As Congress careens toward yet another fiscal showdown, defense hawks are sounding alarms that the US is facing one of the “most challenging and most dangerous” global environments since World War II.
National security experts are warning that the US military is simply not prepared for a major international conflict despite heightened risk that one will erupt, echoing concerns laid out by a congressional commission earlier this summer.
“Americans have a long tradition of slumbering until the national security crisis hits,” Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Military and Political Power, told The Post Tuesday.
“Deterring aggression is less costly than fighting a war that could have been prevented,” Bowman added. “When deterrence fails, the primary bill payer for this dynamic are the men and women in uniform who do the fighting. We owe them better.”
In a 132-page report published in July, the Commission on the National Defense Strategy had panned President Biden’s 2022 National Defense Strategy and flagged a bevy of weaknesses such as inefficiencies in military spending, a hollowing out of the defense industrial base and red tape that hinders advancement.
“The Commission finds that the US military lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat. It needs to do a better job of incorporating new technology at scale,” the report said.
Congress had tasked the bipartisan panel, led by former Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), a onetime ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, to assess and provide recommendations on the Biden strategy — which was released months after Russia’s unprovoked, bloody invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February of that year.
“The threats the United States faces are the most serious and most challenging the nation has encountered since 1945 and include the potential for a near-term major war,” the report underscored in its executive summary.
“The nation was last prepared for such a fight during the Cold War, which ended 35 years ago. It is not prepared today.”
Bowman stressed that the commission’s analysis was not “hyperbole,” but a “clear-eyed, objective fact-based” view of the situation.
Multiple threats, multiple theaters
Most alarmingly, the commission concluded that “in many ways, China is outpacing” the US and has “largely negated the US military advantage in the Western Pacific.”
Robert Peters, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center for National Security, heartily agreed with the assessment.
“China has the largest navy on the planet. It’s no longer the US Navy, it’s the Chinese navy,” Peters said. “China has the largest stockpile of conventional missiles on the planet. China is the fastest-growing nuclear power on the planet.”
However, the panel’s report added that Beijing is far from the only geopolitical and military risk the US faces and called for a shift in the US military posture to position itself for a “Multiple Theater Force Construct.”
“The 2022 NDS force construct does not sufficiently account for global competition or the very real threat of simultaneous conflict in more than one theater,” the report warned.
“The United States must engage globally with a presence — military, diplomatic, and economic — to maintain stability and preserve influence worldwide, including across the Global South, where China and Russia are extending their reach.”
Peters disagreed with that prescription, warning it might spread the US military too thin and adding that a war with Beijing would be a “near-run thing” if it broke out today.
“Their prognosis is that we need to build a military that can fight two wars simultaneously,” he said. “I have some sympathy for that, but frankly, we need to be focusing right now … on building a force that’s fit to purpose to deter Chinese aggression.”
The commission also cautioned that the Pentagon’s characterization of Russia as an “acute threat” downplays the “ongoing and persistent” danger Moscow poses, particularly in cyberspace.
Blaming lawmakers
Many defense hawks have long been vexed by Congress, and the commission’s report even went so far as to describe the legislative branch as an “impediment” to US security.
“Congress, as it has come to function in recent years, has become a major impediment to national security. It routinely fails in its basic job of funding the government on time,” it said, blaming uncertainty caused by repeated shutdown fights and other brinksmanship that “waste billions of taxpayer dollars.”
The commission also panned the delayed passage of bills to marshal aid to Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel as well as the “one-man Senate chokehold” — led by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) who went unnamed in the report — that caused months of delay in military officials getting promoted.
“In almost every fiscal year since 2011, Congress has failed to provide the Pentagon a full, on-time defense appropriation. When that happens, Congress is creating inefficiencies and uncertainties for contractors, wasting billions of dollars, and delaying the start of vital new programs,” Bowman said.
Members of Congress have warned about national security concerns amid the spending showdown, with some GOP defense hawks privately putting pressure on House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)
Others, such as Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), have raised concerns about US troops coming under fire in hot spots around the world, including the Middle East.
BREAKING: My office just obtained footage of US troops under fire in the Middle East. These attacks occurred within the last couple of weeks/months.
Reminder, Kamala Harris lied to the entire world last week when she said that we currently have no active duty troops deployed in… pic.twitter.com/53REhSjCWg
— Jim Banks (@RepJimBanks) September 17, 2024
Johnson committed to increasing the US defense budget in a Tuesday interview with former Trump National Economic Council Director and current Fox Business Network host Larry Kudlow, saying that “a strong America is good for the whole planet.”
“You will have to increase defense spending?” asked Kudlow, referencing a possible second Trump administration
“Yes,” Johnson agreed.
Hollowing out of the defense industry, recruitment woes
The commission also warned that America’s industrial base is “grossly inadequate to provide the equipment, technology, and munitions needed today, let alone given the demands of great power conflict.”
“We don’t have enough ships, planes, munitions,” agreed Peters. “We don’t have enough air refueling tankers, we don’t have enough heavy airlift. We don’t have enough fast sea lift. And that’s a consequence of basically two decades of war in the Middle East.
“We’ve got real problems when it comes to the number of conventional weapons in the arsenal.”
During the war in Ukraine, the US has been forced to ship over cluster munitions, which can pose dangers to civilians, due to the defense industry’s struggle to keep pace with demand for material that causes less collateral damage.
“The real challenge is … that you can’t just throw more money at defense contractors and say, ‘Build more missiles,’” Peters said. “It takes time to train people up.”
Meanwhile, the Pentagon has acknowledged that the “military services collectively missed recruiting goals by about 41,000 recruits” during fiscal year 2023.
“Although the DoD workforce and all-volunteer force provide an unmatched U.S. advantage, today’s is the smallest force in generations,” the report said. “It is stressed to maintain readiness today and is not sufficient to meet the needs of strategic global competition and multi-theater war.”
Congress has a deadline of 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 30 to fund the government in some capacity. House GOP leadership has pitched a six-month spending patch that has faced resistance from members.
A vote on the measure is expected Wednesday.
Additional reporting by Josh Christenson.
