2022 National Defense Strategy Of The United States Of America

DoD: By the 2030s the United States will, for the first time in its history, face two major nuclear powers as strategic competitors and potential adversaries. This will create new stresses on stability and new challenges for deterrence, assurance, arms control, and risk reduction. Image | Department Of Defense

By Donald Standeford, SJ Founder/Publisher
October 30, 2022 07:40 am UTC
Modified: 2022-10-30 07:40 am

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon said that although Russia is an "acute threat", China "is the only competitor out there with both the intent to reshape the international order, and increasingly the power to do so".

"Unlike China, Russia can't systemically challenge the United States over the long term. But Russian aggression does pose an immediate and sharp threat," US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stated.

On Thursday the declassified version of the National Defense Strategy for 2022 was released that highlighted China as the main challenge to the United States.

"The PRC presents the most consequential and systemic challenge, while Russia poses acute threats - both to vital U.S. national interests abroad and to the homeland," the National Defense Strategy report stated.

"The 2022 National Defense Strategy, or NDS, places a primary focus on the need to sustain and strengthen U.S. deterrence against China. It also advances a focus on collaboration with a growing network of U.S. allies and partners on shared objectives."

"Even as the PRC poses the Department's pacing challenge, recent events underscore the acute threat posed by Russia. Contemptuous of its neighbors' independence, Russia's government seeks to use force to impose border changes and to reimpose an imperial sphere of influence."

"Its extensive track record of territorial aggression includes the escalation of its brutal, unprovoked war against Ukraine. Although its leaders' political and military actions intended to fracture NATO have backfired dramatically, the goal remains. Russia presents serious, continuing risks in key areas," the report continued.

China Seeks To Refashion The Indo-Pacific Region

The report said that China seeks to "refashion the Indo-Pacific region and the international system to suit its interests and authoritarian preferences," it says, describing this dynamic as "the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security."

"The most comprehensive and serious challenge to U.S. national security is the PRC's coercive and increasingly aggressive endeavor to refashion the Indo-Pacific region and the international system to suit its interests and authoritarian preferences."

"The PRC seeks to undermine U.S. alliances and security partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region, and leverage its growing capabilities, including its economic influence and the PLA's growing strength and military footprint, to coerce its neighbors and threaten their interests."

"The PRC's increasingly provocative rhetoric and coercive activity towards Taiwan are destabilizing, risk miscalculation, and threaten the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait. This is part of a broader pattern of destabilizing and coercive PRC behavior that stretches across the East China Sea, the South China Sea, and along the Line of Actual Control.

In a second statement by the Department of Defense, the DoD said that the "scope and scale" of threats to the homeland have "fundamentally changed".

"The scope and scale of threats to the homeland have fundamentally changed. The PRC and Russia now pose more dangerous challenges to safety and security at home, even as terrorist threats persist. Both states are already using non-kinetic means against our defense industrial base and mobilization systems, as well as deploying counterspace capabilities that can target our Global Positioning System and other space-based capabilities that support military power and daily civilian life," it said.

Threats From North Korea And Iran

It also talked about threats from North Korea and Iran: "North Korea continues to expand its nuclear and missile capability to threaten the U.S. homeland, deployed U.S. forces, and the Republic of Korea (ROK) and Japan, while seeking to drive wedges between the United States-ROK and United States-Japan Alliances."

"Iran is taking actions that would improve its ability to produce a nuclear weapon should it make the decision to do so, even as it builds and exports extensive missile forces, uncrewed aircraft systems, and advanced maritime capabilities that threaten chokepoints for the free flow of energy resources and international commerce."

"Iran further undermines Middle East stability by supporting terrorist groups and military proxies, employing its own paramilitary forces, engaging in military provocations, and conducting malicious cyber and information operations."

"Global terrorist groups - including al-Qa'ida, Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and their affiliates – have had their capabilities degraded, but some may be able to reconstitute them in short order, which will require monitoring indications and warning against the VEO threat."

Any Nuclear Attack By North Korea Would Result In The End For That Regime

The 2022 defense strategy said that "Any nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its Allies and partners is unacceptable and will result in the end of that regime."

"Our strategy for North Korea recognizes the threat posed by its nuclear, chemical, missile, and conventional capabilities, and in particular the need to make clear to the Kim regime the dire consequences should it use nuclear weapons. Any nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its Allies and partners is unacceptable and will result in the end of that regime."

