The New York Analysis of Policy and Government reveals the myths clouding the debate over American national security, in this final installment of our four-part series.
Myth: The U.S. armed forces are capable of handling any combination of threats that occur. In 2012, the Obama Administration abandoned the long-held policy of having a U.S. military equipped to fight a two-front war. Inexplicably, this was done at the same time that it was becoming increasingly evident that the alliance of China and Russia, as well as the cooperation in missile and nuclear technology between Iran and North Korea, was becoming increasingly evident. Other than as an excuse to transfer defense dollars to more politically popular domestic
programs, there has never been an adequate explanation of the reasoning behind this controversial decision. This has become a larger issue as the threats from North Korea become more dangerous and frequent. It would be naïve to believe that if it were necessary to deploy additional American forces, for example, on the Korean peninsula, that Iran would not take advantage of U.S. weakness in the Middle East, or that Russia would not expand its aggression against Ukraine.
A Heritage study found “that the U.S. needs a military that is large enough and has a sufficient range of capabilities to cover multiple major military contingencies in overlapping time frames… Such a capability is the sine qua non of a superpower and is essential to the credibility of our overall national security strategy.” However, as reported by the New York Times and Atlantic monthly “The U.S. military of the future will no longer be able to fight two sustained ground wars at the same time.”
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A landmark study by the American Enterprise Institute in 2014 noted: “The defense budget cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011, coupled with the additional cuts and constraints on defense management under the law’s sequestration provision, constitute a serious strategic misstep on the part of the United States. Not only have they caused significant investment shortfalls in U.S. military readiness and both present and future capabilities, they have prompted our current and potential allies and adversaries to question our commitment and resolve.
The U.S. National Intelligence Council , “…Asia will have surpassed North America and Europe combined in terms of global power, based upon GDP, population size, military spending, and technological investment…” Beyond major powers such as China and India, non-nation state actors such as terrorist groups will have significant access to extraordinary means of destruction and disruption. “A wider spectrum of instruments of war—especially precision-strike capabilities, cyber instruments, and bioterror weapony—will become accessible. Individuals and small groups will have the capability to perpetrate large-scale violence and disruption—a capability formerly the monopoly of states.”
The debate about what constitutes an adequate defense budget must be based on facts as they are, not on what we would like them to be. So far, that has not been the case.