August 22, 2016
GPS IIF satellite
The core task of the men and women who buy America’s weapons is to envision the adversaries and environments of tomorrow and buy forces that are up to the challenge.
This involves generating a similar set of assumptions to those used by operational strategists. Today, three assumptions underpin U.S. acquisition strategy that will leave tomorrow’s forces vulnerable to asymmetric defeat strategies and render the long-term U.S. acquisition plan unaffordable unless these change.
At every level of war, planners generate assumptions by estimating adversary intent, knowledge, strength, risk calculus, and readiness to frame their view of a given problem and place the overall objective in an appropriate operational context. Similarly, planners make assumptions about the availability and capability of their own forces. While an indispensable starting point for analysis, it is easy to see how such assumptions can be incredibly dangerous. The history of military planning shows that misjudging any of these variables can prove disastrous.
We offer an alternative path to an affordable force that can tackle the challenges posed by the increasingly unpredictable security environment.
Assumption 1
