	Introduction

The Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) is a statutorily mandated strategic review process conducted by the Department of Defense (DOD) every four years. The review process took place against the backdrop of ongoing evolution in the broader strategic environment, marked fiscal constraints, and recent adjustments in DOD's strategic direction heralded in its 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance (DSG) and its 2013 Strategic Choices and Management Review (SCMR) process. In theory, a QDR process, its decisions, and its accompanying report might accomplish a number of things:
Reassessing and refining DOD's strategic direction, including the ends, ways, and means required to meet DOD's mandate to "protect and defend" the nation; Ensuring, through a highly participatory process, that DOD's strategic vision is shared and uniformly understood across the Department; Building, through broad participation, a shared understanding within DOD of the most appropriate internal division of labor—for example, across Military Services, the Active and Reserve Components, and the Special Operations and conventional communities—for executing defense strategy; Generating sufficient internal guidance to inform force planning, force employment, and resourcing decisions; Synchronizing DOD strategic guidance vertically, with national-level strategic guidance such as the national security strategy, and horizontally with the strategies of other U.S. Government agencies; Facilitating Congressional oversight by clarifying and articulating the strategic thinking that underpins DOD requests for resources and authorities; Informing the American people—the voters and taxpayers who provide the resources—about DOD's strategic vision and intent; Shaping the global security environment—including assuring Allies and partners and encouraging potential adversaries to change their calculus—by communicating DOD's strategic vision and intent; and Generating a sufficiently rigorous discussion, within DOD, within the Administration, and between the Executive and Legislative Branches, of "risk" –potential hazards resulting from deliberate choices not to plan or resource against certain concerns—including the likelihood, imminence, and severity of impact on U.S. national interests of such potential hazards. Then it raises a series of issues that Congress may choose to consider in evaluating the QDR mandate, the 2014 QDR, and DOD's strategic direction more broadly. QDR Mandate

The nature of the conduct of the QDR, the contents of the QDR report, and the terms of reference for the QDR's independent oversight body, the National Defense Panel (NDP), are prescribed by Section 118 of Title 10, U.S. Code. The process is required to "delineate a national defense strategy"; to determine the force structure, modernization plans, and infrastructure required to implement that strategy; and to craft an associated budget plan. The mandate further requires that the Secretary of Defense submit a report based on that review to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees in the year following the year in which the QDR is conducted, no later than the date on which the President delivers his budget request to Congress. The QDR report is required to address 16 specific points, as well as any additional items the Secretary deems appropriate. Issues for Congress

In conducting oversight activities regarding DOD's 2014 QDR, the QDR statutory mandate, and U.S. defense strategy in general, Congress may choose to consider the following issues. Defense strategy might balance the relative priority of these various desired effects in any number of ways. Force Planning Construct

As a rule, QDRs revisit and update DOD's force planning construct (FPC)—a shorthand statement of the number and type of missions the force is expected to be able to accomplish simultaneously, which is used to shape and size the force.
By statute, the Department of Defense (DOD) is required, by Section 118, Title 10, U.S. Code, to submit to Congress a report based on its most recent Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) process, no later than the President submits his budget request for Fiscal Year 2015. The "2014 QDR" review process took place against the backdrop of key changes in the global strategic context, recent evolutions in U.S. strategic priorities, and a tighter fiscal context. The 2014 process also drew on a series of recent reviews and guidance documents—a 2011 DOD "comprehensive review" initially launched by Secretary of Defense Gates and continued by Secretary of Defense Panetta; the January 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance document (DSG), and the 2013 review process known as the Strategic Choices and Management Review (SCMR).
Statute prescribes that DOD, in each QDR process, "delineate a national defense strategy;" determine the force structure, modernization plans, and infrastructure required to implement that strategy; and craft an associated budget plan. Statute also spells out 16 items—as well as any other matter the Secretary considers appropriate—that the QDR report must address.
More broadly, a QDR process, and its associated report, may play any number of helpful roles: refining and updating defense strategic thinking; forging a shared vision within DOD of both priorities, and roles and missions; helping ensure a common view across the Executive Branch, of the role of DOD, in cooperation with other Departments and agencies, in support of broader national security strategy; facilitating Congressional oversight; communicating a sense of defense strategy to the American people, the taxpayers; and signaling intent abroad, to reassure Allies and partners and deter or dissuade potential foes.
In evaluating the 2014 QDR report and current defense strategy more broadly, Congress may choose to consider a number of issues:
the role of the United States on the world stage; changes and trajectories in the global security environment; DOD's mission and geographic priorities; the extent and nature for U.S. global military presence; the extent and nature of U.S. international military partnerships; the strategic rationale for deterrence; the force planning construct (FPC), a shorthand statement of the number and type of missions the force is expected to be able to accomplish simultaneously, which is used to shape and size the force; the division of labor among Military Services and components in executing the strategy; and the nature and extent of the risks that defense strategy assumes.
Congress may also wish to consider the extent of DOD's compliance with the statutory mandate for the QDR, the appropriateness of the mandate itself; and DOD's tools and approaches for crafting strategy in general.