The next dozen years or so paint a grim picture for Pentagon leaders. Even if sequestration is not reimposed next year, budgets won't be big enough to maintain forces at their current size and strength. At the same time, adversaries are making rapid technological advances, putting them at near parity with many US capabilities. To confront these challenges, defense leaders will have to change their thinking about how to prepare for and fight future wars and what "winning" looks like. While the US was preoccupied with Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 13 years-wars that pulled resources from developing next generation capabilities-other militaries caught up. Precision weapons, battle networks, remotely piloted aircraft, space assets, and all the other sinews of an American-style modern military have proliferated and are now in foreign hands and even in those of some nonstate actors. These rivals have shown they can develop (or steal) and field technology with gathering speed-faster than the ponderous Pentagon weapon-buying apparatus can match.
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