President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.
The Department of Defense (DoD) must make important strategic choices about the future. This requires understanding the future environment, determining future objectives, and shaping the department’s capabilities to meet future challenges. Each of these steps are difficult, but changing the allocation of resources is particularly challenging. For new/reprioritized capabilities to come into being, the Pentagon’s Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) system will need to operate.
This book contains a wealth of specific information about Congressional influence on the Navy. In my opinion, it will be especially useful for readers who are already familiar with the era in question, and are simply looking for reference material to support other research. Yet while general students of U.S. naval politics will find much to mull over in this book, only a specialist would take it on a long voyage.
