Heritage rates the U.S. military as “weak” and “at growing risk of not being able to meet the demands of defending America’s vital national interests.” The weak rating, down from “marginal” a year earlier, is the first in the index’s nine-year history....Heritage says the U.S. military risks being unable to handle even “a single major regional conflict” as it also tries to deter rogues elsewhere.... The Navy has been saying for years it needs to grow to at least 350 ships, plus more unmanned platforms. Yet the Navy has shown a “persistent inability to arrest and reverse the continued diminution of its fleet,” the report says.... the shipbuilding industry has shrunk amid waning demand, and the Navy’s maintenance yards are overwhelmed. Maintenance delays and backlogs are the result of running the fleet too hard: On a typical day in June, roughly one-third of the 298-ship fleet was deployed, double the average of the Cold War.It’s worse in the Air Force, which gets a “very weak” rating.
The Army remains "marginal."
The Marine Corps? "Strong," but weakening:
Of the five services, the Corps is the only one that has a compelling story for change, has a credible and practical plan for change, and is effectively implementing its plan to change. However, in the absence of additional funding in FY 2023, the Corps intends to reduce the number of its battalions even further from 22 to 21, and this reduction, if implemented, will limit the extent to which it can conduct distributed operations as it envisions and replace combat losses (thus limiting its ability to sustain operations).
The whole document would take several hours to read, and more to study carefully, but if you just want the conclusions they are here.
3 comments:
The drill down into the Corps was interesting. It seems that we're only maintaining our strength through stop-gap/triage measures and that shell game must eventually come to a stop. Hopefully the new weapon systems come online, but I'm not wiling to bet lives on it.
It's been interesting to watch the standards dip over the years, from my first days at SOI West - Alphatraz, to come back up to speed with the new SOI training. Do we have the citizenry to man it all though?
Good question. The last I heard, up to 75% of young Americans are disqualified from serving for reasons of obesity, health problems, criminal history, or lack of education. You could dilute those standards, but obese kids are going to wash out regardless, as are those with serious health problems. If you can't pass the ASVAB and/or didn't graduate high school, maybe you can be taught to maintain or operate advanced systems -- and maybe not.
Wasn't that experiment tried a few decades ago?
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