As the Pentagon prepares its first post-9/11 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR)—the critical strategy document that will shape the U.S. military for years to come—the Bush administration confronts difficult choices about the future of defense transformation.

What priorities should the QDR set for defense transformation, and how radically should it seek to change the American way of war? What ideas and insights should guide the QDR, and how can the broader policy community judge its success? How have the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan altered assumptions about the military we need, and how will they impact the QDR process?

These and other questions will be the subject of an AEI panel discussion with distinguished defense strategists and a keynote speech by Ryan Henry, principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy and one of the main architects of the upcoming QDR. AEI resident fellow Thomas Donnelly will report on the findings of his new monograph study, The Military We Need: The Defense Requirements of the Bush Doctrine (AEI Press, May 2005), which will be released at this event.