4. Department of Defense · Major
Adopt a two-war force defense strategy
Printed page 113 4. Department of Defense
“Adopt a two-war force defense strategy with scenarios for each service that will allow the Air Force to attain the resources it requires by developing a force-sizing construct that reflects what is required to accomplish strategic objectives.”
What has happened
- Not started
The strategy that would have adopted it was published, and it adopts the opposite. Read in full, the 2026 National Defense Strategy answers none of the Quote's three limbs: "two-war", "force-sizing", "force planning", "planning construct" and "construct" appear **zero** times across the complete 34-page text, "Air Force" appears zero times, and "scenario" appears once — in the sentence that deflects the ask. The strategy concedes the problem the Quote is about, under a section headed "The Simultaneity Problem and Implications for Allied Burden-Sharing": "It is only prudent for the United States and its allies to be prepared for the possibility that one or more potential opponents might act together in a coordinated or opportunistic fashion across multiple theaters." It then resolves it by allied spending rather than by sizing U.S. forces for two wars — "Such a scenario would be less of a concern if our allies and partners had spent recent decades investing adequately in their defenses. But they did not" — and concludes that "if our allies and partners invest properly in their defenses, consistent with the new global standard set at the Hague Summit, together we can generate more than enough forces to deter potential opponents, including if they act concurrently." No force-sizing construct, no per-service scenarios, and no resourcing case for the Air Force built on either.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
Instrument: the 2026 National Defense Strategy, which is the document a two-war force-sizing construct would have to appear in. It was read in full and states no construct at all — see the event note for the term counts and the passage that stands in place of one.
This item’s first note was wrong about why, not about what (corrected 2026-09-06). It recorded that “the 2026 NDS could not be read directly (war.gov 403)” and rested the Status on a Lawfare summary with no Evidence at all. Two errors: the strategy was never on war.gov — it is on media.defense.gov — and the Department’s hosts are not a wall in the first place: they open to a request made the way a browser makes it. The PDF is 6.9 MB and reads cleanly. This was established on 2026-09-03, and the strategy was written back onto #133–#139, but those sit on printed page 94 and this item on page 113, so it fell outside that earlier review and kept the stale note for three days. The Lawfare lead is retired, because a Secondary source is not cited once the document itself is the citation; the conclusion it supported was right and is unchanged.
Earlier negative searches, recorded 2026-08-27 and not re-run: FY2026 NDAA text for “two-war”, “force-sizing” and “force planning construct” (0 hits each); Federal Register full text for “two-war” since 2025-01-20 (0); titles of White House presidential actions and of presidential documents in the Federal Register for “defense strategy” (none); titles of bills in Congress for “two-war” (none).
Read alongside #134 (prioritize the force planning construct to defeat a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, partial) and #135 (make burden-sharing central to defense strategy, done): one document answers all three, and what it withholds from this item is exactly what it grants to #135.
- Action
- issue
- Object
- two-war force defense strategy
- ID
- 205