Just like the 2022 National Security Strategy (NSS), the unclassified portions of the 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS), revealed last week, marks the passage of time between now and its previous iteration in 2018. In these four years, the United States (US) has: a) changed presidents; b) , the challenge from China is pre-eminent; c) been forced away from the Middle-East by its debacle in Afghanistan; d) understood the value that its private companies like Space X, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google can provide in war-like situations; and e) the risk of unintended escalation has increased substantially both in relation to Europe and East Asia via Taiwan. As, perhaps, is the signs of the times, for the first time, the US Department of Defense (Pentagon) wrote out the public version of the NDS along with its Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and Missile Defense Review (MDR). The NDS is, no doubt, also informed by the Ukraine War, which has stressed the importance of information dominance, command-control-communications, detection and targeting, and logistics sustainment. It has also highlighted the dangers of escalation leading to a possible nuclear escalation.

The NDS is, no doubt, also informed by the Ukraine War, which has stressed the importance of information dominance, command-control-communications, detection and targeting, and logistics sustainment.

The NDS, NPR and MDR were transmitted in their classified form to the US Congress in March this year along with the Administration’s 2023 Budget request for US $773 billion, a 4 percent increase over the previous years. The Department of Defence (DoD) also released a two page fact-sheet providing the key elements of the strategy. The aim of the exercise, in the words of the US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, was, “matching our resources to our goals”. Anyway, the US spends much more on defence annually than China, Russia, India, UK, Germany, and Japan combined. The aim of publicly releasing the strategy is to bring all the players in the sprawling US strategic community onto the same page. The NDS laid out four top priorities: 1) defending the homeland paced to the growing multi-domain threat from China; 2) deterring strategic attacks against the US and its allies and partners; 3) deterring aggression from China and Russia, while being prepared to prevail in the event of a conflict; and 4) building a resilient joint force and defence ecosystem. The 2022 document listed three concepts for the US to maintain its goals. First, “integrated deterrence,” which calls for the military to work in a seamless all domain, theater and spectrum of conflict framework to deter aggression, not only within the US, but also with its international partners. The second emphasis is on campaigning to target “competitors’ coercive actions” using other instruments of national power “to undermine acute forms of competitor coercion, complicate competitors’ military preparations.” In essence, actions in the cyber front and grey zone that will shift the security environment in favour of the US. The third element was the importance of “building enduring advantages” through internal reforms and investments to make the US military infrastructure more resilient. The 2018 NDS itself broke away from the decades-long focus in West Asia and counter terrorism  to pinpoint China and Russia as its twin challenges. China is now named as the “pacing challenge” for the US. The curious adjective “pacing” was first used by Secretary  Austin in his confirmation hearings in 2021. In essence, it seems to suggest that the pace of the US defence strategy would be set by the actions of the Chinese.

The 2018 NDS itself broke away from the decades-long focus in West Asia and counter terrorism  to pinpoint China and Russia as its twin challenges. China is now named as the “pacing challenge” for the US.

Inevitably, technology is a key area of competition. The strategy calls for a process of rapid experimentation, and fielding new technologies to the forces rapidly. It says that the Pentagon will push research and development for “advanced capabilities”, including directed energy, hypersonics, integrated sensing, and cyber, even while providing seed funding for bio tech, quantum science, advanced materials, and clear energy technology. As Secretary Austin noted, innovation was the central issue. In 2021, the US had established a Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve that funded different parts of the Pentagon to work together “to fill critical joint warfighting gaps”. The 2023 Budget request included ore that US $130 billion for R&D, the highest in DoD history. By integrating the NDS with the NPR and the MDR, the DoD says it is seeking to more clearly match its resources to its goals. But, there is a certain value in the US restating its nuclear and missile defense goals clearly to stabilise an environment roiled by the Russian threats of nuclear use in relation to Ukraine. According to the new NPR, “the fundamental role of US nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attack on the United States, our allies, and our partners.” The US would only consider using such weapons “in extreme circumstances”. The MDR, on the other hand, is aimed at underscoring that the US sees missile defence as contributing to “integrated deterrence by undermining a potential foe’s confidence in its ability to mount a successful attack.”

Implications for India

If China has become a “pacing challenge” for the United States it is doubly and more so for India. In December 2019, the government appointed a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) to bring about “jointness in operations, logistics, and training etc” within three years. In these three years, little has moved. The tragic death of CDS General Bipin Rawat is only partly responsible for that, considering that the government took nine months to appoint his successor. Note, the target of “jointness” was much more modest than that of “theaterisation”, but as Admiral (Retd) Arun Prakash has pointed out, conflating one with the other has led to a false start of the reform process.

According to the new NPR, “the fundamental role of US nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attack on the United States, our allies, and our partners.”

That is of little help, considering that jointness, followed eventually by theaterisation, are only one part of the race. The others relate, as the US NDS brings out, to technology, multi-domain warfare, including grey-zone war and the issue of nuclear weapons and missile defence. As it is, with our defence budgets under severe stress, modernisation continues to lag seriously. And to top it all off, the government has seen it fit to experiment with the Agniveer scheme whose efficacy remains to be proved. In these circumstances, New Delhi needs to sail as close to the US as it can, or trim its sails to adopt a strategy which can more realistically match its resources to its goals and its somewhat lackadaisical pace of defence reforms.

• International Affairs
• Defence and Security
• India
• USA and Canada
• CDS
• defence
• NDS
• NPR
• NSS
• security

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