President Bush's August 1991 National Security Strategy of the United States described the "minimum essential military force—the Base Force," which was further elaborated in the Pentagon's January 1992 National Military Strategy of the United States and the 1992 Joint Military Net Assessment. The strategy behind the Base Force remained predicated on continued forward presence, prepositioning equipment, and the need to "deal with" [contain] "regional contingencies—including possibly a limited, conventional threat to Europe" [a possibility that could be posed only by the former Soviet Union]. Predictably, force structure adjustments from Cold War levels reflected extreme caution about the possibility of a resurgent Russia.

Many hoped that the new Clinton Administration would make significant adjustments that reflected the changed international climate. On September 1, 1993, the Administration unveiled its Bottom-Up Review (BUR). Changes from the Cold War and Base Force thinking were hard to detect. The BUR envisioned a strategy in which the United States had to be prepared to fight and win, without allies, two major regional conflicts occurring almost simultaneously. The supporting force structure was reduced, but the "bottom line" barely moved. 

The glacial pace of change continued. On September 28, 1993, at the National Press Club in Washington, General Powell told reporters, "I do not see a nation out there right now with the military capacity to directly challenge the armed forces of the United States." Yet for FY1994, which began 3 days later, the Defense Budget stood at $268.8 Billion(as expressed in constant 1997 dollars), still some 92% of the Cold War average.¹

Compared to the greatly reduced potential military challenges to the United States, the continuing disarray of the Russian economy and its military forces (down to only 1.5 million troops in 1996 and reportedly headed toward 1.2 million next year),² the U.S. reductions have been minimal. And although the BUR's strategy was proclaimed to be a change from the Bush Admin-istration's, in fact it retained the assumptions that a permanent forward presence, prepositioning, and containment of known threats (the six "rogue" states) and future unspecified threats (widely interpreted to be Russia and China) were necessary for U.S. security.

Many in Congress, albeit for different reasons, soon became dissatisfied with the slow pace of

• November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall falls. East German borders are opened.

• September 5, 1990, the Soviets agree to withdraw their forces from East Germany by 1994.

• June 19, 1991, Soviet forces complete their withdrawal from Hungary. Two days later all Soviet forces are out of Czechoslovakia. 

• August 21, 1991, after two days the attempted coup d'etat by the Soviet old guard against Mikhail Gorbachev collapses. Before the end of the month, six Soviet Republics join Georgia and the three Baltic States in declaring their independence from Moscow.

• October 3, 1991, Germany is reunified.

• December 31, 1991, the Soviet Union ceases to exist. 

• January 15, 1992, eleven of the former Soviet Republics form the Commonwealth of Independent States.

To overcome this inertia, and to ensure that periodic reviews would be conducted in the future, Congress established the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) process. It requires every new Administration to conduct "a comprehensive examination of the defense strategy, force structure, force modernization plans, infrastructure, budget plan, and other elements of the defense program and policies...." 

The legislation directs that the QDR report cover 12 points plus a catch-all "any other matter" category. All of these mandates ultimately rest on three items: the definition(s) of the threat, the approved strategy to thwart the identified threats, and the force structure needed to implement the strategy.³

Sensitive to the charges that the Base Force and BUR were both done entirely within the Pentagon, Congress also authorized an independent, nonpartisan National Defense Panel (NDP) to conduct an interim and final assessment of the Pentagon's efforts and to make its own "independent assessment of a variety of possible force structures...through the year 2010 and beyond." The time lines for the 1996-1997 QDR process began December 1, 1996, the date by which the NDP was to have been named, and are to run until December 15, 1997, when the Secretary of Defense must submit all reports and assessments to the Congress. Because some influential members of Congress objected to four of the nine original

"The purpose of the QDR will be to formulate a defense posture responsive to the National Security Strategy which can serve as a roadmap for managing defense into the 21st century."

John Hamre

DOD Comptroller

December 16, 1996