Heritage Foundation assigns its weakest rating for U.S. Military strength
According to the Wall Steet Journal’s Editorial Board, this was the first “weak” rating that the U.S. Military received. The Heritage Foundation has been rating U.S. Military readiness for nine years. Their “Index of U.S. Military Strength” rated the military overall, and individually among the branches, assigning “U.S. Nuclear Capabilities” as an individual rating category. The Marines and Nuclear Capabilities were each rated “strong”. The Army was rated “marginal”. The Navy and Space Force were each rated “weak”. The Air Force was rated “very weak”. Overall, the U.S. Military was rated “weak”.
From the Daily Wire:
The U.S. military in 2022, under the leadership of President Joe Biden, received its lowest ever rating this week in a newly released exhaustive analysis from the Heritage Foundation.
The Heritage Foundation’s Index of U.S. Military Strength assessed a wide range of areas, including threats to the U.S., the condition of the U.S. military, U.S. alliances, and more.
The Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board noted that the assessment’s “weak” rating of the U.S. military was the first time it has ever received the score in the index’s nine-year history.
While the assessment found that the global operating environment from the U.S. perspective was largely favorable across the board, threats to the U.S. are rapidly increasing, with numerous nations posing a “high” threat against U.S. interests. The chief threats come from China and Russia, with Iran, North Korea, and others lagging behind.
In the portion of the assessment that focused on the power of the U.S. military, the analysis looked at capability, capacity, and readiness.
The assessment include the United States’ nuclear capability as a separate branch in the U.S. military because “of its truly unique characteristics and constituent elements, from the weapons themselves to the supporting infrastructure that is fundamentally different from the infrastructure that supports conventional capabilities.”
The assessment noted that the U.S. military is being degraded through “underinvestment, poor execution of modernization programs, and the negative effects of budget sequestration (cuts in funding) on readiness and capacity in spite of repeated efforts by Congress to provide relief from low budget ceilings imposed by the Budget Control Act of 2011.”
Skyrocketing inflation rates that were fueled by Biden’s agenda have led to greater expenses for the military, which erased progress made at the end of the Trump-era in increasing the U.S. military’s readiness.
The Daily Wire, The Heritage Foundation, and the Wall Street Journal have more information.
Category: "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", Military issues
But, but, but, how can this be????
All the USRs state every reporting unit is a T-1!!!
What, you mean a subjective upgrade can’t fight the enemy for ya?!
As if this is a surprise.
“Weak?” “Pathetic” is a FAR more accurate assessment.
All part of the plan, Comrade. Nothing to see here, Citizen! Move along.
I’m sure that all of the Woke/CRT/SHARP Training boxes are checked.
It will ultimately be up to the Armed Patriots of America to defend themselves…from all enemies, foreign AND domestic.
China’s happy. (Won’t let their folk be like this.)
But… Joe Biden is undoing the damage done to our foreign policy wrought by Trump. For example:
“Protect undocumented members of our armed services, veterans, and their spouses from deportation”
This is no brainer. All the illegal aliens in the Army will be protected. Since there never were any I’m gonna go ahead and call it a win!
“Biden will end the forever wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East, which have cost us untold blood and treasure. As he has long argued, Biden will bring the vast majority of our troops home from Afghanistan and narrowly focus our mission on Al-Qaeda and ISIS.”
There was no current US war in the ME to end so chalk up another freebie. Hardly any people fell to their deaths from US Aircraft fleeing Afghanistan. Way less than a trillion dollars in stuff was left behind for the Taliban. We will call this one a soft win. A few more months and ISIS and Al Qaeda will be defeated.
Does this mean when they enlist with stolen identity and fraudulent documents, DoD will give them a pass from all their crimes and let them continue their enlistments?
That was the only thing I could conclude. Otherwise why would he make it policy?
The draft for one. But seeing as how you didn’t ask in the first
place I’ll just say…told you so, long ago.
Get woke, go defeated.
Interestingly, the executive summary of the Army rating is the same (‘marginal’), but on key readiness aspects, it rates higher than it did in 2022.
