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America is closer to fighting a major war with a near-peer adversary than at any time in the last 80 years, and the nation — including the U.S. military — is not prepared.
That is the finding of a report released Monday by the Commission on the National Defense Strategy, a bipartisan panel tasked by Congress to review the NDS.
The panel's 114-page report said the NDS is out of date, the U.S. military is not correctly structured and the nation's industrial base is "grossly inadequate" to confront the threat of Russia and China.
The full report is available here.
"The nation was last prepared for such a fight during the Cold War, which ended 35 years ago," the report said. "It is not prepared today."
Worse yet, the report stated the American public is unaware of the threat from the nation entering a major war.
"The U.S. public are largely unaware of the dangers the United States faces or the costs (financial and otherwise) required to adequately prepare," the report noted.
"A bipartisan 'call to arms' is urgently needed so that the United States can make the major changes and significant investments now rather than wait for the next Pearl Harbor or 9/11," it continued. "The support and resolve of the American public are indispensable."
The panel’s arguments resemble those made by many defense hawks on Capitol Hill, such as Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, who says the country needs to spend far more on defense.
Wicker would like to see the country invest 5% of its gross domestic product on defense. It now spends about 3%.
Congress gathers a group of outside experts every four years to review the NDS. The goal is to have an independent assessment of U.S. national security.
To assess the NDS, the eight commissioners spoke with lawmakers, U.S. allies, members of the current presidential administration and Pentagon leaders, including the secretary and deputy secretary of defense.
One glaring problem noted in the report is that the NDS has been overcome by recent events.
The NDS was written in early 2022, before Russia invaded Ukraine and entered a military partnership with China, Iran and North Korea, which increases the combined military capabilities of all four nations and raises the likelihood of a confrontation with the United States or its allies.
The commission was chaired by former Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., a onetime ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.
"Our commission believes unanimously that the threats to U.S. national security and our interests are greater than at any time since World War II and are more complex than during the Cold War," Harman told a Senate Armed Service Committee hearing about the report Tuesday.
"Our report includes actionable recommendations, including one that is being implemented in part with today’s hearing: educating the American public on how dire the situation is," she added. "Their support is critical to implement the changes we need to make.
"Leaders on both sides of the aisle and across government need to make the case to the public and get their support."
"There is potential for near-term war," added Eric Edelman, a former undersecretary of defense for defense policy, "and potential that we might lose."
A complete video of Tuesday's hearing is available here.
— By John Goheen
