Hagel's Six Priorities

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will lay out six priorities for budget and strategy deliberations in a speech this morning at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, according to a senior defense official.

"This is Secretary Hagel’s second speech focused on how the Department of Defense must adapt to a changing strategic and fiscal landscape, picking up on the themes of his April National Defense University address," the official said. "The speech this morning reflects clear guidance -- in particular six priorities -- that Secretary Hagel discussed with the Service Chiefs and Combatant Commanders at their meeting last week."

The priorities are informed by lessons learned from the Strategic Choices and Management Review and will serve as inputs to the fiscal year 2015 budget proposal and the upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review, the official said. Hagel will also provide his take on emerging national security challenges and the role DOD should play in U.S. foreign policy goals.

“With the end of the Iraq war and the winding down of the combat mission in Afghanistan, President Obama has been moving the nation off a perpetual war footing -- one in which America’s priorities, policies, and relationships around the world were dominated by the response to 9/11," Hagel will tell the audience, according to excerpts released by the Pentagon.

“No other nation has the will, the power, the capacity, and the network of alliances to lead the international community," the excerpts state. "However, sustaining our leadership will increasingly depend not only on the extent of our great power, but an appreciation of its limits and a wise deployment of our influence.”