Recap: "Providing for the Common Defense"

Last week, Admiral (Ret.) Gary Roughead and Ambassador Eric S. Edelman, co-chairs of the National Defense Strategy Commission (NDSC), participated in a public program at the 9/11 Memorial Museum about the commission’s recent report.

After the election of a new president, Congress appoints a bipartisan commission to assess the readiness of the United States’ armed forces to respond to the prevailing military threats of the day. The NDSC also evaluates the resources available to the military in defending against these threats.

In conversation with Executive Vice President and Deputy Director for Museum Programs Clifford Chanin, Admiral Roughead and Ambassador Edelman discussed the panel’s findings, concerns, and recommendations.

In the clip below, Admiral Roughead addresses the landscape of the post-9/11 conflicts in the Middle East.

“One of the things that happened in the aftermath of 9/11 is we became very focused on a particular type of war in the Middle East, and justifiably so. But over nearly 17 years of conflict, we’ve tuned our military to operate and fight in that environment. We have not had to deal with flying in airspace that’s contested by a sophisticated enemy. We have been able to flow logistics to our forces in the Middle East without having to worry about someone trying to shut the sea lanes off that’s carrying those logistics into the fight. And while we were doing that, we have two peer competitors that we refer to in the report but in point of fact, China is the pacing competitor.”

You can view the full program here. Find out more about the spring 2019 public programming season at the 9/11 Memorial Museum.

By 9/11 Memorial Staff