The National Military Strategy, released Tuesday for the first time since 2004 by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen, refers to a “strategic inflection point.”
“There’s an inflection point associated with operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, in that we must look forward,” said a senior military officer briefing reporters about the new strategic plan. “We have to achieve our mission there, but we have to strengthen our global responsibilities elsewhere and shape our forces.”
The Obama administration doesn’t scrap the Bush-era focus on combating terrorism – it still prioritizes fighting violent extremists – but it takes another step away from the post-2001 world, into one that is increasingly difficult to predict.
Mullen and his military advisers, who track the world’s riskiest trends in terms of economics, demographics and security foresee a “dynamic and uncertain strategic environment” in which the speed of change is increasing – such as the unrest that quickly spread from Tunisia to Egypt in the volatile Middle East and tilting more toward Asia and the Pacific.
Like the recent economic conference in Davos, Switzerland, showed that the United States must begin to rely on partnerships to overcome the deficiencies in its own economy, the Pentagon wants to rely more on military partnerships.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/49116.html#ixzz1DUB6BquH"
*********************************
