(Guest article by Paul Gilbert)
Can the U.S. military actually protect our country? We should all have doubts. A few years ago there were troubling signs when the “Iranian navy” captured two U.S. Navy command boats and ten sailors; when a U.S. Army tank crew finished in 4th place, behind Germany, Denmark and Poland in a NATO tank “rodeo;” and when an Air Force officer admitted off the record that an extraordinary number of aircraft were not “airworthy” and the Force lacked capable mechanics, spare parts and even the pilots necessary to get them off the ground.
More disconcerting, though, are the U.S. Navy’s extraordinary construction woes in connection with what has become the most expensive aircraft carrier in the world … the U.S.S. Gerald Ford. Among other things, the designers’ abandoned the time-proven cable system for the carrier’s elevators, the steam-driven aircraft catapult and the hydraulic-engine arresting (landing) system … in favor of electro-magnetic systems for each of these operations. As with most all “adaptive” technologies, they are great when they work; however, after more than three years the Ford’s sea trials are ongoing without all of these vital functions performing reliably, and the ship’s full deployment is not expected until 2024.
Just how did the U.S. let itself get into this situation? Let us assume for our purpose here that there has not been an administration-to-administration conspiracy to slowly, but surely, erode the U.S. military capability. If we can agree on that, then the U.S. is in a bad place militarily due to decades of arrogance and ignorance.
Fortunately for the western world, the U.S. developed and then deployed the atomic bomb in Japan in 1945 to end WWII. Believing that the A-bomb would be the ultimate deterrent, the U.S. ramped up production of both numbers and the potential deadliness of its nuclear arsenal, and enhanced its aircraft and missile delivery system. Likewise, its former ally, turned adversary, the USSR, did the same, resulting in a very expensive, four decades-long “cold war.” Seeing the futility of the “cold war,” as well as the exorbitant cost, Gorbachev took power in the USSR in the mid-1980’s seeking peace. His influence triggered the fall of the Berlin wall in 1990, which effectively marked the beginning of the end of the “cold war” and the USSR collapsed in late 1991, signaling the war’s end. Due to superior technological advances and outspending the USSR … the U.S. then stood alone as the world’s superpower.
(But during that “cold war” there were two significant “police actions” known as the Korean War and the Viet Nam War. It is important to note that, in order to ease the then [increasingly violent] opposition to the Viet Nam war, the Selective Service System under Nixon eliminated the military draft and opted for an all volunteer service.)
The U.S. spent considerable sums rebuilding Japan after WWII, and it worked. Those of us over 65 remember how, as kids and young adults, it seemed as though every product we purchased was “Made In Japan.” However, what many didn’t see coming was Richard Nixon opening the door in the early ‘70’s to a heretofore ferocious enemy of the U.S. (stemming from the Korean War) … China … as that country began moving away from Mao’s strict Marxism and toward a policy of “state-run capitalism.” This set the stage for China’s rise as a world power, which slowly evolved.
Keeping the above summarized history in mind, subsequently, three seemingly unconnected historic policies/events occurred (1990 to 2001) that combined to negatively impact the U.S. military’s force and weapons development, and the funding necessary for same. First, in 1990, the U.S. Congress and Bush #41 enacted the Base Realignment and Closure Act (BRAC), which initiated a series of assessments through the mid-2000’s … aimed at maintaining overall readiness and saving costs.
(For disclosure, by virtue of my private- and public-sector positions in the early- to mid-1990’s, I was involved in Harford County, MD’s Army Alliance … the sole purpose of which was to maintain the existence of the Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground that had an enormous jobs and economic impact on the local community. Then, coincidentally, as a private-sector consultant in 2005-2006, I worked with the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce to retain Shaw Air Force Base and McIntire ANG … and the jobs and economic impact these facilities generated.)
Second, in the year 2000, Bill Clinton threw the door to China wide open by signing the China Trade Bill … which, among other things, provided incentives for U.S. companies to invest in China and partner with China’s designated oligarchs, aka the “new capitalists” … and in short order “Made In Japan” was replaced by “Made In China;”
(For disclosure, as a private consultant in Columbia, SC, I managed a project in 2007-2008 involving undertaking an economic assessment and preparing a redevelopment strategy for the South Carolina Lower Savannah Region, for which research at that time revealed that, since 2000 … just seven years prior … more than 20,000 textile plants largely located throughout the south, were actually closed and their operations and jobs moved to China.)
Third, the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon took place, and proved to be a watershed event for the U.S. military … both strategically and financially … as the hunt for weapons of mass destruction, which did not exist, effectively resulted in the U.S. military spending two decades in the Middle East involved in conventional/urban warfare, where the mission morphed into nation building.
