I think that Harlan Ullman asks a lot of the right questions in his reaction at The Hill to Sen. Wicker’s report:
Is the U.S. military as unprepared as Wicker alleges? And is spending more money the solution?
After all, if history is a guide, over the past decade and despite increases in defense spending, the size of the active-duty military has declined. How then is the spiral of spending more and getting less going to be reversed?
The Wicker plan would add $55 billion to the 2025 defense budget and grow annual defense spending to 5 percent of GDP during the next five to seven years. The Navy would expand to 357 ships over the next decade and the Air Force would add another 340 aircraft by decade’s end. The plan specifies 19 key areas for more defense spending.
An examination of the Wicker Plan shows three crucial components are missing in action.
First, there is no overarching military strategy provided as the foundation for this buildup. Second, no evidence has been presented to show that this larger force is affordable, would be more effective than the current force or would reverse this spending/force size mismatch. Third, given the failure to man the current force, the report is silent on how sufficient people can be recruited and retained in this larger military.
By default, Wicker must assume that the current National Defense Strategy remains in place. That strategy aims to compete and deter, and if war arises, to defeat or prevail over enemies headed by China and Russia.
But how to compete is not defined. And if the aim is to deter, where have China or Russia (or the Houthis and Hamas) been deterred? Also, as the main powers have admitted, thermonuclear war cannot be fought and cannot be won.
I don’t believe that increased defense spending alone will solve the problems with our military. IMO the role of the military needs to be re-examined and followed with single-minded intensity and we must decide, as I have said elsewhere, what kind of country we want to be.
A big part of our issue is that our military is largely interested in big ticket expenditures. Our politicians like those because they get divided up between all of the states so that everyone gets a piece of the pie. We haven’t been interested in mundane stuff not easily spread out among all of the states like artillery shells.
Steve
Like anything else, prioritization is necessary. It doesn’t help that the procurement system has been a boondoggle since forever.
The Navy and ship-building program is currently in a really bad place and it’s going to take a long time to fix.
Right now, both sides of the aisle operate on the belief that deficits and debt don’t matter; that it is possible to have guns and butter. If one can have it all, then it isn’t far to believing the military is a job bank, while being the hegemon around the world.
Unless that changes, no prioritization or examining the role of the military will occur.