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Annual Report to the President and the Congress.Over the past year America's armed forces continued to protect and advance the nation's interests throughout the world. Our accomplishments demonstrate that the U.S. military is strong, ready, and highly capable of meeting America's security needs. This Annual Defense Report details how the Department of Defense built its capabilities and is working to maintain them into the future. We have organized our task around three objectives. First, we want to prevent the reemergence of a post-Cold War nuclear threat by helping Russia and the other nuclear states of the former Soviet Union dismantle their nuclear weapons arsenals, and by developing effective means to counter the proliferation of nuclear weapons around the world. Second, we want to continue to manage the post-Cold War drawdown of our armed forces efficiently and effectively. We have carried out this drawdown while protecting the quality and morale of America's armed forces and sustaining the high readiness needed to ensure U.S. security. This is a historic accomplishment. Third, we want to be smart, deliberate, and clear on how America will use force or the threat of force effectively in this complex world. (MM)
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The Great American Divide: The Military-Civilian GapThe all-volunteer force of the United States military has produced a military society and culture that is becoming increasingly detached from the greater United States' society that it is sworn to protect. This military-civilian gap is a threat to the United States in that it is potentially producing a military society that deems itself morally superior to civilian society, with military leaders that are cut from the same ideological molds, which invites a group-think mentality. Conversely, the military-civilian gap also is producing a civilian population governed by civilian leaders that have an inadequate understanding of military force, its limitations, and its true costs in lives and treasure in providing for the security of the nation. Taken to its extreme, the military-civilian gap can result in a military that is contemptuous of the greater American society, and an American public that is so disconnected from the military class that it fails to value or question the employment of American military forces. This paper will discuss the military-civilian gap, its causes, issues, and dangers to the United States, and will offer solutions to address this problem.
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U.S.-China Military Contacts: Issues for CongressThis CRS Report discusses policy issues regarding military-to-military (mil-to-mil) contacts with the People's Republic of China (PRC) and provides a record of major contacts since 1993. The United States suspended military contacts with China and imposed sanctions on arms sales in response to the Tiananmen Crackdown in 1989. In 1993, the Clinton Administration began to re-engage the PRC leadership up to the highest level and including China's military, the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Renewed military exchanges with the PLA have not regained the closeness reached in the 1980s, when U.S.-PRC strategic cooperation against the Soviet Union included U.S. arms sales to China. Improvements and deteriorations in overall bilateral relations have affected military contacts, which were close in 1997-1998 and 2000, but marred by the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait crisis, mistaken NATO bombing of a PRC embassy in 1999, and the EP-3 aircraft collision crisis in 2001. Since 2001, the Bush Administration has continued the policy of engagement with China, while the Pentagon has skeptically reviewed and cautiously resumed a program of mil-to-mil exchanges. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in 2002, resumed the Defense Consultative Talks with the PLA and, in 2003, hosted General Cao Gangchuan, a Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission and Defense Minister. General Richard Myers (USAF), Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited China in Jan 2004, as the highest ranking U.S. military officer to do so since Nov 2000. In Sep 2005, Admiral William Fallon sought to advance mil-to-mil contacts, including combined exercises. In June 2006, Fallon invited PLA observers to the U.S. "Valiant Shield" exercise that brought three aircraft carriers to waters off Guam. Issues for the 110th Congress include whether the Administration has complied with legislation overseeing dealings with the PLA and has determined a program of contacts with the PLA that advances U.S. security interests.