U.S. Army Pacific Soldiers, 25th Infantry Division, move in formation while controlling unmanned vehicles as part of the Pacific Manned Unmanned – Initiative July 22, 2016, at Marine Corps Training Area Bellows, Hawaii. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Christopher Hubenthal)

In the wake of Russia’s violent invasion in Ukraine, the Biden administration is reportedly making last-minute revisions to the expected National Defense Strategy. But in the op ed below, AEI’s John Ferrari argues Russia has shown incremental changes are not nearly enough.

The time is now for the President Joe Biden’s team to put its mark on the future – by tearing up its proposed National Defense Strategy and overhauling it in light of the real challenges America currently faces.

A small rewrite to the planned strategy by copy and pasting “Russia” into the document will not change the 20-plus-year arch that has weakened our defense posture. Instead, the US just needs a three-page document, crisp and clear, that states that United States and its allies will maintain the peace in Asia, Europe and the Middle East (2.5 wars), will prioritize the readiness and capabilities of the force today by building munitions and weapons while integrating current technology, and will increase its forward presence as a commitment to democracy. Such a stance would go a long way to ensuring that China and Russia do not heinously attack democracies at will.

One has to look no further than the current NDS, written by then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, that essentially declared to the world that the United States could handle only one conflict at a time. Hal Brands from the American Enterprise Institute correctly called this out in 2020, and we saw the result of this with President Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping synchronizing war in plain sight at the recent Olympics. The oft-repeated phrase, “China-China-China” has been interpreted by Putin as an invitation to war and it needs to be abandoned.

Current Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin should take this moment of shock and not adjust the National Defense Strategy, but instead rewrite it. The strategy needs to be clear, short and unambiguous. It needs to be the strategy we need, not constrained at this moment by artificial funding limits provided by OMB.

In short, the strategy should state the following three imperatives, reversing two plus decades of risk taking that has left our Armed Forces less than ready, short of munitions, and too small to do what is needed:

First, abandon the one-war strategy that is guiding all current decision making.

It is now clear, that we have adversaries on three-fronts and we need to be crystal clear that we are going to be prepared. The new defense strategy should call for a national security establishment capable and ready to handle 2.5 wars – Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. For those that want the United States to withdraw from the Middle East, like it or not, a stable supply of energy is needed from the region, and going forward, Russia and China will be in the Middle East to cripple our energy supplies. For those who wished away Europe as a theater of war, if Putin takes Ukraine and is already isolated by sanctions, does anyone not believe him when he says the Baltics and Poland are also on the menu?

Second, abandon the dreams of the third offset that has led to a terrible gamble of exquisite technology post-2030 at the expense of military readiness and capability today.

In essence, the current defense strategy has told both Russia and China to strike this decade, because we, the United States, are willing to weaken ourselves now to be stronger later. Russia has taken us up on this, and China may not wait to go after Taiwan. Given DoD’s disastrous track record of converting future technology into plausible weapon systems, DoD should instead focus on integrating today’s technology into the force, which is a leap forward from what is currently on hand. The new defense strategy should prioritize procurement of weapons and munitions today, incrementally inserting technology, and reverse the trend of more research spending at the expense of near-term procurement.

Lastly, abandon the disastrous 20-plus-year strategy of basing US forces in the United States and withdrawing from overseas.

Nothing signals US commitment, as well as helping us to integrate with our allies, as being on the ground, in the air, and sailing the seas with them. Presence matters. The distances to Asia, Europe, and the Middle East are our enemy. Moving forces into the region during a crisis is slow and escalatory. Being there from the start give us incredible leverage.

It is amazing how out of tune with reality the current National Defense Strategy (NDS) has become. We failed to connect the dots between Putin’s Munich speech in 2007, his invasion of Georgia in 2008, and his invasion of Crimea in 2014, instead signaling to Putin through our defense strategy that we would only size our forces for one war at a time and that was China.  The time is now for the current defense team to let the world know that America is with them, not just with words, but with real capabilities.

Maj. Gen. John Ferrari, US Army (ret.), is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and is the former director of program analysis and evaluation for the US Army.