{"id":260112,"date":"2022-10-20T07:42:05","date_gmt":"2022-10-20T07:42:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=260112"},"modified":"2022-10-21T07:09:58","modified_gmt":"2022-10-21T07:09:58","slug":"us-military-rated-as-weak-may-not-be-able-to-win-one-war-as-tensions-grow-with-china-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=260112","title":{"rendered":"US military rated as \u2018weak,\u2019 may not be able to win one war, as tensions grow with China, Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Caitlin Doombos \u2013 New York Post Oct 18, 2022<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The US military may not be able to win one war \u2014 let alone two \u2014 as the Pentagon struggles to keep its forces equipped against potential threats from China and Russia, according a new report on American military strength.<\/p>\n

Years of underfunding and \u201cpoorly defined priorities\u201d has led the military to become \u201cweak relative to the force needed to defend national interests on the global stage,\u201d the conservative Heritage Foundation said in its annual \u201cIndex of U.S. Military Strength.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c[T]he current U.S. military force is at significant risk of not being able to meet the demands of a single major regional conflict,\u201d the report said. \u201cThe force would probably not be able to do more and is certainly ill-equipped to handle two nearly simultaneous [major conflicts.]\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, the possibility of two-front fighting has increased as Russia continues to wage war on Ukraine and China grows increasingly aggressive in the Pacific, according to the report.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the aggregate, the United States\u2019 military posture can only be rated as \u2018weak,\u2019\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n

Across the services, the report rated only the Marine Corps as \u201cstrong\u201d\u00a0in the think tank\u2019s assessment of force capacity, capability and readiness. While the Army achieved a \u201cmarginal\u201d rating, the Space Force and Navy were labeled \u201cweak\u201d and the Air Force bottomed out at \u201cvery weak.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn general, the military services continue to prioritize readiness and have seen some improvement over the past few years, but modernization programs, especially in shipbuilding, continue to suffer as resources are committed to preparing for the future, recovering from 20 years of operations and offsetting the effects of inflation,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n

That spells serious trouble as the US gears up to face a rapidly growing and increasingly aggressive Chinese military, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe particular problem with that is if you look at our priority theater, the Indo-Pacific, the two priority services are the Navy and the Air Force \u2013 and those seem to be the ones that are doing the worst,\u201d the House Armed Services Committee member told reporters.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

US Marines fire a Howitzer at Islamic State militants from Fire Base Bell, Iraq, March 18, 2016. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

The Marine Corps was the only service rated as \u201cstrong\u201d by the \u201cIndex of U.S. Military Strength.\u201dThe Heritage Foundation<\/p>\n

To strengthen its might, the US must be willing to invest in military hardware \u2013 ships, missiles and other weaponry \u2013 to supply the force with the equipment needed to prepare for future conflict, according to the report.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt present, the [Biden] administration\u2019s proposed defense budget for [fiscal year] 2023 falls far short of what the services need to regain readiness and to replace aged equipment,\u201d the report said, \u201cand Congress\u2019s intention to increase the proposed budget by 5[%] accounts for barely half of the current rate of inflation<\/a>, which is nearing 10[%].\u201d<\/p>\n

The armed forces also have capacity problem \u2013 not having enough personnel, weapons and other equipment to fight a war. The report rates the Navy worse than its sister services, dropping its capacity rating two notches from \u201cmarginal\u201d to \u201cvery weak\u201d \u2013 the lowest on the scale.<\/p>\n

Part of the issue is the Biden administration\u2019s diplomacy-first mindset of \u201csubstitut[ing] soft power for hard power,\u201d which Gallagher called \u201cna\u00efve at best.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI fear as you look at the geopolitical environment, we are going to find ourselves in a competition with China or Taiwan within the next few years if we continue down this path of naive disarmament,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gallagher based his timeline on that of former Navy Indo-Pacific commander Adm. Phil Davidson, who told lawmakers last year that China could try to take control of Taiwan by 2027.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Chinese amphibious assault ship: China is expected to have 460 ships by 2030. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

At the center of the hard-power problem is the Navy\u2019s shrinking fleet size, according to the report. To fight in two wars, the think tank said the Navy would need about 400 ships \u2013 a drastic bump from the current 292 ships the service said it had as of last week.<\/p>\n

In 2018, Congress passed a law mandating that the Navy reach a target of 355 ships \u201cas soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, the service has cut ships faster than they\u2019ve built them.<\/p>\n

But even as vessel numbers have dwindled, Navy operations have not slowed \u2013 creating an additional hurdle to growing the fleet, Heritage senior defense researcher Dakota Wood said Tuesday. The US has about half the ships it had during the Cold War, but the number of ships at sea at any given time \u2013 about 100 \u2013 has not changed since at least the early 1990s.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re working your ships twice as hard, the crews twice as hard, maintenance problems mount, so when it finally gets into the [ship]yard, there\u2019s more work that has to be done than was anticipated,\u201d Wood said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Chinese navy already has 355 ships and plans to add about 65 more by 2026, according to the Pentagon\u2019s annual China military report published in November.<\/a> By 2030, China is expected to have 460 ships.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe British Royal Navy \u2026 is down to a mere 17 or 18 surface combatants total,\u201d Wood said. \u201cChina\u2019s adding almost the equivalent of the British Royal Navy to its own fleet almost every year, certainly every two years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A Zircon hypersonic missile. Both Russia and China have operational hypersonic missiles. The U.S. has yet to successfully test one. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

But the Navy alone cannot fight off impending threats from China and Russia \u2013 the Heritage report demonstrates that the entiire military must invest more in hard power, Gallagher said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lesson is we have to rebuild our munitions industrial base,\u201d Gallagher said. \u201cThe Defense Production Act could be modernized and used for actual defense purposes, not for baby formula<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment on the report\u2019s specifics, saying he had not seen it, but called the US military \u201cthe strongest fighting force the world has ever known.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery day around the globe, the men and women of our armed forces safeguard vital US national interests by backstopping diplomacy, confronting aggression, deterring conflict, projecting strength and protecting the American people,\u201d said the spokesman,\u00a0Air Force Brig Gen. Patrick Ryder.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the Heritage Foundation\u2019s annual \u201cIndex of U.S. Military Strength\u201d rates the Marine Corps as \u201c”strong” the other branches of the U.S. armed forces don’t fare so well. The U.S. Army is rated as “marginal” while the U.S. Navy is assessed as \u201cweak\u201d and the U.S.A.F. “very weak” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-260112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-russia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=260112"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":260139,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260112\/revisions\/260139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=260112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=260112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=260112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}