State of Defense 2019: Special Report
By Defense One Staff Read bio
February 14, 2019
U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Jailine Martinez
Our annual service-by-service look at the U.S. military finds the shift to great-power competition dogged by some old problems and some very new ones.
If we had written this State of Defense report two months ago, it would have been almost entirely different. For better or worse, President Trump brings the nation into 2019 with a new attitude and new attention to the U.S. military’s ground wars.
By presidential order, this will be the year the U.S. ground war in Syria ends. Trump also reportedly wants a drawdown in Afghanistan, but hasn’t started planning for one, and was looking into restricting U.S. special operations forces fighting across Africa, though U.S. combat in Somalia appears to be escalating. In fact, in 2019, the sprawling footprint of the U.S. military from southwest Asia to north Africa may not change much at all.
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2019/02/state-defense-2019-special-report/154896/
