State of Defense 2022
By Kevin Baron, Marcus Weisgerber, Caitlin M. Kenney, Bradley Peniston, and Tara Copp
Introduction by Kevin Baron
“Despotism violates the moral frontier just as invasion violates the geographical frontier,” Victor Hugo wrote 160 years ago. In February, Russia’s Vladimir Putin violated both by launching a full-scale attack on independent Ukraine, just beyond the borders of the NATO alliance. In doing so, Russia has forced the U.S. military to reconsider its own plans for the world, and how to best defend the moral and physical boundaries of democracy and the liberal world order.
But how much will Russia’s war change the Pentagon’s immediate plans? When Defense One reporters began conducting interviews for this year’s State of Defense special report, Putin was still amassing forces outside of Ukraine. At the time, White House and Pentagon officials still had not released their expected new strategies for national security and the military, documents which are meant to guide decisions on the defense budget, weapons, personnel and where to position them around the world. U.S. military planners were laser-focused on the Pacific, rethinking the roles their service branches would play in a new threat matrix that for the first time since September 2001 did not include Afghanistan as an existential concern but more than ever included space and cyber threats.
One month later, the world has been rattled by Putin’s war in Europe, his brutality toward Ukrainian civilians, his barely-veiled nuclear threats, and his cozying up to China. Pentagon planners say they’re watching Russia’s immediate moves, but forging ahead with long-term plans for the geopolitical competition between the United States and China. It’s hard to know how long they can do so, or whether NATO can keep its powder dry for long.
https://www.defenseone.com/feature/state-of-defense-2022/#overview
