United States Department of Defense. April 2013.
The United States Department of Defense (DoD) budget for Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 requests $526.6 billion to protect and advance security interests at home and abroad during the coming fiscal year and into the future. This budget reflects the difficult choices involved with protecting America’s security interests and role as a global power at a time of declining budgets and ongoing fiscal uncertainty about the future. This paper highlights the Department’s ongoing efforts to achieve an agile and ready force while maintaining the right capabilities and capacity to rapidly deal with contingencies across the globe.
http://www.defense.gov/pubs/DefenseBudgetPrioritiesChoicesFiscalYear2014.pdf [PDF format, 33 pages].
Congressional Research Service. January 3, 2013.
On January 26, 2012, senior DOD leadership unveiled a new defense strategy based on a review of potential future security challenges, current defense strategy, and budgetary constraints. This new strategy envisions a smaller, leaner Army that is agile, flexible, rapidly deployable, and technologically advanced. This strategy will rebalance the Army’s global posture and presence,emphasizing where potential problems are likely to arise, such as the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East.
http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/202877.pdf [PDF format, 39 pages].
Congressional Research Service. January 3, 2013.
Special Operations Forces (SOF) play a significant role in U.S. military operations, and the Administration has given U.S. SOF greater responsibility for planning and conducting worldwide counterterrorism operations. U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) has about 63,000 active duty, National Guard, and reserve personnel from all four services and Department of Defense (DOD) civilians assigned to its headquarters, its four components, and one sub-unified command. The 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) directs increases in SOF force structure, particularly in terms of increasing enabling units and rotary and fixed-wing SOF aviation assets and units.
http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/202876.pdf [PDF format, 17 pages].
Center for Strategic and International Studies. December 27, 2012.
An uncertain future and looming budgetary constraints raise legitimate questions about what the US military will look like years down the road. The United States has invested vast amounts of time and resources in working out an answer, be it through the Quadrennial Roles and Missions Review, the Quadrennial Defense Review, the Navy’s 30-year Shipbuilding Plan, or simply the defense authorization put forth every year. [Note: contains copyrighted material].
http://csis.org/files/publication/Pac1288.pdf [PDF format, 2 pages].
U.S. Government Accountability Office. December 19, 2012.
The military services can return major end items without documentation of cost and benefit considerations or analyses used in the decision-making process. Because the services have not consistently performed and documented analyses to support decision making concerning the return of excess major end items from Afghanistan, there is a risk that the costs of returning excess items may outweigh the benefits of returning them.
http://www.gao.gov/assets/660/651010.pdf [PDF format, 45 pages].
