Arlington, VA | January 21, 2025 — The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies is pleased to announce a new entry in its Policy Paper series, A Call for a New NSC-68 and Goldwater Nichols Reform by Richard B. Andres, Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Mitchell Institute, with Gen T. Michael Moseley, USAF (Ret.) and former Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, and Maj Gen Larry Stutzriem, USAF (Ret.) and Director of Research at the Mitchell Institute.
Deficiencies of the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Reform Act (GNA) are a root cause of under-resourcing our critical warfighting forces. This legislation restructured the DOD, resulting in a bureaucratic structure that severely restricts the ability of the services to prioritize long-term strategic threats in favor of the immediate, non-combat demands of the combatant commands and civilian defense bureaucracy. Consequently, there is a pervasive pattern within the military of neglect of long-term defense procurement strategies and requirements.
The resulting failure of U.S. forces to modernize and recapitalize has emboldened America’s adversaries to use violence to pursue their expansionist goals, setting the United States on a path toward a great power war. To prevent this and retain the current rules-based world order, the U.S. government and defense establishment must immediately take four actions:
1. Initiate a comprehensive reassessment of national security, objectively evaluating the prevailing threat landscape and acknowledging the shortcomings of existing strategies.
2. Take immediate action to restructure the DOD and correct the organizational deficiencies that hindered past reform efforts aimed at countering the threats posed by China and Russia.
3. Increase the defense budget to bring it in line with the evolving security landscape.
4. Evaluate defense capabilities and shift investment among the services based on a cost-per-effect assessment. This requires a holistic review of the roles and missions of service contributions to the National Defense Strategy.
The Mitchell Institute Policy Papers is a series presenting new thinking and policy proposals to respond to the emerging security and aerospace power challenges of the 21st century. These papers are written for lawmakers and their staffs, policy professionals, business and industry, academics, journalists, and the informed public.
For media inquiries, email our publications team at publications.mitchellaerospacepower@afa.org
Copies of Policy Papers can be downloaded at https://mitchellaerospacepower.org/category/publications/