(For disclosure, in 1996 I was nominated by the Civilian Deputy of the Aberdeen Proving Ground to be a participant in the annual National Security Seminar at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, PA. The military attendees were Colonels and Lt. Colonels who had been “fast-tracked” as potential General Officers. Near the end of the week I asked them, “Who here served in or studied our involvement with Viet Nam?” No one raised their hand, and I can only imagine that subsequent attendees would have answered similarly. With these generations of military leaders being at the helm during and after 9/11, and ignoring the lessons of Viet Nam, it’s little wonder that we maintained our presence in the Middle East for far too long and, most recently, that the end of Afghanistan looked like the end of Viet Nam 2.0)
In hindsight, with the end of the “Cold War” and the dissolution of the USSR; with China in its infancy as a manufacturing (and military) power; and the U.S. making the determination that the greatest strategic military threat would come from the Middle East for the foreseeable future, force levels, recruitment, training, deployment and technical advances and resulting materiel development were all geared to more effectively engaging in conventional warfare.
Although we have to assume that numerous BRAC commissions made recommendations throughout that process that would have maintained overall force readiness in response to threats beyond those presented by the Middle East, communities all across the nation worked with their federal elected officials to keep the base(s) in their locales open in order to maintain their significant economic impact … without any understanding or regard for the military’s overall mission. To a great extent, the elected officials with the greatest political influence were successful, and the communities with little influence lost out … resulting in base closures and relocation of forces that did not necessarily make strategic sense or ensure optimal overall military readiness and effectiveness.
Additionally, U.S. companies quickly took advantage of the China Trade Bill and invested heavily in manufacturing operations there, resulting in disinvestment in many states and, in short order, created a trade imbalance climbing to $500 billion a year … and China dedicated the vast majority of the trade surplus to building its military. As coincidence would have it, China’s build-up would take place as the U.S.’s military response to the 9/11 terror attacks became a wholesale re-orientation of its strategy toward the Middle East and away from any other immediate or even foreseeable global threats … and added trillions of dollars to the national debt. It was clear at that point that our political and military leaders “took their eye off the ball” that was China, and seemed to give it little regard.
In the decades after the cold war “victory,” the U.S. appeared to make the assumption that its military superiority would go on forever, even as the total troop numbers declined from about 3.5 million during the Viet Nam era to the current number of about 1.3 million … and, as the trade balance between the U.S. and China continued to tilt toward China, especially after 2000, its military was growing in (vast) numbers of personnel, advancement of armaments and technology and, perhaps more importantly, strategy … taking the “long view” of future warfare by pursuing and advancing cyber warfare, artificial intelligence and payload delivery systems. In recent years, it also reinforced and expanded its presence (and potential threat) in the South China Sea by building artificial islands to accommodate new air and naval bases for their conventional forces … with the naval bases designed to accommodate a dramatic increase in the number of warships … especially aircraft carriers.
In this same timeframe, the U.S. military’s focus continued to be on the Middle East, and it’s “long view” continued to have a much shorter time horizon and much more “conventional” emphasis on technological advancements than that of China. As taxpayers, Americans were funding our nation’s military budget, and unwittingly, as consumers, most all those taxpayers were buying goods “Made In China” … continuing to fund (through China’s trade surplus) the dramatic rise of the Chinese military. The U.S. enhanced China’s gains when, in 2013, Obama and the Congress played a game of “chicken” in the form of “Budget Sequestration.” At the risk of over-simplifying this situation, IF and when the two parties failed to reach agreement on adopting a budget within the context of existing debt limitations, they agreed to automatic budget cuts that, in addition to domestic programs, would include (what some believed to be devastating) proportional cuts to the U.S. military budget … heretofore deemed to be off limits, i.e. sequestered. No agreement was reached and what many considered unthinkable actually occurred: the automatic annual cuts to the military budget began … causing reductions to military personnel and materiel, force deployment and slowing technological advancements of strategic programs and weaponry.
In an attempt to make up for the military budget constraints created by Obama’s sequestration, Trump subsequently increased military spending annually by more than $200 billion; however, it may have been “too little, too late!” The greater funding did enable the U.S. military to play “catch-up” in some fundamental areas, like restoring munitions levels; maintaining and refurbishing air and watercraft that had been in constant service for almost two decades; and setting aside funds for updating the nuclear arsenal and pursuing new delivery systems; however, some results would not be realized for a decade. Additionally, although subject to a great deal of criticism, and even ridicule, Trump had the foresight to propose, establish and fund the new Space Force … a likely battleground for the next world war.
So after the past seventy years, summary, is the real current status of the U.S. military? In spite of the harsh realities presented in the introduction and throughout this piece, as well as many other deficiencies not mentioned here, our “leaders” have continued to provide us with reassurances that we remain the world’s leading military power. While this was absolutely true immediately after WWII, as our vanquished enemies formally surrendered before us; and we were victorious in the “cold war” as the USSR, humiliated, collapsed before our very eyes, our political and military leaders presumed that we would always prevail. However, given the verified progress of our military rivals since then, contrasted with the fatigue, materiel depletion and economic damage that has been done to our country after decades of the U.S. military presence in the Middle East, it is absolutely inconceivable that our “leadership” can continue making such a statement about U.S. military superiority with any real confidence … and expect us to believe them. This can only be due to their undying ARROGANCE.
