Review Preview

The 2010 QDR just might be preceded by a brand-new, sweeping national security review.

Experts say President-elect Barack Obama’s team is likely to conduct a new kind of national security review that spans the entire U.S. government. Call it what you will -- NSR, quadrennial NSR, or QNSR; it could be a very big deal.

“With the rise in importance of stability operations and the Obama team’s desire to increase the role of ‘soft power,’ this is an idea that is likely to get a warm reception,” says Andrew Krepinevich of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Such a review could be done without delaying the schedule for the QDR, he said.

Opinions differ, however, on how soon such a review can be mustered, as Inside the Pentagon reports today.

Also today: Our coverage of telling essays by Michèle Flournoy, who co-chairs Obama’s DOD transition team, and Robert Gates, who will continue to lead the Pentagon. (Her essay is here; his is here.)

And see this story on the three-step process that Flournoy recommended for developing the new national security strategy. She outlined it this past summer in a book published by the Center for New American Security.