Books by U.S. Army War College

In the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review, military planners speak at great length about the importance of rebalancing our armed forces. As a result of the Budget Control Act of 2011, our U.S. Armed Forces have absorbed significant budget cuts, which are projected to continue into 2016. Not surprisingly, a major theme of the Quadrennial Defense Review is the necessity of making tough choices in a period of fiscal austerity.1 As Dr. Manjikian's analysis points out, however, many of the themes raised by policymakers, military analysts and the general public in relation to this new politics of austerity are not actually new. Rather, such conversations have taken place at the end of U.S. military actions after the Korean War, in Vietnam, and at the end of the Cold War.

The U.S. Army and the British Army are undergoing similar processes of rebalancing between regular and reserve personnel. The British armed forces are currently at a more advanced stage of this change than the United States, and consequently there are useful lessons to be drawn from their experience to date. This is particularly the case in a time of growing defense austerity; in addition to their smaller scale, the United Kingdom's (UK) armed forces have great familiarity with undertaking missions and maintaining close to full-spectrum capability while subject to severe and apparently insurmountable resource constraints. Studying how this is made possible may also provide valuable pointers for a U.S. defense force in an era of sequestration and budget cuts.