The Annual Estimate of the Strategic Security Environment serves as a guide for academics and practitioners in the defense communty on the current challenges and opportunities in the strategic environment. This year’s publication outlines key strategic issues across the four broad themes of Regional Challenges and Opportunities, Domestic Challenges, Institutional Challenges, and Domains Impacting US Strategic Advantage. These themes represent a wide range of topics affecting national security and provide a global assessment of the strategic environment to help focus the defense community on research and publication. Strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China and the implications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine remain dominant challenges to US national security interests across the globe. However, the evolving security environment also presents new and unconventional threats, such as cyberattacks, terrorism, transnational crime, and the implications of rapid technological advancements in fields such as artificial intelligence. At the same time, the US faces domestic and institutional challenges in the form of recruiting and retention shortfalls in the all-volunteer force, the prospect of contested logistics in large-scale combat operations, and the health of the US Defense Industrial Base. Furthermore, rapidly evolving security landscapes in the Arctic region and the space domain pose unique potential challenges to the Army’s strategic advantage.
Strategic Research Topics: A Compendium to the
2023 Annual Estimate of the Strategic Environment
This list of strategic issues offers insight into the particularized matters impacting defense organizations. Senior leaders across the highest echelons of Army and Department of Defense organizations provided input. This list and the narrative found in SSI’s Annual Estimate of the Strategic Security Environment will help focus the research community on topics important to the Army.