QDR Independent Panel report is what the QDR should have been

Not trusting the Pentagon's staff to prepare a Quadrennial Defense Review that would be useful, the Congress established an independent panel of "wise men" to critique the QDR after its release. Last Thursday, the QDR Independent Panel, led by William Perry and Stephen Hadley and supported by a praiseworthy list of commissioners and staff members, released its critique of the 2010 QDR. With the exception of one glaring clunker, the Independent Panel's report is superb and is the strategic defense review the QDR should have been. Yet the very fact that the Independent Panel was needed (confirming Congress's suspicions) shows that something is seriously wrong with the government's ability to formulate and execute strategy.

As the Independent Panel noted, recent QDRs have failed to fulfill their assigned task, namely to take a 20-year view of national security goals, emerging security trends, and required military and government capabilities required over that time horizon to defend United States interests. Instead of being a thorough review of long-term strategy and requirements, recent QDRs have been glossy advertisements defending the current Pentagon program. The 2010 QDR was a particularly woeful effort. At the time it was released, I described it as "a no news QDR" and "incomplete staff work" that correctly identified some emerging security issues but avoided any significant recommendations to address those challenges.

The Independent Panel report does what the 2010 QDR failed to do. It challenges the Congress to reorganize its oversight committees related to national defense. It calls on the Executive to restructure its departments and authorities so it can efficiently implement a whole-of-government approach to policy planning and execution (which includes getting all relevant departments to be expeditionary). It calls for renewed focus on the Asia-Pacific theater, an increase in U.S. naval power, and much greater air force and naval long-range strike capability. It calls for a total scrub of the military's personnel, training, education, and compensation systems. New weapons should be delivered in no more than 7 years, even if that means capping weapon system capabilities in the first "A" models.

Finally, the Independent Panel concluded that the QDR process itself is broken, has run its course, and should be abandoned. That conclusion is very likely true. But the panel's recommended fix is the clunker I mentioned above. The panel calls for another "wise men" commission --called the Independent Strategic Review Panel - to convene in the autumn of every presidential election year to review the country's grand strategy and report back to the new President and Congress the following summer. The consequence of this proposal would be to largely remove foreign policy and national security issues from the presidential campaign. Why this fundamental task of executive responsibility and electoral decision-making should be removed to an independent non-elected commission with no accountability for execution or consequences completely escapes me.

A presidential candidate should have to explain to the public his national security strategy and the electorate should get a chance to agree or disagree with it. A president, with his national security council, State Department policy planning staff and the Pentagon's OSD, should be able to formulate grand strategy. And then be held accountable for execution and results. This is not something that should be shuffled off to another independent commission.

Perry, Hadley, and the others on the panel are all long-tooth veterans of Washington. Their Independent Strategic Review Panel recommendation follows the unfortunate trend of using such commissions to deal with problems the normal political process seems incapable of handling. Establishing an Independent Strategic Review Panel to formulate the country's grand strategy would only reinforce this bad behavior.

Policymakers, either in this administration or the next, would do well to implement the QDR Independent Panel's report. Except for the loopy idea of an Independent Strategic Review Panel.