Dealing With the Unprecedented Military Threats Facing the United States
By Mark B. Schneider
January 04, 2024
U.S. Air Force
Former Secretary of Defense and former Director of Central Intelligence Robert Gates recently observed in the pages of Foreign Affairs that, “The United States now confronts graver threats to its security than it has in decades, perhaps ever. Never before has it faced four allied antagonists at the same time-Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran-whose collective nuclear arsenal could within a few years be nearly double the size of its own. Not since the Korean War has the United States had to contend with powerful military rivals in both Europe and Asia. And no one alive can remember a time when an adversary had as much economic, scientific, technological, and military power as China does today.” Worse yet, he accurately noted that there was a great deal of similarity between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin with regard to their imperialist agenda and in their conviction that the United States was in decline. Even more significant is that both Xi and Putin have “…already made major miscalculations at home and abroad and seem likely to make even bigger ones in the future,” and these could result in “catastrophic consequences for themselves-and for the United States.”
According to Gates, “The problem…is that at the very moment that events demand a strong and coherent response from the United States, the country cannot provide one. Its fractured political leadership-Republican and Democratic, in the White House and in Congress-has failed to convince enough Americans that developments in China and Russia matter. Political leaders have failed to explain how the threats posed by these countries are interconnected. They have failed to articulate a long-term strategy to ensure that the United States, and democratic values more broadly, will prevail.”
Secretary Gates is hardly an alarmist. Indeed, he has historically played down the Russian threat, and he is ironically at least partially responsible for the situation he so well describes. Gates served as Secretary of Defense in both the George W. Bush and Obama Administrations. During the Bush Administration he attacked “…Next-War-itis—the propensity of much of the defense establishment to be in favor of what might be needed in a future conflict.” This is very much the mentality that resulted in the current crisis situation that Gates accurately assesses. The U.S. military power and the industrial base that supports it has been reduced to the point that the United States has difficulty in supplying a single medium-sized war in Ukraine. Unless the United States takes action, the shortage of munitions problem could continue to deteriorate.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/01/03/dealing_with_the_unprecedented_military_threats_facing_the_united_states_1002655.html
