Scathing Report Says America’s Armed Forces Are Suffering From Years of Neglect While China Gains Strength

A blistering new report on “U.S. Military Strength” says “underfunding, prolonged deployments, inconsistent appropriations, and poor discipline in defense program execution have degraded U.S. military readiness.” In the report, the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington says “the dramatic expansion of Chinese military capacity in terms of shipbuilding and munitions production is a serious source of concern for the United States.” The American military, it says, “is not currently postured to prioritize deterring Chinese aggression.”America “capability is still unmatched,” says the report, citing “the incredible performances by the U.S. military in the quickly executed capture” of the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife in Operations Absolute Resolve in January and the blasting of once impenetrable Iranian nuclear facilities in Midnight Hammer in January. Nonetheless, it warns, America “faces a serious risk of being unable to deter — or, if necessary, defeat — China in a protracted conflict.” The report, issued as American and Israeli warplanes were bombing Iranian targets, raises questions as to whether America has enough supplies for a prolonged war in the Middle East while supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression and committing to the defense of its allies in Asia. China, harassing the island democracy of Taiwan with ships and planes, and Russia, in the fourth year of war in Ukraine, are both weighing the impact of “Epic Fury,” the war against Iran, on America’s capabilities elsewhere.“China is taking note of the war in Ukraine, recent U.S. actions in Venezuela and Iran, and broader U.S. military developments and has been adjusting its own posture, training, and investments accordingly,” said the Heritage report. “Russia remains the primary threat to American interests in Europe.”President Trump, in response to warnings from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, that supplies might run low, has said that stockpiled American weapons could last “forever,” but the Heritage report gives an alarming picture of declining American strength worldwide.Entitled “Restoring Peace Through Strength,” it calls for “a renewed focus on warfighting and lethality and the prioritization of those programs essential to establishing deterrence and, if required, defeating all threats to our nation.”The report credits the Trump administration with “arresting the decline of successive administrations and building on the progress made in its first term.” Mr. Trump’s $1.5 trillion defense budget has “arrested a decade of decline” and provides “a path forward toward restoration of the world’s greatest military,” it says, “but significantly more must be done.”The Heritage report echoes the National Defense Strategy promulgated by the Department of Defense in its scathing criticism of previous Democratic administrations. Those administrations, the strategy insists, neglected security at home while holding Israel back in its defense against Iran and its proxies while China gained power in the Indo-Pacific.“Yet rather than empower Israel, the last administration tied its hands,” says the Pentagon assessment. “All the while, China and its military grew more powerful in the Indo-Pacific region, the world’s largest and most dynamic market area, with significant implications for Americans’ own security, freedom, and prosperity.”Heritage, however, differs markedly from the Pentagon in its view of the state of American forces worldwide, particularly in the face of Chinese expansionism.A computer simulation of war with China, it says, shows an America “incapable of continuing operations because of a lack of platforms, ammunition, and/or fuel in less than half the time it takes China to reach the same state.”America is “neither equipped nor arrayed to protect and sustain the Joint Force in a conflict with China in the Indo-Pacific,” the simulation reveals. “Critical U.S. munitions begin to be unavailable within 57 days and are completely exhausted within 35-40 days across most scenarios.”The problem lies in part with elevating national awareness and concern. “An expedited sense of urgency must also be pursued,” says the report, “to expand munition production, logistical and fuel support, and overall resiliency.”

Scathing Report Says America’s Armed Forces Are Suffering From Years of Neglect While China Gains Strength

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