When the Rand Corporation says it's time to worry about our military's ability, it's time to worry. The folks at Rand have always been number crunchers and not particularly conservative, but a new report released by them says this:
The report continued:
Part of this is the Pentagon buying gold-plated weapon systems that are so expensive only a nominal number can be bought or, worse yet, they simply don't work, so the program is canceled. But there is also the fact that politicians have rested on the laurels of the military as it was in the 1990s but allowed those forces to substantially degrade for political reasons (Democrats) and budgetary reasons (Republican deficit-hawks), and degrade they have.
" ... the Defense Department’s current approach to force planning has “placed too little emphasis on modernizing the capabilities, posture, and operating concepts of U.S. forces for power projection.”
“The result — a force that is insufficiently robust to face the challenges posed by the most capable adversaries — poses growing risks to the viability of the United States’ most-important security relationships,”
“The result — a force that is insufficiently robust to face the challenges posed by the most capable adversaries — poses growing risks to the viability of the United States’ most-important security relationships,”
Part of this is the Pentagon buying gold-plated weapon systems that are so expensive only a nominal number can be bought or, worse yet, they simply don't work, so the program is canceled. But there is also the fact that politicians have rested on the laurels of the military as it was in the 1990s but allowed those forces to substantially degrade for political reasons (Democrats) and budgetary reasons (Republican deficit-hawks), and degrade they have.
For example, in 1991 the Air Force had 110 fighter squadrons compared to 55 now. Furthermore, for the most part they are still flying the same type of fighters they had in the 1990s while Russia and China have been rapidly rolling out newer models in quantity, especially the Chinese.The Army during this time dropped from 780,000 active duty troops to 476,000. The Navy went from 529 ships in 1991 to 275 in 2016, the lowest since WW I. That's right "One."The fact that we have been constantly fighting somewhere in the world since 2003 also means that much of this hardware is old and tired and needs replacement badly.
Then there is the loss of experienced personnel. Obama purged the high level officer ranks of many of the warriors to pursue social experiments with the military. The Air Force is short several thousand pilots and the Navy has lost a boatload of senior Chiefs and other NCOs who really make things run.
Bottom line - Rand is right and we are in trouble. While this country is entranced with all kinds of sideshows of little or no consequence when it comes to our survival, the ability to protect ourselves in what is becoming a very tough neighborhood is rapidly disappearing. We may wake up some morning and find that our way of life is all gone.