"There is no scenario in which the Kim regime could employ nuclear weapons and survive. Short of nuclear use, North Korea can also conduct rapid strategic attacks in East Asia. United States nuclear weapons continue to play a role in deterring such attacks. Further, we will hold the regime responsible for any transfers it makes of nuclear weapons technology, material, or expertise to any state or non-state actor."

Iran Not Currently A Nuclear Threat, But Developing Capabilities

The document said that although Iran does not currently pose a nuclear threat, it does continue to develop "capabilities that would enable it to produce a nuclear weapon" if it wishes to do so.

"Iran does not currently pose a nuclear threat but continues to develop capabilities that would enable it to produce a nuclear weapon should it make the decision to do so. The United States relies on non-nuclear overmatch to deter regional aggression by Iran as long as Iran does not possess nuclear weapons. It is U.S. policy that Iran will not be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon. This policy has been consistent across successive administrations since the public disclosure of a clandestine Iranian nuclear program."

By 2030s US Will Face Two Major Nuclear Powers As Competitors, Potential Adversaries

"By the 2030s the United States will, for the first time in its history, face two major nuclear powers as strategic competitors and potential adversaries. This will create new stresses on stability and new challenges for deterrence, assurance, arms control, and risk reduction."

The PRC and Russia are also working to augment their growing nuclear forces with a broader set of kinetic and non-kinetic capabilities, including cyber, space, information, and advanced conventional strike.

Each seeks to integrate these multi-domain capabilities to support coercive strategies and enable military campaigns intended to present the Joint Force with operational dilemmas. The PRC and Russia also likely possess capabilities relevant to chemical and biological warfare that pose a threat to U.S., Allied, and partner forces, military operations, and civilian populations."

North Korea Not A Rival On Same Scale, Also Present Deterrence Dilemmas

The report says that while North Korea is not a rival on the same scale as China or Russia, it still presents deterrence dilemmas for the United States.

"The Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea (North Korea), while not a rival on the same scale as the PRC and Russia, nonetheless also presents deterrence dilemmas for the United States and its Allies and partners."

"It poses a persistent threat and growing danger to the U.S. homeland and the Indo-Pacific region as it expands, diversifies, and improves its nuclear, ballistic missile, and non-nuclear capabilities, including its chemical weapon stockpile. A crisis or conflict on the Korean Peninsula could involve a number of nuclear-armed actors, raising the risk of broader conflict".

DoD Does Not Believe Iran Currently Pursuing Nuclear Weapons

The report says that the Department of Defense does not believe that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, but said that recent Iranian activities are of great concern as they are "applicable to a nuclear weapons program".

"Iran does not today possess a nuclear weapon and we currently believe it is not pursuing one. However, recent Iranian activities previously constrained by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) are of great concern as they are applicable to a nuclear weapons program. U.S. policy is to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon."

"The acquisition of nuclear weapons by additional states could lead to new challenges for deterrence. Developments in the security environment, including actions taken by Iran and North Korea, and Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, could create or deepen proliferation incentives".

"Additionally, nuclear terrorism continues to pose a threat to the United States and our Allies and partners. Terrorists remain interested in using WMD in attacks against U.S. interests and possibly the U.S. homeland. Dual-use knowledge, goods, and technology applicable to WMD continue to proliferate."

DoD: 2022 National Defense Strategy

Secretary of Defense, Lloyd J. Austin III: "President Biden has stated that we are living in a “decisive decade,” one stamped by dramatic changes in geopolitics, technology, economics, and our environment. The defense strategy that the United States pursues will set the Department’s course for decades to come.

The Department of Defense owes it to our All-Volunteer Force and the American people to provide a clear picture of the challenges we expect to face in the crucial years ahead—and we owe them a clear and rigorous strategy for advancing our defense and security goals.

The 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS) details the Department’s path forward into that decisive decade—from helping to protect the American people, to promoting global security, to seizing new strategic opportunities, and to realizing and defending our democratic values.We live in turbulent times. Yet, I am confident that the Department, along with our counterparts throughout the U.S. Government and our Allies and partners around the world, is well positioned to meet the challenges of this decisive decade.

On October 27, 2022, the Department of Defense publicly released our unclassified National Defense Strategy (NDS), a Congressionally-mandated review. This strategy sets the strategic direction of the Department to support U.S. national security priorities, and flows directly from President Biden's National Security Strategy. The National Defense Strategy includes the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and the Missile Defense Review (MDR).

