With the limited attack on Syrian illegal chemical weapons facilities, The United States has completed another Mideast military endeavor with little or no loss of life or damage to equipment.
It is important that this does not lead to a false sense of confidence. The true test of American military prowess does not rest with engagements against inferior armed forces, but in the key mission of deterring the rising danger from Russia and China. The Pentagon, already financially stricken in the mistaken belief that major threats were a thing of the past in the aftermath of the First Cold War, was further and significantly weakened during the budget reductions of the Obama years.
In testimony before Congress, Defense Secretary Mattis stated: “We recognize great power competition is once again a reality…great power competition—not terrorism—is now the primary focus of U.S. national security… our competitive edge has eroded in every domain of warfare—air, land, sea, space, and cyber. Under frequent continuing resolutions and sequester’s budget caps, our advantages continue to shrink. The combination of rapidly changing technology, the negative impact on military readiness resulting from the longest continuous stretch of combat in our nation’s history, and insufficient funding have created an overstretched and under-resourced military…”
Writing in National Review, Jerry Hendrix notes that U.S. “defense budgets as a percentage of the nation’s gross domestic product had fallen from 5.5 percent in 1991 to 3 percent on the eve of the attacks on September 11, 2001. Key capacities fell accordingly. In 1991 the Army stood at 710,000 troops; in 2001, it had shrunk to 480,000. At the height of the Cold War, the Air Force fielded over 10,000 aircraft; today the force hovers around 6,000, with fewer than 4,000 planes prepared for combat. The Navy suffered a similar decline, shrinking from its peak of 592 ships in 1989 to its present level of 280.”
While Washington slept, both Moscow and Beijing engaged in extraordinary modernization and development of their militaries. Both now have essential technologies, and in many cases equipment, that are equal to and in some cases exceeding that possessed by the U.S., along with larger numbers. Former key Pentagon advantages, such as the major capabilities America had thanks to its space assets, are jeopardized by the growing ability of its adversaries to destroy satellites. The U.S. Navy’s aircraft carriers are increasingly vulnerable to Chinese land-to-sea missiles that can disable them at great distances.
The two adversary powers, and their axis partners in Iran and North Korea, also retain a key geographical advantage. They are contiguous, and do not need to worry about long and hazardous lines of supply that the U.S. does with its allies in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
Now that America’s technological advantage has been sharply reduced and, in some areas, eliminated, the issue of numbers again must be considered. The imbalance in certain types of essential weaponry is startling. On a strategic level, Neither the United States, nor the United States in combination with its allies, is dominant in nuclear weapons, as Russia, for the first time, has a lead in nuclear weapons, and the combination of Russia and China exceeds in overall numbers that possessed by Washington and its allies.
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Problems exist on the tactical level as well. Moscow has 20,216 tanks, Beijing, 6,457, and America, 5,884. Russia, notes Global Firepower,fields 14,390 pieces of artillery, and China has 9,726. This compares unfavorably with the 4,564 possessed by the U.S. Throw in the vast amount of artillery possessed by North Korea and the numbers look even worse, even if one factored in the equipment retained by U.S. allies in Europe and Asia. America’s once-dominant navy faces a major rival as China floats more total hulls than the U.S., and a Beijing-Russia combination poses an existential threat to the Western and Japanese alliance. America retains a large lead in total military aircraft, but increasingly, its planes are grounded and incapable due to inadequate maintenance, and pilots are not receiving sufficient training.
A recent Rand study found that “U.S. forces… are failing to keep pace with the modernizing forces of great power adversaries, are poorly postured to meet key challenges in Europe and East Asia, and are insufficiently trained and ready to get the most operational utility from many of its active component units…Important national interests today are being challenged by two major powers — Russia and China — that pose operational and strategic challenges that far outstrip those posed by the regional adversaries that animate DoD’s current force planning construct (FPC)… Force planning in DoD today should place greater priority on modernizing the capabilities and posture of U.S. forces in order to better enable them to deter and defeat aggression by China, Russia, and North Korea. At the same time, force planners should provide for the continued, gradual expansion of special operations forces, modernize U.S. nuclear forces, and raise readiness levels of active component forces. With its growing arsenal of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, North Korea today presents threats for which U.S. and allied forces lack satisfactory answers.”
Secretary Mattis notes that “Given the magnitude of the threats they pose to U.S. security and prosperity today, Congress must commit to both an increased and sustained investment in our capabilities.”
In one of the most high-tech areas crucial to war fighting in the near future, the United States is losing ground to Russia and China, according to a report disclosed to Newsweek. “The report, from government data analysis group Govini and former Department of Defense Chief Robert Work, says America’s two biggest military competitors are rapidly advancing with AI, [artificial intelligence] leaving the U.S. military with the choice of whether it wants to ‘lead the coming revolution, or fall victim to it.’”
The success of America’s armed forces in the Middle East is not an indicator of how well equipped they are to take on Russia and China. As those two nations increase in belligerence, power, and technology, the danger grows exponentially.
Photo: B-2 bomber (USAF)