Center for a New American Security

To counter the threat from violent Islamist extremism more effectively, the Center for a New American Security launched a strategy development process modeled after President Eisenhower’s Project Solarium.

April 2009 - Eight years of war have given the U.S. military an unparalleled opportunity to translate real war experience into a vision of how conflicts will be fought in the future. Getting a vision of the future more right than wrong depends on the military’s ability to sift through experiences gathered from combat to discern those that will endure. This monograph seeks to do just that.

March 17, 2009 - David Kilcullen is one of the world's most influential experts on counterinsurgency and modern warfare. A Senior Counterinsurgency Advisor to General David Petraeus in Iraq, his vision of war dramatically influenced America's decision to rethink its military strategy in Iraq and implement "the surge."

The State of the US Ground Forces, addresses the challenges our ground forces face after five years of engagement such as current deployment pace, recruiting standards and recommendations as we move forward.

The next American president will inherit an overseas military base realignment process begun in the first term of the George W. Bush administration. This realignment, guided by an effort known as the Global Posture Review (GPR), was perhaps former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld s chief intellectual and policy accomplishment during his six-year tenure at the Pentagon. Unlike his likely warfighting legacy, particularly in regard to Iraq, the GPR is on generally sound conceptual foundations. But a successful outcome for the Global Posture Review, roughly halfway implemented as of early 2008, will depend on the next U.S. administration refining numerous rough edges of the current plan and redefining the broader national security policy context in which any base realignment will inevitably be viewed.

Today’s Army is “the most combat-experienced force the nation has witnessed in two generations. Our all-volunteer force is being asked to do more than ever and is showing remarkable resiliency in a time when there is growing strain on the institution.” As the mili­tary continues to be engaged in an era of persistent confl ict, institutionalizing the combat experience of its leaders, spe­cifically its young offi cers, is arguably the Army’s lynchpin and a key component to U.S. national security.

This CNAS Congressional Testimony contains Michèle A. Flournoy's prepared statement to the House Armed Services Committee, on Feb. 14, 2008. According to Flournoy, "the readiness of the U.S. military is just barely keeping pace with current operations. The fight to recruit and keep personnel, and the need to repair and modernize equipment, also means that building and regaining readiness is becoming increasingly costly."

This CNAS Congressional Testimony contains Michèle A. Flournoy's prepared statement to the House Armed Services Committee, on Feb. 14, 2008. According to Flournoy, "the readiness of the U.S. military is just barely keeping pace with current operations. The fight to recruit and keep personnel, and the need to repair and modernize equipment, also means that building and regaining readiness is becoming increasingly costly."

The most important military component of the Long War will not be the fighting we do ourselves, but how well we enable and empower our allies to fight with us. After describing the many complicated, interrelated, and simultaneous tasks that must be conducted to defeat an insurgency, the new Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual notes “Key to all these tasks is developing an effective host-nation (HN) security force.” Indeed, it has been argued that foreign forces cannot defeat an insurgency; the best they can hope for is to create the conditions that will enable local forces to win for them. [We] will need far more urgently in years to come—an Army that includes a standing Advisor Corps organized, designed, trained, and equipped to develop professional host nation security forces that can build freedom abroad.

The U.S. military will withdraw from Iraq; the question is when and under what conditions. This report will provide a realistic appraisal of America’s enduring interests in Iraq — no al Qaeda safe havens, no regional war, and no genocide — and to provide a Phased Transition plan that identifies specific steps the Bush administration can take to make these outcomes more likely while also preparing for the worst and begins planning for subsequent phases. At this dangerous moment, such realism is essential to increasing the prospects that the United States will get out of Iraq more responsibly than it got in.