Two military service chiefs have demonstrated leadership through their efforts to inform public policy and opinion, as General Charles Q. Brown Jr., the U.S. Air Force chief of staff, and General David H. Berger, the U.S. Marine Corps commandant authored a joint piece in the Washington Post.
“Our primary function as service chiefs is to organize, train and equip our forces for employment. We owe the combatant commanders who use these forces the capabilities that produce a warfighting advantage now and into the future, not simply greater quantities of existing equipment unsuited to competition or conflict with great powers. Achieving this goal will require accelerating investments in capabilities, including hypersonic weapons; AI-enabled remotely piloted aircraft; long-range penetrating strike; truly joint all-domain command and control; unmanned, low-cost, expendable ground, surface, and air vehicles; long-range mobile ground-launched missiles; and better-integrated air and missile defenses.” (Washington Post, 2/1/2021)
“To compete with the People’s Republic of China and Russia, and successfully address other emergent challenges, the U.S. military requires a new framework for assessing readiness. It should focus less on near-term availability and more on future capability and warfighting advantage over peer adversaries.” (Washington Post, 2/1/2021)
We acknowledge the insight, vision, and leadership of General CQ Brown and General Dave Berger to speak out on the challenges they face to a new leadership team in the Biden Administration and a new Congress. They highlight the need for dynamic thinking and careful risk management in tackling military readiness and modernization in a COVID-challenged fiscal environment for the Department of Defense.
Right investments to the right services with the right roles & responsibilities sets the conditions of readiness to win.
“It is time to usher in a new understanding of what it means to be “ready” in an era of renewed competition. We have a unique, but limited, window of opportunity. The time to act is now.” (Washington Post, 2/1/2021)
