Today's D Brief: Austin's big idea; Fighting increases in Afghanistan; Army budget ‘risk’; China’s free-falling rocket; And a bit more.
By Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston
May 6, 2021 10:52 AM ET
The D Brief
SecDef Austin's new defense pitch. He calls the idea “integrated defense,” according to a Washington Post oped, which was adapted from a speech Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin delivered nearly a week ago. And by that he means “the U.S. military isn’t meant to stand apart, but to buttress U.S. diplomacy and advance a foreign policy that employs all instruments of our national power. As President Biden has made clear, diplomacy must come first, and the use of force must be a very last resort.”
Austin introduced the concept last week at U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, which is located at Hawaii's Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. That speech marked one of Austin's first public forays into strategy, as the Associated Press reported.
“Integrated deterrence means using some of our current capabilities differently," Austin writes. "It means developing new operational concepts for things we already have. And it means investing in quantum computing and artificial intelligence, which will help us make decisions with more speed and rigor...
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2021/05/the-d-brief-may-06-2021/173850/
