Blue-ribbon defense panel says U.S. not prepared for major war

Facing its most dire security threat since the end of World War II, the U.S. is burdened by inadequate resources, a failing defense industrial base and a national strategy that hasn’t prepared it to take on the combined challenge of near-peer adversaries like China and Russia and aggressive rogue states such as Iran and North Korea, according to a new report by a blue-ribbon bipartisan panel of defense experts.

On Tuesday, members of the congressionally created Commission on the National Defense Strategy briefed lawmakers on Capitol Hill about their review of the Biden administration’s 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS). They said the U.S, which hasn’t faced a global adversary since the end of World War II nearly 80 years ago, is not keeping pace with the danger today’s world presents.

“The nation was last prepared for such a fight during the Cold War, which ended 35 years ago. It is not prepared today,” the report stated.

The administration’s National Defense Strategy declared China to be the nation’s “pacing challenge,” based on its military and economic power and intent to exert regional and global influence. At least in its own region, Beijing has the security initiative, the panel found.

“In many ways, China is outpacing the United States and has largely negated the U.S. military advantage in the Western Pacific through two decades of focused military investment,” according to the report.

The current U.S. national strategy says the Pentagon can manage a single full conflict while protecting the homeland and deterring other potential threats. However, the report argues that today’s security environment requires the Pentagon to be able to tackle simultaneous conflicts in the Indo-Pacific region, Europe, and the Middle East.

“The partnership that has emerged among China, Russia, Iran and North Korea is a major strategic shift that we have not completely accounted for in our planning,” Commission Vice Chairman Eric Edelman testified. “We as a nation have failed to keep pace.”

Sen. Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, asked if today’s military is even capable of fighting a single full-scale war against a peer adversary, while also ensuring the safety of the American homeland.

“I think there are very serious questions about whether the force in being could actually execute the strategy,” Mr. Edelman said.

China’s defense spending is estimated to be as much as $711 billion and Beijing announced in March that it would increase annual defense spending by 7.2%. Meanwhile, Russia is devoting 29% of its federal budget this year to national defense as it reconstitutes its military and economy following the initial invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Even as it faces sanctions and isolation from the West over its decision to invade Ukraine, “Russia possesses considerable strategic, space and cyber capabilities and under Vladimir Putin, seeks a return to its global leadership role of the Cold War,” according to the report.

The 2022 NDS argued that all elements of national power — including military, diplomatic, and economic — are necessary to maintain a stable and open international system. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed, Rhode Island Democrat, said Tuesday that America’s civil society must also be reinvigorated as a source of national power.

“The American public must be educated on the threats we face, and encouraged to engage in national service, whether through the military or civil service. I support the Commission’s urgent call to engage more in this area,” Sen. Reed said.

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader in the Senate, said the most critical objective for the U.S. and its allies today is to ensure the defeat of Russia in Ukraine. He said security threats don’t exist in a vacuum, noting that the nation’s adversaries are working closely together to challenge U.S. interests.

“The new alignment of nations opposed to U.S. interests creates a real risk, if not likelihood, that conflict anywhere could become a multi-theater or global war,” he said. “A multi-theater war [is] the sort of conflict America is simply not prepared to fight. Too many in Washington seem to think America can just opt out of facing such a challenge.”

A collaboration between U.S. adversaries doesn’t have to be organized in a secret summit. The potential for “opportunistic aggression” is real, the commissioners said.

“We see that all the time. China is watching intently whether Russia can get away with its illegal invasion of Ukraine,” said commission Chairwoman Jane Harman, a former Democratic congresswoman. “If it can, that would empower China, without a conversation with Russia, to move against Taiwan.”

As a result, the U.S. must spend more on its military — and not merely buying expensive legacy weapons already in the arsenal, said Ms. Harman. 

U.S. military forces are “at the breaking point maintaining readiness today. Adding more burden without adding resources to rebuild readiness will cause it to break,” she said. “If we want to approach Cold War levels of spending, we need to increase resources.

The report also criticized Congress, accusing a “relatively small number of elected officials” of playing partisan games instead of offering responsible legislating and oversight.

“Fights over the debt ceiling, government funding, spending caps and hot-button social issues weaken our ability to manage strategic competition with our peer adversaries,” the report said. “We would be far stronger if we returned to the maxim that politics ends at the water’s edge.”