The U.S. military is not ready to fight a major war with China, let alone a war against China and simultaneously another against Russia, North Korea, or Iran. That’s bad. Very bad.
The Heritage Foundation outlined this troubling incompetence in its annual Index of U.S. Military Strength, released on Tuesday. Considering Russia’s war in Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin’s associated nuclear threats, North Korea’s escalating ballistic missile tests, Iran’s nuclear brinkmanship, and the rising risk of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan — some analysts expect it between 2024 and 2027 — the American military’s disposition is an urgent concern.
CHINESE MILITARY TO ‘PREPARE FOR WAR’ AS XI JINPING MENACES TAIWAN
Heritage rightly notes that the Navy’s fleet is too small, its warships overdeployed, and its personnel undertrained. This is driving up maintenance costs and delaying repairs while undermining readiness. More shipyards and repair yards are needed, and closer to the prospective fight, such as in Guam or Okinawa.
The fleet must be diversified. Procurement and support need to be shifted away from supporting outdated platforms, such as aircraft carriers, and toward weapons better suited to fighting China, such as manned and unmanned attack submarines. China’s anti-ship ballistic missiles are a potent threat that could keep American aircraft carriers away from where they are needed in the East and South China Seas. This would reduce the range of their aircrews and could keep them out of the fight. The Navy should at least endorse reforms like those offered by Bryan Clark and Timothy Walton to improve the refueling and fighting abilities of carrier air wings. Similar bold changes have, unfortunately, been blocked by members of Congress, who continue to put home-state cronyism and pork before the nation’s need to be ready to confront China.
The Navy should also dramatically reduce fleet deployments in Europe, obliging America’s freeloading allies to take more responsibility for NATO’s common defense. Europe has navies equipped with excellent ships and crews but lacks the will to defend itself. The United States must no longer tolerate Europe’s insouciant preference for having America do the expensive and laborious work of maintaining the continent’s deterrence and defenses.
The Biden administration, on the contrary, keeps encouraging this European slackness by sending more of America’s best warships and fighter jets to Europe. Washington’s priority for the U.S. Navy must be China. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s upcoming meeting with Xi Jinping in Beijing is a reminder that European powers such as Germany and France will do little to help the U.S. against China. It is thus necessary to force them to take more responsibility for their own defense.
Heritage is right to emphasize our need for a more powerful Space Force, but while recognizing the growing threat from Chinese and Russian hypersonic missiles, we disagree with Heritage’s call for vastly more spending on missile defenses against them. Instead, missile defenses should focus on the threat posed by countries such as North Korea and Iran that have fewer warheads and can thus be more easily deterred. This would save money that could be better spent on boosting our own nuclear deterrent forces and building bigger stocks of conventional munitions such as long-range anti-ship missiles — things needed to confront China and Russia.
Another concern Heritage rightly raises is the critical shortage of pilots in the Air Force and its wholly inadequate number of flying hours allowed to crews from training. Active-duty fighter pilots flew less than seven hours a month on average in 2021. This gets the pilots nowhere near the 200 hours they need each year. Perhaps an even great problem is that the Air Force’s fleet is just too old. More planes must be built and delivered faster than they currently are.
We strongly disagree with Heritage that the F-35 stealth fighter is better suited than the F-15EX for future combat with China. If America relied on the F-35, it would lose that battle. In the Pacific, U.S. forces will face a big numerical and geographical disadvantage. The F-35 can track more enemy aircraft but has fewer weapons and so could shoot fewer of them down, which is not helpful. The plane has a disastrous development record, and the U.S. cannot possibly build enough F-35s to wage war on the scale needed against a numerically superior Chinese military. Even if such massive spending were practical, the F-35 is woefully ineffective both for its price and for such a war. Its expected lifespan and even nonstealth weapons capacity are half that of the F-15EX.
Heritage’s top-line conclusions are, however, sound and alarming. The U.S. military is underfunded, underequipped, and underprepared to fight and win a war against China. The Pentagon needs more money and bolder leadership. The Defense Department, President Joe Biden, and Congress need a far greater sense of urgency. If they don’t acquire that, and fast, the U.S. may soon lose a war that defines the future of freedom and prosperity in the 21st century.
