The Department of Defense, Offset Strategies, and the Prioritization of Great-Power Threats: An Organizational Analysis

This work explains that the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) shifted priorities toward the Great-Power threats of Russia and China between 2014 – 2018 largely as a result of organizational factors. It argues that the 2014 – 2018 priority shift belongs to a long-term dynamic in U.S. defense policy dating back to the 1950s, wherein shifting organizational trends affect the timing for the DoD prioritization of Great-Power threats more so than changes to the external threat environment. To move beyond the threat-based narrative, this thesis draws from the Offset Strategy concept to identify two previous iterations of Great-Power prioritization within the DoD: Eisenhower’s New Look strategy (1953-58) and post-Vietnam policy and doctrine reforms (1971-79). A comparative analysis of the two case studies is employed to identify key organizational trends, which are then explicitly applied to a new organizationally-focused assessment of the 2014 – 2018 priority shift that challenges the threat-based narrative. The comparative approach offers new explanatory value by contextualizing Great-Power threat prioritization within the DoD as a discrete organizational phenomenon, driven primarily by a temporally-specific confluence of five internal factors: (1) a service-level threat assessment that gradually gains broader influence; (2) a wave of institutional self-reflection resulting from an ambiguously concluded war; (3) the emergence or maturation of a new military technology deemed conducive to Great-Power deterrence or warfare; (4) an acute reduction to the defense budget; and (5) an associated reorganization of national security processes.