{"id":41388,"date":"2020-08-10T16:24:40","date_gmt":"2020-08-10T16:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2020\/08\/10\/flournoy-next-defense-secretary-needs-big-bets-to-boost-eroding-deterrence\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T23:19:52","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T23:19:52","slug":"flournoy-next-defense-secretary-needs-big-bets-to-boost-eroding-deterrence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/pentagon\/2020\/08\/10\/flournoy-next-defense-secretary-needs-big-bets-to-boost-eroding-deterrence\/","title":{"rendered":"Flournoy: Next defense secretary needs \u2018big bets\u2019 to boost \u2018eroding\u2019 deterrence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">WASHINGTON \u2014 The next U.S. defense secretary must be prepared to invest heavily in game-changing technology, even if it comes at the cost of existing capabilities, in order to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/congress\/2020\/01\/16\/congress-wrestles-with-deterring-chinabeyond-nukes\/\" target=_blank>maintain a credible deterrent <\/a>for China and Russia, according to former Pentagon official Mich\u00e8le Flournoy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cOur ability to deter is \u2014 it\u2019s not gone, but it\u2019s an eroding asset,\u201d Flournoy, who is seen as a top contender for the job of defense secretary should former Vice President Joe Biden win the November presidential election, said at the Aspen Security Forum on Aug. 6. \u201cAnd we\u2019ve <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/pentagon\/2020\/07\/31\/stratcom-now-doing-daily-deterrence-risk-analysis-for-all-combatant-commands\/\" target=_blank>got to pay attention now<\/a> to making sure that we attend to that and invest in\u201d needed capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI think there\u2019s, sort of, two parallel efforts that have to happen. One is investments that may take a decade to be fully realized and integrated into the force. Another is the question of, what can we do in the next five years with what we have, but use it differently,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that requires what she termed \u201cbig bets\u201d that may take a while to come to fruition, but which need investment in the near term to get moving \u2014 investment that may require cutting legacy forces to free up money from a defense budget that has likely peaked.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/coronavirus\/2020\/03\/26\/public-health-must-be-part-of-national-security-calculus-says-former-defense-official\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/guard_coronavirus.jpg.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">Public health must be part of national security calculus, says Flournoy<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">Mich\u00e8le Flournoy, undersecretary of defense for policy at the start of the Obama administration, says the COVID-19 pandemic should change how the U.S. defined national security.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cDefense budgets are probably going to flatten in the coming years, no matter who wins the election,\u201d Flournoy said. \u201cThat means you have to make trade-offs and you have to make hard decisions, which means you probably need to buy fewer legacy forces in order to invest in the technologies that will actually make the force that you keep more relevant, more survivable, more combat effective, and better able to underwrite deterrence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While noting there is a \u201cwhole laundry list\u201d of future technologies on which to make big bets, Flournoy highlighted two she considers particularly important. The first is a \u201cnetwork of networks\u201d for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/opinion\/2020\/07\/09\/moving-further-into-the-information-age-with-joint-all-domain-command-and-control\/\" target=_blank>secure communications as well as command and control<\/a> that can survive an attack from any domain \u2014 space, air, naval, land and cyberspace \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/home\/2016\/03\/25\/china-seen-as-threat-in-flournoy-paper\/\" target=_blank>that China<\/a> could seek to use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe need a command-and-control system that is powered by artificial intelligence to enable that kind of resilience in a much more contested environment,\u201d Flournoy explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The second is greater investment in unmanned systems in order to augment manned capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cChina has created a set of threat rings that are very, very lethal places for U.S. forces to go,\u201d she said. \u201cWe want to augment our manned forces with unmanned systems that are still controlled by a human being, but that dramatically improve &#8230; our ability to project power to defend an interest or an ally who\u2019s under threat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As to the second track, Flournoy said \u201cit\u2019s really about changing our mindset and how we imagine using what we have. And so I think there are ways in which new operational concepts that could take, you know, platforms \u2014 we have munitions, we have intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance resources \u2026 you put them together in new ways to get a better deterrent effect than what we have today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In an April op-ed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/opinion\/commentary\/2020\/04\/01\/breaking-the-logjam-how-the-pentagon-can-build-trust-with-congress\/\" target=_blank>published by Defense News<\/a>, Flournoy and co-author Gabrielle Chefitz argued that the Pentagon needs to break a logjam with Congress and find ways to build greater trust with legislators. She picked up on that theme with her Aspen comments, noting the Defense Department needs to improve relations with Capitol Hill for this plan to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cSometimes when the department is trying to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/pentagon\/2019\/08\/28\/night-court-comes-to-the-pentagon\/\" target=_blank>make those trade-offs<\/a> to move money from one program to another, if they don\u2019t do a good job explaining that to Congress they sort of get the hand from Congress,\u201d Flournoy said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe really have to make Congress much more of a strategic partner in this exercise. They need to understand why, [that] we know what we\u2019re facing, the urgency. They need to be invited into the war games and to the simulations and to the experimentation, and understand why these trade-offs are being made &#8230; to try to get better buy-in and frankly leadership from some of the key champions on the Hill.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;You have to make trade-offs and you have to make hard decisions,&#8221; says Mich\u00e8le Flournoy, seen as a top contender for the job of defense secretary should former Vice President Joe Biden win the November presidential election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":83169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":19,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"2":{"categories":["pentagon-congress","news"],"primary_category":"pentagon-congress"}}},"categories":[160,36,19],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3378],"class_list":["post-41388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-newsletters","category-pentagon"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"VV7REVRRH5H7HACHKPQ2EFGYUU","arc_canonical_url":"\/pentagon\/2020\/08\/10\/flournoy-next-defense-secretary-needs-big-bets-to-boost-eroding-deterrence\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented 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