From the Pentagon’s “4+1†threat matrix, to “4+1 times 2â€
Michael E. O’Hanlon Monday, May 11, 2020
Editor's Note:
Writing in The Hill, Michael O'Hanlon makes the case for an updated Pentagon threat matrix that includes biological, nuclear, climatic, digital, and internal challenges. While this new matrix does not mean cutting the defense budget to fund additional priorities, the challenges O'Hanlon lays out are complicating aspects of the modern world that can make other, more traditional threats more perilous.
For half of a decade, the Defense Department has organized thinking and planning around the five main threats of Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and transnational violent extremism or terrorism. In the quarter century before that, the Pentagon built forces more narrowly around a regional war framework that prioritized addressing extremist states such as Iraq and North Korea and, later, the struggle against terrorism.
The shift started with former Joint Chiefs Chairman Joseph Dunford, who depicted it as a “four plus one†framework because the last threat is more diffuse than the others. Some have reconstrued the framework slightly, as they display the idea as a “two plus three†list to focus on the competition with Russia and China as the highest concerns. It is a smart paradigm as it is short enough to focus attention and resource allocation, but also broad enough not to claim clairvoyance about future threats or to build national security priorities around too narrow a group of scenarios.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/05/11/from-the-pentagons-41-threat-matrix-to-41-times-2/
