WASHINGTON: In a clear sign that China really is the Biden administration’s tracking threat against which much of its strategy, budget and policy will be forged, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin today approved a classified directive ordering the military to shrink the gap between what it says and what it does regarding China.
“The efforts I am directing today will improve the Department’s ability to revitalize our network of allies and partners, bolster deterrence, and accelerate the development of new operational concepts, emerging capabilities, future force posture, and a modernized civilian and military workforce,” Austin said in a statement.
In an intriguing element, the directive makes Austin personally responsible for China policy and its execution, letting everyone know just how important this is. We know almost no details about what’s in the directive, and an extended Q&A between a senior defense official and the Pentagon press yielded little.
We did get this: “Here’s the bottom line: This directive from the secretary is ultimately about getting the department’s house in order and ensuring that the department lives up to the stated prioritization of China as the number one pacing challenge.”
Of course, that implicitly makes obvious that there is what the senior defense official acknowledged as the “say-do gap.” Pressed repeatedly by reporters for some details, the senior official offered two. Most important to our readers, Secretary Austin “is going to personally be reviewing efforts to accelerate the Joint Warfighting Concept through joint experimentation and prototyping.”
The concept, as Breaking D readers know, is the capstone to All Domain Operations, the new American way of war. The armed services are working on key components of it, with the Air Force having the lead for JADC2, the Navy on joint fires and the Army for contested logistics.
Second, the Pentagon’s head of personnel and readiness is staked with making sure professional military education and civilian professional development are updated to deliver better human capital able to cope with China.
The directive arose from the work of the Pentagon’s China Task Force, created soon after President Biden took office.
The initiatives in today’s directive “were developed in consultation and coordination with our interagency partners and will complement the multi-faceted work on China policy of departments, agencies, and the White House. Many are intended to streamline and strengthen cooperation with U.S. allies and partners, particularly in the Indo-Pacific,” a Pentagon press release says. But they will also have a sharper influence on US strategy.
“The initiatives I am putting forward today are nested inside the larger U.S. government approach to China and will help inform the development of the National Defense Strategy we are working on,” Austin said in a statement.
With today’s directive, the task force is no more, but this is when the Pentagon — and the federal government as a whole — is to get down to business and ensure the United States can best challenge and manage an increasingly belligerent and wealthy China.