QDR Panel

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) has selected Amb. Eric Edelman and former Sen. Jim Talent (R-MO) to serve on the congressionally mandated panel that assesses the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review.

"Ambassador Edelman and Senator Talent are two of the most respected defense experts in the business," McKeon said in a statement released this afternoon. "They carry the admiration of their colleagues and decades' worth of indispensable expertise in national security. I'm confident they will add value to the panel's review process and provide Congress with recommendations that will help guide our thinking on the Quadrennial Defense Review."

The defense secretary also appoints two panelists, and the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Armed Services committees appoint an additional eight, according to the statement.

"My hope is that the remaining panelists will be seated soon so the group can begin examining the Department of Defense's rationale and process for completing the Quadrennial Defense Review," McKeon said. "The panel is charged with a critical, challenging task.  There has been a significant shift in defense strategy recently, including several rounds of defense cuts in the Budget Control Act and Sequestration, as well as an emerging long-term partnership with our Afghan allies. Ambassador Edelman and Senator Talent are uniquely qualified to meet those challenges," he added.

The statement adds:

Panelists are asked to review the Secretary of Defense's terms of reference, and any other materials providing the basis for, or substantial inputs to, the work of the Department of Defense on the 2013 QDR; conduct an assessment of the assumptions, strategy, findings, and risks in the report of the Secretary of Defense on the 2013 QDR, with particular attention paid to the risks described in that report; conduct an independent assessment of a variety of possible force structures for the Armed Forces, including the force structure reductions mandated under the Budget Control Act.

The panel must submit a report to Congress no later than three months after the Pentagon issues the 2013 QDR, according to the statement.

While the next QDR has not yet begun, possible topics for the Marine Corps may include executing the national strategy under budgetary reductions, force structure and force sizing, Inside the Navy reports this week:

Usually the Marine Corps would already be working on the QDR, but the service will not begin work until March, Maj. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, Marine Corps representative to the QDR, said Jan. 22 during a presentation at the Stimson Center in Washington.

We're going "to see what happens with the continuing resolution, with sequestration, with the debt ceiling, and those decisions on those items are going to actually inform and I think shape the way the QDR is actually going to go," he said.

Another important topic will be the role of forward presence. The QDR may look at how much forward presence is needed, whether it will be permanently forward-based or rotationally based and what the services need to do, McKenzie stated.

"It all boils down to money, it all boils down to force structure and force sizing," he said.

The other services are looking at similar problems. The Office of the Secretary of Defense is beginning to look at these topics internally, McKenzie stated.

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