The Japanese Asahi-class destroyer Shiranui sails in formation with the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Shiloh (CG 67) during Keen Sword 21. Keen Sword is an example of the strength of the U.S.-Japan Alliance, the foundation of peace and security in the Indo-Pacific region for more than 60 years.  (U.S. Navy)

Election Night may have stretched into Election Week, but Hudson's scholars are staying focused on the future challenges to come. In the latest installment of the Look Ahead Series, our experts look at the defining security issues that will shape the next four years, if not decades.

In the face of soaring national debt and an ongoing pandemic, the U.S. military's future will be shaped by growing resource constraints, declining recruitment and the threat of a stronger, more pervasive Chinese military presence around the world. In the new Look Ahead essay "Reforming the US Military for a New Era," Hudson's Bryan Clark, Timothy Walton, and Dan Patt outline changes the U.S. Department of Defense should undertake to address these challenges through the development of a more affordable, agile, and technologically sophisticated U.S. military.

See key takeaways from their Look Ahead essay below, and join us Monday as General H. R. McMaster sits down with Patrick Cronin for a discussion of McMaster's new book, "Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World."

Key Quotes

Highlighted takeaways from the new Look Ahead Series essay, "Reforming the U.S. Military for a New Era." Quotes have been edited for length and clarity.

1. China carries an economic advantage into the next presidential term:

The People's Republic of China will be empowered in its effort [to subordinate the United States, its friends and allies] by its strong post-pandemic economic position, which could allow it to continue entangling partner nations in damaging economic relationships while modernizing the People’s Liberation Army to rival U.S. and allied forces in relevant scenarios.

2. The resource-constrained U.S. military needs new operational concepts:

U.S. public debt is at more than 135 percent of gross domestic product, the U.S. government has incurred record-breaking federal deficits, and interest on the debt risks crowding out future discretionary spending on everything from infrastructure to military hardware....Given resource constraints and the U.S. position as a status quo power, the U.S. military will need to adopt operational strategies and concepts designed to deter adversaries by creating uncertainty and imposing complexity, rather than attempting to win wars of attrition along the borders of nuclear-armed great powers.

3. Emerging technology will enable greater battlefield complexity:

Emerging capabilities such as the sensors, countermeasures, networks, and autonomous systems needed for decision superiority can be ready to field during the next five years, and a new administration should prioritize investment in them. The U.S. military, predominantly composed of large, multimission platforms and troop formations, needs to shift toward a larger number of smaller and disaggregated units to become more affordable, adaptable, and able to impose greater complexity on the enemy.

4. The four factors that should guide a revamped U.S. military strategy:

DoD strategy and program decisions should be guided by four overarching factors. First, the force must be affordable to buy and own, so strategy, force planning, and budgeting should work hand in hand. Second, the Pentagon should assess the force using less-exquisite modeling tools but a wider range of scenarios that increase DoD’s emphasis on operations other than multi-phase major power war. These include intense, unexpected engagements like an opportunistic land grab, or protracted confrontations such as breaking a blockade. Third, to maximize the combat performance of the force, assessments should realistically evaluate needs for logistics; operational infrastructure; sustainment; and command, control, and communications. And fourth, DoD should identify the munitions capacity needed for potential scenarios and assess the benefit of buying more weapons—even at the expense of ships, aircraft, or vehicles.

5. The military's posture in the Middle East constrains its flexibility:

One constraint on the U.S. military’s ability to be more dynamic is its posture in the Middle East, where its presence increased in response to Iranian provocations and attacks, and U.S. operations in Syria persist on an indefinite timeline. New air defense artillery, maneuver, aviation, and naval assets have been deployed to the region, robbing the Joint Force’s capacity for deterring the PRC. Most egregiously, the secretary of defense continues sending carrier strike groups to the Arabian Gulf, including through taxing “double-pump” deployments that sacrifice future readiness for a dubious strategy today.

Go Deeper: The Future U.S. Military