While the U.S. military “brain trust,” occasionally aided and abetted by numerous false “experts” in Congress, were making improvements to night vision optics, armored personnel carriers, numerous single-purpose fighters and bombers and “next generation” aircraft carriers that cannot reliably lift aircraft and armaments to the flight deck, and neither launch the aircraft, nor arrest them upon landing … China developed a larger and better equipped standing army; a larger navy, including carriers that actually function; an expanded infrastructure that increases its potential control of islands and countries abutting the South China Sea; and, perhaps most onerous, is its progress in the pursuit of hypersonic missile development and aircraft flown, not by living and breathing pilots, but rather by “artificial intelligence” (AI).
There are numerous reports that while the U.S.S. Gerald Ford won’t be fully operational until at least 2023, China already has ground- and air-based hypersonic missiles that could completely destroy the Ford today … with little or no warning, and there is no reliable defense! While the U.S. has developed multiple specialty aircraft, China’s comparable planes, flown by AI, will beat the U.S. pilots every time. China has strategically positioned itself for eventual control of the South China Sea … with the ultimate prize being Taiwan … and the U.S. is in no position to capably defend or even support Taiwan in any way that would not lead to an embarrassing defeat of our military, as recent reports indicate that the outcome of every war gaming scenario has China prevailing over the U.S. And lastly, China has apparently developed its hypersonic missile program to the point that they are nuclear-capable and their paths can be controlled in a low-earth orbit to hit very close to their targets … and, remarkably, the U.S. intelligence community admitted that it “did not see this coming!” Adding salt to the wound, just a few days ago, it was disclosed that exploding a nuclear-equipped hypersonic missile over the middle of the U.S. could create an electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) that would effectively destroy the nation’s electrical grid … which the U.S. has failed to harden in order to survive such attacks … and immediately put the U.S. back into the mid-1800’s, which, within a year would result in the deaths of more than 300 million Americans. Knowing full well that China was making such strides, and that the U.S. military was falling dangerously behind, and doing nothing … and then having our “crack” intelligence agencies (funded by $85 billion annually) admitting that they did not see China’s hypersonic advances “coming”, can only be chalked up to IGNORANCE or INCOMPETENCE, or both!
(Incredible coincidence: At the very moment the above paragraph was being written, 0935 hours, 30Nov, FOX news reported a redeployment strategy involving aircraft redeployment and facility improvements in Guam, Australia and other bases in the south Pacific as a response to China’s aggressive moves against Taiwan.)
We have unwittingly funded the rise of China’s military through years of trade imbalance and, simultaneously, allowed our elected leaders and appointed “experts” preside over the decline of ours. We should no longer feel safe. As China was in the final stages of proving that it could guide a hypersonic missile to the other side of the globe and hit a target, with the tacit approval Biden and his handlers the U.S. Secretary of Defense ordered a two-month “stand down” of the military in order to investigate and “root out” white supremacists and their negative influences on the overall mission, as the “woke” military leaders wasted this time chasing a “non-existent domestic enemy” within its ranks. Also, our leaders sadly, almost laughingly, expressed pride at new flight suits that were designed for pregnant pilots … a misdirected effort given that, for years, the Air Force has failed to aggressively recruit and train at least 2000 pilots to satisfy that critical need in order to execute its most fundamental mission!
Since these recent developments have become widely known by a majority of Americans, the arrogance long-displayed by the U.S. military, like Elvis, “has left the building!” Additionally, notwithstanding the old adage, “ignorance is [not] bliss,” we have every right to believe that the U.S. military is just not up to the job of defending us against China.
In my humble opinion, with China hosting the winter Olympics in February and, until then, just having its aircraft “flirt” with Taiwan’s encroachment into Taiwan’s air space, the U.S. has no more than six months to determine what, if anything, it will do when China aggressively moves against Taiwan to reunify that island nation with the mainland! Anecdotally, virtually and realistically, we have lost the ability to deter China with our military strength and it appears that we would only embarrass ourselves if we engaged in a tactical “shooting war” with a superior force. Conclusion: The U.S. will respond with harsh words … and nothing more.
And after Taiwan recovers from any damage that occurs from its futile defense of its nation, and becomes “one” with China, China will control 70% of the world’s microchip production; 70% of the mining and 90% of the rare earth elements; and up to 90% of certain medications, with many of them being life-sustaining. At that point, China will have become the world’s superpower, and the U.S. will be its #1 serf. For all practical purposes, if China elects to withhold any or all of these critical items, it will be “game over” for the United States. (Moreover, China’s denial of these items may very well be used as leverage on behalf of its “allies” to let Russia move into the Ukraine and Iran to move ahead unencumbered with its nuclear program.) Many of us saw this coming for years, and it was totally preventable; however, our elected leaders forgot what they were elected to do, and, very Nero-like, dithered with silly internal matters while the country declined … and the grand experiment in self-governance failed.
For all its warts and problems, life in the U.S. is as good as it gets. The best case a year from now will be to do whatever Communist China wants us to do, and you don’t even want to think about how miserable they could make our lives if we fail to comply. GOD bless the U.S!
Paul Gilbert