The Nuclear Posture Review is a legislatively-mandated review that describes U.S. nuclear strategy, policy, posture, and forces. The Missile Defense Review is a review conducted pursuant to guidance from the President and the Secretary of Defense, while also addressing the legislative requirement to assess U.S. missile defense policy and strategy.

Defense Priorities

Together, these rapidly evolving features of the security environment threaten to erode the United States' ability to deter aggression and to help maintain favorable balances of power in critical regions. The PRC presents the most consequential and systemic challenge, while Russia poses acute threats - both to vital U.S. national interests abroad and to the homeland. Other features of the security environment, including climate change and other transboundary threats, will increasingly place pressure on the Joint Force and the systems that support it. In this context, and in support of a stable and open international system and our defense commitments, the Department's priorities are:Defending the homeland, paced to the growing multi-domain threat posed by the PRC; Deterring strategic attacks against the United States, Allies, and partners; Deterring aggression, while being prepared to prevail in conflict when necessary - prioritizing the PRC challenge in the Indo-Pacific region, then the Russia challenge in Europe, and; Building a resilient Joint Force and defense ecosystem.

Security Environment

Now and over the next two decades, we face strategic challenges stemming from complex interactions between a rapidly changing global balance of military capabilities; emerging technologies; competitor doctrines that pose new threats to the U.S. homeland and to strategic stability; an escalation of competitors' coercive and malign activities in the "gray zone"; and transboundary challenges that impose new demands on the Joint Force and the defense enterprise.

Strategic Competition With The People's Republic Of China (PRC)

The most comprehensive and serious challenge to U.S. national security is the PRC's coercive and increasingly aggressive endeavor to refashion the Indo-Pacific region and the international system to suit its interests and authoritarian preferences. The PRC seeks to undermine U.S. alliances and security partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region, and leverage its growing capabilities, including its economic influence and the PLA's growing strength and military footprint, to coerce its neighbors and threaten their interests. The PRC's increasingly provocative rhetoric and coercive activity towards Taiwan are destabilizing, risk miscalculation, and threaten the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait. This is part of a broader pattern of destabilizing and coercive PRC behavior that stretches across the East China Sea, the South China Sea, and along the Line of Actual Control.

Russia as an Acute Threat

Even as the PRC poses the Department's pacing challenge, recent events underscore the acute threat posed by Russia. Contemptuous of its neighbors' independence, Russia's government seeks to use force to impose border changes and to reimpose an imperial sphere of influence. Its extensive track record of territorial aggression includes the escalation of its brutal, unprovoked war against Ukraine. Although its leaders' political and military actions intended to fracture NATO have backfired dramatically, the goal remains. Russia presents serious, continuing risks in key areas.

Threats to the US Homeland

The scope and scale of threats to the homeland have fundamentally changed. The PRC and Russia now pose more dangerous challenges to safety and security at home, even as terrorist threats persist. Both states are already using non-kinetic means against our defense industrial base and mobilization systems, as well as deploying counterspace capabilities that can target our Global Positioning System and other space-based capabilities that support military power and daily civilian life.

Other Persistent Threats - North Korea, Iran, and VEOs

North Korea continues to expand its nuclear and missile capability to threaten the U.S. homeland, deployed U.S. forces, and the Republic of Korea (ROK) and Japan, while seeking to drive wedges between the United States-ROK and United States-Japan Alliances. Iran is taking actions that would improve its ability to produce a nuclear weapon should it make the decision to do so, even as it builds and exports extensive missile forces, uncrewed aircraft systems, and advanced maritime capabilities that threaten chokepoints for the free flow of energy resources and international commerce. Iran further undermines Middle East stability by supporting terrorist groups and military proxies, employing its own paramilitary forces, engaging in military provocations, and conducting malicious cyber and information operations. Global terrorist groups - including al-Qa'ida, Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and their affiliates – have had their capabilities degraded, but some may be able to reconstitute them in short order, which will require monitoring indications and warning against the VEO threat.

Complex Escalation dynamics: Rapidly Evolving Domains And Technologies

A wide range of new or fast-evolving technologies and applications are complicating escalation dynamics and creating new challenges for strategic stability. These include counterspace weapons, hypersonic weapons, advanced CBW, and new and emerging payload and delivery systems for both conventional and non-strategic nuclear weapons. In the cyber and space domains, the risk of inadvertent escalation is particularly high due to unclear norms of behavior and escalation thresholds, complex domain interactions, and new capabilities.

