US isn’t ready for a war of great powers
America’s adversaries are preparing for wider conflict — to prevent war, it needs to do so as well.
US-POLITICS-ECONOMY-BIDEN
The lessons to be learned from Ukraine, and now Israel, are that the U.S. and its allies must reconsider how their militaries are built | Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
BY ANDREW A. MICHTA
OCTOBER 31, 2023 4:00 AM CET
Voiced by artificial intelligence.
Andrew A. Michta is senior fellow and director of the Scowcroft Strategy Initiative at the Atlantic Council of the United States.
United States President Joe Biden’s recent Oval Office address marked a key moment in the deepening competition between America and its allies on the one hand, and the axis of dictatorships coalescing around Russia, China, Iran and North Korea on the other.
The speech effectively merged the war in Ukraine and the wider war brewing in the Middle East into two theaters of the same conflict. And should Hezbollah now also attack, it will present the U.S. and its allies with a significantly expanded theater, straining military resources yet again.
At the same time, Taiwan seems even more likely to emerge as a third sphere of conflict in the next few years — or perhaps even sooner. And Beijing has been boosting its military at scale — the People’s Liberation Army Navy is already numerically greater than the U.S. Navy, while its land forces and nuclear forces are growing apace.
Meanwhile, regardless of how long the war in Ukraine lasts, Russia’s busy expanding its armor production — including the recovery of damaged equipment from the battlefield — while running a wartime production system at home. Moscow has shown it understands mass; and after a year and a half, the Russian army is now capable of fighting and mobilizing at the same time, with the goal of expanding its ranks to 1.5 million.
https://www.politico.eu/article/usa-joe-biden-not-ready-war-of-great-powers-china-israel-ukraine-russia-iran-north-korea/
