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Strong bureaucrat move to maximize China-focused influence on defense budget. Why? A POTUS gets 4 budgets to build and the first is a rush to Congress. This process will help @SecDef build consensus around priorities almost immediately, sneak some in FY22, and build 23 carefully. https://twitter.com/laraseligman/status/1359610851104350214
Trump team had the challenge of shifting Washington’s mental map towards great powers and used all of 2017 to do this by writing the NSS/NDS, missing the FY18 budget cycle and most of FY19. This is why it took to FY20 for DoD to talk about a “masterpiece” budget based on NDS.
Thanks to this, Biden team doesn’t need 18 months to build consensus. At DoD, Washington agrees on need to invest in @INDOPACOM theater, just as we invested $30B+ in @US_EUCOM. But disagreement exits among stakeholders: OSD, JS, Services, budget gurus, and INDOPACOM on the WHAT.
This approach, which likely started during transition, can resolve key debates and let SecDef influence FY22 and the entire FY23 budget process, even while NDS is being written. Don’t need to wait for the NDS to see China will be the explicit priority. https://www.cnas.org/publications/commentary/make-china-the-explicit-priority-in-the-next-nds
The key debate? How to balance the cost/risk to more forces in the theater in the blunt force to PREVENT war and the cost/risks to building readiness in the surge force to WIN a conflict. This debate has not been resolved and stalled resources from flowing towards priorities.
What is Dr. @elyratner thinking as he begins this process? See Chapter 1 of a report he led (and I was involved in) in January 2020. https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/rising-to-the-china-challenge
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