Competitors Gray Zone Activities

Competitors now commonly seek adverse changes in the status quo using gray zone methods - coercive approaches that may fall below perceived thresholds for U.S. military action and across areas of responsibility of different parts of the U.S. Government.

Approaches

The Department will advance our priorities through integrated deterrence, campaigning, and actions that build enduring advantages.

Integrated Deterrence

Integrated deterrence entails working seamlessly across warfighting domains, theaters, the spectrum of conflict, all instruments of U.S. national power, and our network of Alliances and partnerships. Tailored to specific circumstances, it applies a coordinated, multifaceted approach to reducing competitors' perceptions of the net benefits of aggression relative to restraint. Integrated deterrence is enabled by combat-credible forces prepared to fight and win, as needed, and backstopped by a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent.

Campaigning

Day after day, the Department will strengthen deterrence and gain advantage against competitors' most consequential coercive measures by campaigning - the conduct and sequencing of logically-linked military initiatives aimed at advancing well-defined, strategy-aligned priorities over time. The United States will operate forces, synchronize broader Departmental efforts, and align Departmental activities with other instruments of national power to counter forms of competitor coercion, complicate competitors' military preparations, and develop our own warfighting capabilities together with those of our Allies and partners.

Building Enduring Advantages

To shore up the foundations for integrated deterrence and campaigning, we will act urgently to build enduring advantages across the defense ecosystem - the Department of Defense, the defense industrial base, and the array of private sector and academic enterprises that create and sharpen the Joint Force's technological edge. We will modernize the systems that design and build the Joint Force, with a focus on innovation and rapid adjustment to new strategic demands. We will make our supporting systems more resilient and agile in the face of threats that range from competitors to the effects of climate change. And we will cultivate our talents, recruiting and training a workforce with the skills, abilities, and diversity we need to creatively solve national security challenges in a complex global environment.

Alliances and Partnerships

We cannot meet these complex and interconnected challenges alone. Mutually-beneficial Alliances and partnerships are our greatest global strategic advantage - and they are a center of gravity for this strategy. We will strengthen major regional security architectures with our Allies and partners based on complementary contributions; combined, collaborative operations and force planning; increased intelligence and information sharing; new operational concepts; and our ability to draw on the Joint Force worldwide.

The Indo-Pacific Region

The Department will reinforce and build out a resilient security architecture in the Indo- Pacific region in order to sustain a free and open regional order and deter attempts to resolve disputes by force. We will modernize our Alliance with Japan and strengthen combined capabilities by aligning strategic planning and priorities in a more integrated manner; deepen our Alliance with Australia through investments in posture, interoperability, and expansion of multilateral cooperation; and foster advantage through advanced technology cooperation with partnerships like AUKUS and the Indo-Pacific Quad.

Europe

The Department will maintain its bedrock commitment to NATO collective security, working alongside Allies and partners to deter, defend, and build resilience against further Russian military aggression and acute forms of gray zone coercion. As we continue contributing to NATO capabilities and readiness - including through improvements to our posture in Europe and our extended nuclear deterrence commitments - the Department will work with Allies bilaterally and through NATO's established processes to better focus NATO capability development and military modernization to address Russia's military threat.

The Middle East

As the Department continues to right-size its forward military presence in the Middle East following the mission transition in Afghanistan and continuing our "by, with, and through" approach in Iraq and Syria, we will address major security challenges in the region in effective and sustainable ways. The Joint Force will retain the ability to deny Iran a nuclear weapon; to identify and support action against Iranian and Iranian-backed threats; and to disrupt top-tier VEO threats that endanger the homeland and vital U.S. national interests.

Western Hemisphere

The United States derives immense benefit from a stable, peaceful, and democratic Western Hemisphere that reduces security threats to the homeland. To prevent distant threats from becoming a challenge at home, the Department will continue to partner with countries in the region to build capability and promote security and stability.

Africa

In Africa, the Department will prioritize disrupting VEO threats against the U.S. homeland and vital U.S. national interests, working "by, with, and through" our African partners to build states' capability to degrade terrorist organizations and contribute broadly to regional security and stability. We will orient our approach on the continent towards security cooperation, increase coordination with Allies, multilateral organizations, and regional bodies that share these objectives, and support for U.S. interagency initiatives in the region.

