The U.S. Military Is Suffering A Crisis Of Strategy, Not Just One Of Readiness

[rangerrebew]

The U.S. Military Is Suffering A Crisis Of Strategy, Not Just One Of Readiness


The U.S. military needs to devise a new strategy.
Dan Goure [2]

A recent blog in The Hill by Representative Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) summed up the situation facing the U.S. military succinctly [3]: “in recent years, Congress has received repeated warnings from senior military officials across every service, testifying to the readiness crisis facing our military. Taken together, their statements are staggering.” According to the 2017 Index of U.S Military Power [4] published by the Heritage Foundation, the overall threat level to the U.S. and its interests is high while the condition of the U.S. military, at best, is marginal.

According to these senior military officials and numerous published accounts, the Army has only three brigade combat teams out of more than 50 fully manned, equipped and trained for major conflict. The proposed Fiscal Year 2018 Army budget will modernize only 20 Abrams tanks and 135 Bradley Fighting Vehicles (there are more the 6,000 of each in the inventory) and will not procure any new Stryker combat vehicles. Due to a lack of spare parts and insufficient maintenance dollars, only about half of Navy and Marine Corps front line fighters are currently available for combat. In addition, the Air Force is short some 1,000 pilots even though its size has shrunk significantly over the past decade.

Source URL (retrieved on June 8, 2017): http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-us-military-suffering-crisis-strategy-not-just-one-20918

[Smokin Joe]

Years of ongoing war with a Democrat at the helm have done more harm to our military than the enemy. The Clinton years did a lot of harm, too. No surprise there. You can't fly missions for over a decade without wearing out pilots and airframes, and ground warfare takes its toll on troops and equipment, too. But in the meantime, everyone got spiffy new uniforms...