Questions

Well, the election is done. Oddly enough there was a certain degree of continuity in U.S foreign and defense policy from Bush Junior to Obama and it probably would have continued to Clinton. Are we now looking at any fundamental changes? What will be our defense policies?

  1. In Afghanistan
    1. Significantly increase effort?
    2. Slightly increase U.S. effort?
    3. Keep the same?
    4. Decrease U.S. effort?
    5. Disengage?
  2. In Iraq
    1. Maintain current effort after Mosul falls?
    2. Decrease U.S. effort?
    3. Disengage?
  3. With Syria
    1. No fly zones?
    2. Significantly increase effort?
    3. Slightly increase U.S. effort?
    4. Keep the same?
    5. Decrease U.S. effort?
    6. Disengage?
    7. Negotiate settlement with Russia and Assad?
  4. With Ukraine
    1. Significantly increase effort (probably not)?
    2. Slightly increase U.S. effort?
    3. Keep the same?
    4. Decrease U.S. effort?
    5. Disengage?
    6. Negotiate settlement with Russia?
    7. What about Crimea?
    8. What about Lugansk and Donetsk Peoples Republics?
    9. What about sanctions?
    10. What about EU sanctions?
  5. With Russia
    1. Confront more aggressively?
    2. Keep the same?
    3. Try to tone it down?
    4. Reset?
  6. With NATO
    1. Increase commitment (probably not)?
    2. Keep the same?
    3. Decrease U.S. effort?
    4. Force our NATO allies to contribute more?
    5. Disengage because NATO is obsolete?
    6. Negotiate some arrangement with Russia?
  7. What about Georgia?
    1. Encourage NATO to take them as a member (I am guessing not)?
    2. Continue working with them (Partnership for Peace)?
    3. Decrease commitment to them?
    4. Disengage?
    5. What about Abkhazia and Ossetia?
  8. With Iran
    1. Cancel current deal and try to renegotiate?
    2. Keep the same?
    3. Try to work out some overarching deal concerning nukes, Iraq support, and Assad support?
  9. With Yemen
    1. Keep the same (remain disengaged)?
    2. Re-engage to some level?
  10. War on Terror
    1. What additional actions are they going to take against ISIL?
    2. What about Al-Qaeda?
    3. Any other long-term initiatives to forestall the development of groups in the future or stop their attacks?
  11. With the Defense Budget
    1. Increase defense budget? (He has stated that he will increase the army from 480,000 to 540,000).
    2. Keep the same?
    3. I gather we will end sequestration (which is already on hold)?
    4. Who is going to be the Secretary of Defense?
  12. And then there is East Asia (China, the two Koreas, Taiwan, Japan, Philippines, etc.).
  13. With trade
    1. Will TPP be cancelled?
    2. Will TPP be re-negotiated?
  14. Oil and Climate Change
    1. This is an international issue.
    2. Are we going to pump more oil?
    3. Are we going to use more coal (I gather this is the case)?
    4. Will interest and funding for clean energy decline (I gather this is the case)?

I am not sure what President-elect Trump intends to do on any of subjects, although he is probably going to do something on trade.

There are a few articles detailing his plans, like this one: http://www.defensenews.com/articles/trump-defense-plan-detailed

And this one: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/11/09/four-questions-about-how-trump-would-affect-the-military-industrial-complex/

But at this juncture, we really do not know what our future defense policy will be.

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Christopher A. Lawrence
Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.

Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.

His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) and The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019)

Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

Articles: 1455

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