Pentagon's New $2.1 Billion Strategy Is Deliberately Incomprehensible, Which Officials Say Is Exactly the Point

ARLINGTON, VA — The Department of Defense announced this week the formal adoption of what it is calling its most sophisticated strategic doctrine in a generation — a defense posture so deliberately and comprehensively unclear that senior military officials cannot explain it, allied generals cannot interpret it, and members of the Congressional subcommittee that approved its $2.1 billion implementation budget have each, independently, described it as meaning something different.

This, the Pentagon stresses, is working exactly as intended.

The doctrine, officially titled the Framework for Calibrated Posture Indeterminacy in Multidomain Contested Environments — or FCPIMCE, which no one at the briefing attempted to say aloud — is described in its own documentation as "a strategic orientation defined by the deliberate non-disclosure of strategic orientation." The executive summary, which runs to 94 pages, concludes that the United States will respond to threats in ways that are "proportionate, resolute, and fundamentally unspecifiable."

"We are sending a clear message," said General Thomas Brack, Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Communications, at a press conference held in a room with no windows. "That message is: we may or may not respond, in ways we cannot characterize, at times we will not confirm, using capabilities we prefer not to describe. Our adversaries must now plan for everything. That is the point."

A reporter asked whether American allies would also not know what the United States planned to do.

"Correct," said General Brack. "That's the sophisticated part."

The Doctrine Explained, Briefly, and Then Made More Confusing

The intellectual lineage of FCPIMCE traces, according to the Pentagon's own briefing materials, to the Cold War concept of strategic ambiguity, in which a nation deliberately obscures certain red lines to preserve flexibility. What the new doctrine adds, its architects explain, is a second layer: ambiguity about whether any ambiguity exists at all.

"Classic strategic ambiguity tells adversaries: we might respond, we might not," explained Dr. Leonard Voss, a senior fellow at the Defense Advanced Concepts Directorate, which is itself a body whose function no one outside it has ever fully mapped. "What we've done is add a meta-layer. Now adversaries must ask not only 'will they respond?' but 'do they have a position on whether they have a position?' The cognitive burden this places on hostile actors is, theoretically, immense."

When asked what the cognitive burden was, specifically, Dr. Voss said that was classified.

When asked if it was classified, he said he couldn't confirm that either.

When asked if that itself was part of the doctrine, he smiled in a way that suggested either yes or no.

What Congress Thinks It Approved

The $2.1 billion implementation budget for FCPIMCE was approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee in a 14-3 vote last spring. Interviews with committee members conducted by this publication suggest the vote was, in retrospect, somewhat impressionistic.

Senator Patricia Holm (R-TX), who chairs the Subcommittee on Readiness, said the doctrine was "a bold approach to deterrence that makes clear we will not be pushed around." Senator David Ng (D-WA), a committee member who voted in favor, described it as "a nuanced posture acknowledging that rigid commitments can be counterproductive in a multipolar world." Senator Carl Burge (R-FL) said he understood it to mean "we're going to hit them hard if they start something."

All three were describing the same document.

A fourth senator, who requested anonymity, said he voted yes because the briefing was at 7:45 a.m. and he had not yet had coffee and the general presenting seemed very confident.

"The number was $2.1 billion," the senator said. "I've approved larger things I understood less. At least this one had a name."

Allied Reactions Range from Confusion to Slightly Different Confusion

The rollout of FCPIMCE to NATO partners has proceeded, according to State Department readouts, "productively," which in diplomatic language typically means the meetings concluded without anyone leaving the room.

A senior British defense official, speaking on background, described the briefing he received as "the most thorough explanation of nothing I have ever witnessed, and I sat through Brexit."

A French military attaché said France "understood the doctrine completely," then declined to say what it meant, which American officials later described as "possibly an instance of France adopting the doctrine independently, which is actually ideal."

Germany requested written clarification. The Pentagon responded with a 200-page document whose cover page reads: "Clarification of FCPIMCE Posture Parameters — FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY — NOTE: This document does not constitute a clarification of FCPIMCE posture parameters."

Germany has requested further clarification.

The $2.1 Billion Question

The implementation budget breaks down, according to materials obtained through a Freedom of Information request that took eleven months to fulfill and arrived substantially redacted, into several broad categories: $780 million for "doctrine integration infrastructure," $540 million for "strategic communications development," $430 million for "allied coordination and indeterminacy harmonization," and $350 million listed simply as "capability ambiguation," a term that does not appear in any publicly available military glossary.

When asked what capability ambiguation means, a Pentagon spokesperson said the term was "self-explanatory in context."

When asked what context, the spokesperson said that was part of the doctrine.

Dr. Voss, reached again by phone, said the $2.1 billion figure should be understood not as a cost but as "a signal — or possibly not a signal — of commitment to a posture that is either robust or deliberately understated, depending on what interpretation best serves our interests at any given moment."

He then added that he had said too much, and possibly too little, and hung up.

Experts Say Something

Defense analysts contacted for this article offered assessments that ranged from grudging respect to barely concealed bewilderment.

"There is a legitimate strategic tradition here," said one former NSC official. "Ambiguity has real deterrent value. The question is whether you can deliberately not know your own strategy without eventually discovering that you don't have one."

A retired four-star general, who spent 34 years in the Army and asked not to be named, was more direct: "I've read the doctrine three times. I genuinely cannot tell you if it's brilliant or if someone submitted a Mad Lib and no one caught it before the budget vote."

The Pentagon, in a statement, said both possibilities were consistent with FCPIMCE.

Implementation begins in the third quarter of next year, or possibly the second, or at a time that will not be disclosed in advance, which officials confirm is also part of the plan.