities for improvements. The challenge is to develop a set of alternative approaches, analyze them, and choose one not because it made sense in the past, but because it offers promise of working best in the future.

Footnotes:

1.) For a current portrayal of the 2-MTW standard and its role in defense planning, see

Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, Annual Report to the President and Congress, 2000; (GPO, Washington D.C., 2000); pages 17-19.

2.) For a textbook on planning by multiple objectives, see Ralph F. Keeney and Howard Raiffa, Decisions with Multiple Objectives: Preferences and Value Tradeoffs; (John Wiley & Sons; New York, 1976).