Caitlin Doornbos
NY Post, Oct. 18, 2022
“At present, the [Biden] administration’s proposed defense budget for [fiscal year] 2023 falls far short
of what the services need to regain readiness and to replace aged equipment,” the report said.
The US military may not be able to win one war — let alone two — as the Pentagon struggles to keep its
forces equipped against potential threats from China and Russia, according a new report on American
military strength.
Years of underfunding and “poorly defined priorities” has led the military to become “weak relative to
the force needed to defend national interests on the global stage,” the conservative Heritage
Foundation said in its annual “Index of U.S. Military Strength.”
“[T]he current U.S. military force is at significant risk of not being able to meet the demands of a single
major regional conflict,” the report said. “The force would probably not be able to do more and is
certainly ill-equipped to handle two nearly simultaneous [major conflicts.]”
At the same time, the possibility of two-front fighting has increased as Russia continues to wage war on
Ukraine and China grows increasingly aggressive in the Pacific, according to the report.
“In the aggregate, the United States’ military posture can only be rated as ‘weak,’” the report said. … Source
