Quadrennial Defense Review Released Today

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—February 3, 2006—Washington, D.C.—

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has made public the content of the Quadrennial Defense Review Report (QDR) today.  The QDR is a comprehensive overview of U.S. defense strategy.  The QDR serves to outline what senior Defense Department leadership believe is the status of the Department today and where it needs to go in order to fulfill its responsibilities to the American people for future defense needs.  The report is designed to look out twenty years. The content of the 2006 QDR reflects a process of change that has gathered momentum since the release of the predecessor QDR in 2001, a document released only one week after the September 11th attacks and written outside the purview of a nation at war. This report is informed by the challenges and realities of five years of fighting the Global War on Terror and the long struggle against terror, as well as conventional threats, ahead.  The ideas and the proposals in the 2006 QDR provide the analytical structure for change in and improvement of the U.S. Armed Forces.  

“I look forward to reviewing the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR).  As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, one of our responsibilities is to interpret the content of the QDR as it relates to future Defense Department policy.  I look forward to working with my colleagues in the House Armed Services Committee on the issues presented in this report,” Bordallo stated.

What is notable in the QDR is a statement that the Navy recognizes the need for a greater fleet presence in the Pacific, consistent with the growth of global trade and transport in the Asia-Pacific region.  Consequently, the QDR reports that the Navy plans to adjust its force posture and basing to provide at least six operationally available and sustainable carriers and sixty percent of its submarines in the Pacific to support engagement, presence and deterrence operations in the region.      

“An enhanced Navy presence in the Asia-Pacific region is necessary,” Bordallo stated. “Guam continues to stand ready to provide the U.S. Navy forward basing to respond to threats in the region as the Navy makes specific decisions consistent with the themes of this report.”     

The QDR is scheduled to be officially communicated to the Congress this week.  The QDR was originally mandated by Congress to address the discrepancy between the stated defense strategy and the forces and resources that were available to implement it. The first such review took place in 1997.  Congress also legislated a parallel review to be conducted by an outside panel of experts--the National Defense Panel. In 2001 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld employed the QDR as a means of transforming the way the Department of Defense (DOD) would conduct operations. His basic proposition was that “a new strategy for America's defense...would embrace uncertainty and contend with surprise, a strategy premised on the idea that to be effective abroad, America must be safe at home.”

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Contact:  Alicia Chon in Washington, D.C. at (202) 225-1188 or Joseph E. Duenas at (671) 477-4272/4.