Each year, defense experts at The Heritage Foundation take a deep assessment of the various U.S. military branches. The result: a highly respected report card, known as the Index of U.S. Military Strength.
“It’s a way for us to convey to the American public, to taxpayers, basically what they’re getting for their money, and whether or not the military is well postured to defend the country against threats and to defend U.S. interests around the world,” explained Dakota Wood, editor of this year’s Index.
To sum up its findings: things are not trending in the right direction.
“Unfortunately, here in this latest edition, 2022, we’re starting to see declines again; in readiness, certainly sacrificing of end strength, of the size of the force, to pay for these things. And these, these budgets, you know, a national budget that’s at a continuing resolution. It really makes it hard to sustain the programs needed to keep people trained, keep current equipment ready, and replace old equipment as it’s leaving service,” Wood told CBN News.
In the grading, the Army comes in at “Marginal,” seen as aging faster than it is modernizing. A similar rating for the Navy, although it’s “Trending to Weak,” due to the combination of a desperate need for a bigger fleet and lack of funding to make it happen.
The Marine Corps scores highest at “Strong,” and the Air Force and new Space Force are at the bottom with “Weak” ratings. As for U.S. nuclear capability, it’s on the higher end with a warning, “Strong, Trending to Marginal.”
Wood said these scores also take into account the Biden administration’s current priorities.
“There’s been a lot more talk and policy guidance out of the White House…on combating climate change and global warming, gender and racial equity, diversity…then there is about making sure that the military is actually combat-ready,” Wood said.
“We’ve worn out everything we’ve got in two decades of war. We’ve been in the Middle East. And we’ve got to start not just rebuilding but we’ve got to start modernizing it to get those cyber and artificial intelligence capabilities to fight these wars of the future. They’re going to look so different from what we’ve done in the past,” said U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee.
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Key adversaries, meanwhile, are investing in defense at a breakneck pace. Their current perception of the U.S. is doing nothing to slow them down.
“Just using the withdrawal from Afghanistan as an example. The perception is the United States is incompetent. They rushed to do things in kind of a backward sort of way, you know, removing your military forces before removing your own citizens. And so this bungling had Beijing, and Moscow, and Tehran, and Pyongyang thinking maybe the United States has really lost a step here,” Wood said.
American allies seem to feel the same way.
“Israeli leaders, Arab leaders, everybody that I talk to and we see it all over the world. They don’t believe Biden has the strength. Set aside his physical condition. Which is an open question. They don’t think he has the strength of will, of character, perhaps of resolve, to take on Putin, and the Chinese, and the Iranians,” Joel Rosenberg, editor-in-chief of All Israel News, told CBN News.
He said the Middle East is watching and worried.
“I think everybody in this region worries about, what if Putin and President XI, and the supreme leader of Iran decide, ‘No one is going to stop us, let’s go get what we want.’ That’s the big X factor in 2022,” Rosenberg said.
With resources spread out across the globe, Wood said our military is stretched too thin to respond to multiple conflicts at once. He believes the key to turning things around is funding.
“Any reasonable person would say the current budget of $740 billion is a lot of money, and it absolutely is. But when the increase in the budget from this year compared to last is 1.8 percent. And we saw an annual inflation rate of 7 percent. You’re not even keeping pace with the cost of buying stuff like fuel and medical supplies,” Wood explained.
Rogers said defense spending needs to be increased to a minimum of three percent over the rate of inflation for the foreseeable future.
“This is going to be like a decades-long process. We’re going to have to keep making these investments to get these capabilities that we’re going to need to keep ourselves free and safe. Because I tell people all the time, it doesn’t matter if your social security system is solid if you’re dead, and there’s people in this world who want to kill us,” Rogers told CBN News.
One investment he’s urging the president to pursue: nuclear modernization efforts. Biden’s review on this area is expected this month and there’s concern the president is planning to make cuts rather than improvements. A move Rogers said would invite further aggression from our enemies.
The remainder of this article is available in its entirety at CBN