Money alone won’t fix our military

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) sounded the alarm from General Headquarters about the perilous state of the U.S. military.

“The American military is unprepared for either war or peace,” Wicker declared in a New York Times op-ed last week. In a longer document, Wicker laid out a plan to reverse what he sees as a defense crisis, titled “21st Century Peace Through Strength: A Generational Investment in the American Military.”

But is Wicker right? Is the U.S. military not as prepared as he claims? And is spending more money the solution?

After all, as history shows, over the last decade, and despite To increase In terms of defense spending, the number of active duty military personnel is rejectionSo how do we reverse this vicious cycle of spending more and getting less?

The Wicker plan would increase the defense budget by $55 billion in 2025 and increase annual defense spending to 5 percent of GDP over the next five to seven years. The Navy would expand to 357 ships over the next decade, and the Air Force would add an additional 340 aircraft by the end of the decade. The plan identifies 19 major areas for defense spending increases.

An examination of the Wicker Plan reveals that it is missing three key elements.

First, no comprehensive military strategy is presented to support this expansion. Second, no evidence is presented to show that this larger military would be more costly and effective than the current military and would reverse this disparity in spending and troop size. Third, given that the current military is understaffed, the report is silent on how this larger military could be adequately recruited and maintained.

By default, Wicker will National Defense Strategy The strategy is aimed at competing with, deterring, and, in the event of war, defeating or winning against adversaries, primarily China and Russia.

But how to compete is undefined. And if the objective is deterrence, where is China or Russia (or the Houthis or Hamas) being deterred? Also, as the major powers acknowledge, a thermonuclear war cannot be fought or won.

As for affordability, the Wicker plan makes no mention of the impact of an unlimited increase in the annual real cost of every item needed for defense, from people to precision weapons to pencils. 5 to 7 percentAdd 3-5% for inflation. A $900 billion annual defense budget needs an additional $70-100 billion to break even. Wicker’s request is for about half that amount, and would not be enough to sustain the current military.

Furthermore, the annual deficit is growing, $35 billion If debt, spending, reaches 5% of GDP, or $1.3 trillion to $500 billion, where will the additional money for defense come from? The answer is nowhere.

Despite the benefits of recruiting and retaining service members, the Department of Defense does not have the manpower to sustain 1.3 million active duty service members. Talent is critical. And there is no plan to address this most critical issue. In fact, nowhere in the plan is there any mention of recruiting and retention.

The details of the plan are as follows:

• Rebuilding the Arsenal of Democracy
• Aid surge for Taiwan and the Philippines, in cooperation with South Korea and Japan
• Strengthening U.S. Capabilities in Europe
• Creating New Vectors of Competition in the African and Southern Commands
• Restoring Homeland Defense Budget for Border Deployment and Expanding Joint Task Force-North (JTF-N)
• Restoring U.S. Naval Superiority and Fleet Readiness
• Fixing the U.S. Air Force’s “Death Spiral”
• U.S. Space Force to Counter China’s “Strategic Breakthrough” in Space
• Modernizing Cyber ​​Command and Special Operations Command
• Provide comprehensive support for nuclear weapons modernization, air and missile defense
• Modernizing defense infrastructure

Its fundamental flaw is that it does not set priorities that determine the importance of each. For example, “Rebuilding the Arsenal of Democracy” and “Modernizing the Defense Infrastructure” have no set end in sight, since they do not specify the objectives or goals to be achieved. This is a defense shopping list, not a serious plan.

Unless and until the Wicker Plan addresses these criticisms, there can be no assurance that the United States will be prepared for war or peace.

Harlan Ullman is a senior advisor at the Atlantic Council and lead author of “Shock and Awe” Military Doctrine. His 12th book, “The Fifth Horseman and the New MAD: How Massive Disruption Attacks Became a Looming Existential Crisis for a Divided Nation and the Entire World,” is available on Amazon. Follow him on Twitter at @harlankullman.