USMC Kicks Off QDR at Stimson
Wednesday, January 23, 2013 at 10:50AM | BFAD Yesterday Stimson's Budgeting for Foreign Affairs and Defense project hosted Major General Kenneth F. McKenzie for the Marine Corps' first public statement on the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). MajGen McKenzie began his remarks by noting the influence of budget circumstances on this QDR, and the point became thematic throughout the event. Addressing missions that form the military's "connective tissue," like cyber or special operations, McKenzie tied together many of the issues at hand:
The [QDR] model that we've talked about [today], for better or for worse, is a veiled fight for resources [among the services], and its hard then to give adequate justice, perhaps, to those things that make everything possible.
How the services relate to one another through the January 2012 strategic guidance, how those relationships are resourced, and how relationships and resources come together to form the joint force all are issues that this QDR effort clearly will face. We're excited to have kicked off the conversation, honored that MajGen McKenzie and the Marine Corps chose us as the venue to do it, and looking forward to conversations like these enriching the 2014 QDR exercise.