The Air Force was downgraded to ‘very weak’ from ‘weak’ in 2022, and ‘marginal’ in 2021, largely due to a shortage of pilots and a prevalence of older aircraft.
The Marine Corps is the interesting one, since it was upgraded from ‘marginal’ to ‘strong’ following the change in the NDS from a ‘two-front’ policy to a single major war, and the Corps arguing that a one-war force only needs 30 battalions, not the 36 it had previously. I wonder, though -and maybe people here know?- if the other branches of the military argued something similar, as I know the NDS changes left many skeptical.
As for the politics, it’s worth noting that the decline isn’t strictly a ‘Fuck Joe Biden’ or a GEN Milley thing – it’s been a consistent trend since Heritage started these in 2015.
Probably because the decline and gutting started under Obama.
By 2015, the Obamunists had gotten rid of the military leaders who were unwilling to sellout. Especially, the ones who were effective combat leaders, as opposed to the opportunists.
I watched it start when the Clinton Curse began in the early 90’s.
Could be. Or, as API said below, during the Clintons. Or, as another theory entirely, it could simply be that our military hasn’t noticeably declined, but as foreign powers like China have made significant advances, our relative ability to hold a two-front parity with major adversaries naturally drops.
To the politics, though, neither party has reversed the direction of the ratings since the Heritage Foundation started them. It’s been a decline throughout the end of the Obama years, and throughout the Trump years, and now into the Biden years.
I personally take some of this analysis with a grain of salt, but any goals towards addressing decadal changes in military readiness need to be based on more than pointing fingers at the other party.
It would stand to reason that if we were marginally ready to fight two wars, we’re really ready to fight one war.
I don’t know that the other branches can even make that argument. If you consider the GWOT a two-front war, then that’s the only time the Marines have ever had to operate thusly. In all past conflicts, the Marines were a single front force.
Just send the whole of the military to Ranger
SchoolDaycare and when they put on that little piece of fabric that’ll make them betterer!Diplomas = skills, right?
Oh, and give everyone in the Army branch-specific cords and disks, the Infantrymen shouldn’t have all the bling.
It’s not fair!!!
Give everybody a beret so they’re elite now!
(How’s that been?)
“Anonymous”, my ass.
We now know this “Anonymous” fella is none other than ERIC K. SHINSEKI.
You gotzzz doxxx’d!!!
Best.VA.Head.Ever.
Just like the all-wheeled-Army idea…
Curses, foiled again!
They could make Ranger School a two week summer camp with tents, nature walks, and campfire sing alongs with s’mores.
MRE S’mores…
That’ll show the Russkies how tough they are
The first week would be at Ft. Whatever, where the campers would learn arts and crafts. The second week would be the full on camping. For O-4 and above it would be glamping with RV’s. There would be plenty of around the campfire war stories every night. Instead of a Ranger buddy, each student could pick a bunkie of his or her sexual persuasion or deviance.
Hey, Business Insider is on it:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/minutes-hours-nuclear-bomb-critical-181019914.html
Hmmm. Sounds like we’re not getting enough transgender recruits and pronoun training.
According to this administration, the chief threats come from White Rage and Toxic Masculinity, with Climate Change, Failure To Embrace Diversity Equity and Incluseion, and others lagging behind.
Despite your meme image, nothing in the Heritage report discusses “woke” or “sensitivity training” topics at all.
And right wing idiots have been talking about how per capita the Russian Army is “tougher” because it is anti woke. That we are “weaker” because we teach soldiers to not be bigoted assholes to other soldiers..
The Russian army is and has been a shitshow for decades. And should not have been regarded as a near peer.
I posted that fact here a few times over the years.
And, it turns out, they could have used a bit more sensitivity training. https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-shooting-military-training-ground/32084874.html
Insulting the god of a bunch of armed Tajiks who think their conscription is bullshit is not a sound team building strategy.
Put the weed pipe down and lay off it for a bit.
The Russian Army is better than the US Army said no one here, ever.