HERITAGE’S ANNUAL MILITARY INDEX: Despite the Trump administration’s vaunted military build-up, the Pentagon is not ready to meet a key benchmark: Being able to fight and win two major wars simultaneously. That was among the bottom lines in the Heritage Foundation’s 2019 Index of U.S. Military Strength. The voluminous annual report by President Trump’s favorite think tank is being released at 9 a.m. today during an event with Sen. Joni Ernst, a Senate Armed Services subcommittee chairwoman, and a roster of experts. The think tank’s reports are worth watching as Trump has closely followed many of its previous recommendations on force size.

In the report, Heritage rates the military’s strength as “marginal,” a score that puts it in the middle of a five-tiered ranking system ranging from “very weak” to “very strong.” “Overall, the 2019 Index concludes that the current U.S. military force is likely capable of meeting the demands of a single major regional conflict while also attending to various presence and engagement activities but that it would be very hard-pressed to do more and certainly would be ill-equipped to handle two nearly simultaneous major regional contingencies,” according to the nearly 500-page study.