The Arctic

The United States seeks a stable Arctic region characterized by adherence to internationally-agreed upon rules and norms. The Department will deter threats to the U.S. homeland from and through the Arctic region by improving early warning and JSR capabilities, partnering with Canada to enhance North American Aerospace Defense Command capabilities, and working with Allies and partners to increase shared maritime domain awareness. U.S. activities and posture in the Arctic should be calibrated, as the Department preserves its focus on the Indo-Pacific region.

Force Planning

Sustaining and strengthening deterrence requires that the Department design, develop, and manage a combat-credible U.S. military fit for advancing our highest defense priorities. The Department's force development and design program will integrate new operational concepts with the force attributes required to strengthen and sustain deterrence and to prevail in conflict if necessary. The Department will prioritize a future force that is:Lethal: Possesses anti-access/area-denial-insensitive strike capabilities that can penetrate adversary defenses at range.

Sustainable: Securely and effectively provides logistics and sustainment to continue operations in a contested and degraded environment, despite adversary disruption.

Resilient: Maintains information and decision advantage, preserves command, control, and communications systems, and ensures critical detection and targeting operations.

Survivable: Continues generating combat power to support strike capabilities and enablers for logistics and sustainment, despite adversary attacks.

Agile and Responsive: Rapidly mobilizes forces, generates combat power, and provides logistics and sustainment, even given adversary regional advantages and climate change impacts.

Risk Management

No strategy will perfectly anticipate the threats we may face, and we will doubtless confront challenges in execution. This strategy shifts focus and resources toward the Department's highest priorities, which will inevitably affect risk profiles in other areas. An NDS that is clear-eyed about this reality will help ensure that the Department effectively implements the strategy and assesses its impact over time.

Foresight Risks

In developing this strategy, the Department considered the risks stemming from inaccurate predictions, including unforeseen shocks in the security environment. Chief among these: The rate at which a competitor modernizes its military, and the conditions under which competitor aggression manifests, could be different than anticipated. Our threat assessments may prove to be either over-or underestimated. We might fail to anticipate which technologies and capabilities may be employed and change our relative military advantage. A new pandemic or the impacts of climate change could cause increased readiness or operational strain.

Implementation Risks

This strategy will not be successful if we fail to resource its major initiatives or fail to make the hard choices to align available resources with the strategy's level of ambition; if we do not effectively incorporate new technologies and identify, recruit, and leverage new talent; and if we are unsuccessful in reducing the barriers that limit collaboration with Allies and partners. We aim to mitigate these and other risks by ruthless prioritization. For example, we must not over-exert, reallocate, or redesign our forces for regional crises that cross the threshold of risk to preparedness for our highest strategic priorities

Building Enduring Advantages

To shore up the foundations for integrated deterrence and campaigning, we will act urgently to build enduring advantages across the defense ecosystem - the Department of Defense, the defense industrial base, and the array of private sector and academic enterprises that create and sharpen the Joint Force's technological edge. We will modernize the systems that design and build the Joint Force, with a focus on innovation and rapid adjustment to new strategic demands. We will make our supporting systems more resilient and agile in the face of threats that range from competitors to the effects of climate change. And we will cultivate our talents, recruiting and training a workforce with the skills, abilities, and diversity we need to creatively solve national security challenges in a complex global environment.

Conclusion

The United States is endowed with remarkable qualities that confer great advantages, including in the realm of national security. We are a free people devoted to democracy and the rule of law.

Our combination of diversity, free minds, and free enterprise drives extraordinary innovation and adaptability. We are a member of an unparalleled and unprecedented network of alliances and partnerships.

Together, we share many common values and a common interest in defending the stable and open international system, the basis for the most peaceful and prosperous epoch in modern history.We must not lose sight of these qualities and advantages.

Our generational challenge is to combine and integrate them, developing our capabilities together with those of our Allies and partners to sustain and strengthen an international system under threat.This NDS has outlined the courses of action the Department of Defense will take to help meet this challenge. We are confident in success.

Our country has faced and prevailed in multi-year competitions with major powers threatening or using force to subjugate others on more than one occasion in the past.

Working in service of the American people, and in collaboration with our partners around the world, the men and women of our superbly capable Joint Force stand ready to do so again."

View Department Of Defense Statement

View National Defense Strategy Document