How Much Capability Does a Capabilities Based Force Need

摘要

In 1990, with the Soviet threat fading, General Powell knew it was time to act and lead the military past the Cold War. His solution, as noted above, was the creation of the 'Base Force'. Absent a clear and quantifiable threat, the Base Force focused on 'capabilities' needed for the future. The resulting change to the Defense Department's weapons acquisition requirement's process was a major break from almost five decades of cold War 'threat based' analysis. The thesis of this paper is that moving from threat based to capabilities based requirements has had an unexpected and profound consequence - services now have unprecedented 'capability' to compete in each other's mission areas.