Report: Military Is ‘Not Prepared’ for Major War, the ‘Result of Many Years of Failure’

A July report released by the Commission on the National Defense Strategy revealed America is facing “the most serious and most challenging” dangers since World War II. But that wasn’t the only shocking news the commission had to offer. It also made clear that, despite the perilous times, the U.S. military is “not prepared” to fight in any major war — particularly with growing threats like China and Russia.

The commission “met with the senior civilian and military leaders of the Department of Defense and other departments; congressional leaders from relevant committees; private sector representatives; former government officials; experts in the think tank, academic, and federally funded research and development center communities; and foreign allies.” And in these discussions, the report noted, “We found near-unanimous recognition of the significant challenges to U.S. national security and broad agreement on the need for substantial and wide-ranging change.”

The commission recommended that the U.S. military take a broad approach to fixing the systems in place, specifically noting the suggested changes were not geared toward “the dedicated individuals within them.” In fact, it went on to emphasize “that people across and outside government are talented and dedicated to U.S. national security.” However, they “are impeded by systems that are outdated, bureaucratic, or too political to move with the urgency required.”

In addition to those concerns, the commission addressed the recruitment shortages each branch has been experiencing in recent years. “Recent recruitment shortfalls have decreased the size of the Army, Air Force, and Navy,” the document read. “Redoubled recruiting efforts, new incentives for service, and more flexible personnel systems are needed to offset a lack of propensity for and interest in military service among the eligible population.” The report even included a broader call “for increased levels of public and civil service to help provide a renewed sense of engagement and patriotism among the American people.”

The commission didn’t leave anything out in their suggestions for what could strengthen the U.S. military back to proper readiness. It requested immediate action on the part of Congress and the Department of Defense. In a summary, the report noted:

“The lack of preparedness to meet the challenges to U.S. national security is the result of many years of failure to recognize the changing threats and to transform the U.S. national security structure and has been exacerbated by the 2011 Budget Control Act, repeated continuing resolutions, and inflexible government systems. The United States is still failing to act with the urgency required, across administrations and without regard to governing party. This report proposes a new approach to spur the speed and scale of change. Implementing these recommendations to boost all elements of national power will require sustained presidential leadership and a fundamental change in mindset at the Pentagon, at the National Security Council and across executive branch departments and agencies, in Congress, and among the American public writ large.”

It all begs the question: Are such vast and multifaceted changes truly necessary? And what exactly has led to the U.S. military falling short of key readiness goals? Lt. Colonel (Ret.) Robert Maginnis, Family Research Council’s senior fellow for National Security, offered his perspective on the military’s key failures in comments to The Washington Stand.

“What’s clear is our threat today is very different than it used to be,” he said. “During the Cold War, which was arguably from 1948 to 1991 with the Soviets, we had a bipolar world in which we threatened to annihilate one another.” As such, Maginnis explained, “[W]e were maintaining our capabilities to respond to unprovoked, or provoked, attacks on both sides.”

As Maginnis went on to say, it was only a few years ago that an assessment discovered 26 threats to America — the top four being China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. “Each of those nations presents a very different but overlapping threat to the United States,” he emphasized. And so, as our external threats became greater, it would be essential for the U.S. military to become greater as well. However, Maginnis underscored, the last several years have demonstrated that those inside the military appointed by the Biden administration have “set the policies for the Department of Defense, and often, those policies have ramifications.”

“[W]hen it says in the National Defense Strategy that people inside are ‘impeded by systems that are outdated, bureaucratic, or too political to move with the urgency required,’” he noted, “it’s [highlighting] that there are other priorities that those appointees have promulgated throughout the system” that are counterproductive to what matters most in terms of military readiness. Maginnis added, “[T]hat is very problematic for an institution as large [and] complex” as the U.S. military, which should be focused on what militaries were created to do: serve the country. That’s “the bottom line for the armed forces,” he said.

“But unfortunately,” Maginnis explained, “you have the political correctness issue that is very, very problematic and has undermined … our ability to not only modernize” military technology, “but to be prepared for a future war.” He also highlighted the section of the report that called for an increase in patriotism. As he put it, that call is “important because, generally speaking, only patriots will allow themselves to be recruited in an all-volunteer force.”

The military has “had so much negative publicity in recent years,” largely “because of the politics inside the Biden administration and inside the Biden Pentagon,” Maginnis lamented. Between the way the COVID-pandemic was handled and the inclusion of LGBT ideology over the years, “a lot of people that would otherwise have served, or those such as myself that have retired from the service, are not going to necessarily encourage young people to enlist or go through a pre-commissioning program.” According to Maginnis, it’s obvious that what’s been happening is “impacting our retention and it’s impacting our recruitment.”

Ultimately, it stands to reason that “people don’t want to necessarily volunteer to go die unless there is a patriotic reason that the country is not going to survive unless we have more volunteers,” Maginnis concluded. “[A]ll of this is sort of a catch-22 that the armed forces today find itself in a very serious threat environment and environments which [make it] hard to attract the skill, the talent that we clearly need.”