Is the Pentagon Organized to Fight a Cold War With China?
Published 11/15/23 08:30 AM ET
Capt. (Ret.) James E. Fanell and Bradley A. Thayer
The National Security Act of 1947 organized the U.S. government to fight the Cold War, putting the big pieces in place for that conflict with the Soviet Union. The act had a great effect on the armed services, creating the Air Force from the Army, the Intelligence Community (IC), as it is the genesis of the CIA, and the national security community, as it birthed the Department of Defense from the Constitution’s original War Department and Department of the Navy, as well as the National Security Council.
Today, Congress and the Biden administration should consider conducting a “blank page” exercise and returning to the national security infrastructure that defeated the Soviets. The point of the exercise would be to determine whether — in the context of the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party — the U.S. national security community should be reorganized. How might it need to be changed to ensure an effective fight against China? Of course, there are numerous changes that might be made for each of the military services and in the architecture of the Department of Defense, but in the context of the current cold war with China, there are two major points of consideration.
First, can the Defense Department institutionalize a focus on great-power threats and peer competition for each of the services, and place a demand on Congress and the IC for those threats to remain, respectively, a primary funding target and analytic responsibility? A new National Security Act would require the services to address great-power and peer-competitive enemies as their first priority, and for this to be the case across government. The costs of institutionalization would be considerable, but the result could be to prevent the risks of threat deflation.
https://themessenger.com/opinion/pentagon-cold-war-china-national-security-political-warfare
