Everyone seems to agree that "Defense Transformation" is a good idea, but nobody has come out with anything resembling a seriously "transformative" program. This is how I would do it. We will leave the conventional military budget intact, but realign money toward expeditionary, constabulary, and special operations forces.
So, our first priority is to improve the balance between conventional and special forces. Then we must add money to support the two neglected areas of national security: diplomatic, economic, and cultural operations overseas; and economic and electronic counterintelligence and security at home. "War proper" is about imposing one’s will--a nation with a strong military but a poor strategy--and consequently limited flexibility in non-military capabilities and home front electronic defense--will be at a disadvantage.
More importantly, we will come to grips for the first time with the fact that the relationship between the active force and the reserve must change within each category. At the same time, we must define the private sector role and legislate "due diligence" private sector responsibilities for each class of threat.
TRANSITION: We need four forces instead of one force!
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