With concern that the military was not conducting the types of fundamental rethinking of strategies, policies, and force structures required by the new security environment, the National Defense Panel was created as an integral part of the rethinking process under the Military Force Structure Review Act of 1996. The NDP was established as an independent body reviewing the findings of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) of the defense strategy, force structure, force modernization plans, infrastructure, and other elements of the defense program and policies devising a revised defense program through 2005. This report surveyed the experience of NDP-1 focusing on the rational behind the formulation of the panel, the NDP’s staff process, and the panel’s message as codified in the final report released in 1997. The NDP was established as an independent effort providing guidance on matters pertaining to the long-term national security of the United States. The report was primarily intended for congressional and Pentagon staff with an interest in the workings of future NDPs and future NDP management teams. Over time, the NDP has had significant impact. Of particular interest was the report’s focus on the need for the Department of Defense (DOD) to accelerate its reform efforts. The DOD explored ways to benefit from the NDPs recommendations on transformation and examine suggestions, such as joint experimentation. By the spring of 1998, plans to “institutionalize” the NDP as a regular part of the long-term defense and national security planning process had developed on Capital Hill. The intent of this report was to reveal and highlight ways to build on the experience of the first NDP to improve the process that develops the defense and national security strategy. In preparing the report, dozens of people who participated in the NDP were interviewed. A number of important conclusions were reached to inform the thinking and debate over how to organize and conduct future long-term defense planning. These conclusions included: (1) the relationship of the NDP to the QDR was critical; (2) the NDP should maintain its focus on defense issues but should do more to integrate its findings and recommendations into the broader national security agenda of the United States; (3) planning and establishing NDPs should be done earlier in the planning cycle; (4) the disadvantages of creating a permanent NDP; (5) NDPs should be required to deal more systematically with resource constraints than NDP-1 did; (6) NDP panelists should be drawn from a wider array of senior experts; (7) the necessity to invest in a robust management structure for the NDP; and (8) the importance of follow-through.