Every four years, the military issues the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) Report, a document that is key in setting military goals and priorities. This 79-page report, issued September 30, 2001, is divided into seven main sections (e.g., Defense Strategy, Revitalizing the DoD Establishment) and includes a statement by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The report explains that, "Even before the attack of September 11, 2001, the senior leaders of the Defense Department set out to establish a new strategy for America's defense that would embrace uncertainty and contend with surprise, a strategy premised on the idea that to be effective abroad, America must be safe at home." In the service of that new strategy, the QDR outlines DoD's four main policy objectives: to assure allies and friends of the US' steadfastness and military capability, to dissuade adversaries from undertaking programs potentially threatening to the US, to deter threats by increasing "the capacity to swiftly defeat attacks and impose severe penalties for aggression," and when deterrence fails, to decisively defeat any adversary. A central objective of this review was to shift the basis of defense planning. The report explains that overall the strategy seeks to move the US military "from a 'threat-based' model that has dominated thinking in the past to a 'capabilities-based' model for the future."
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