The Army doesn’t have enough soldiers, the Navy’s fleet is half the size it was during the Cold War, and Air Force pilots aren’t getting the flight time needed to maintain their edge.

That’s the stark conclusion of the latest ranking of U.S. military strength from the Heritage Foundation think tank, which says a “decade of decline” has left America’s armed forces with a “weak” rating for the second year in a row, despite Congress allocating more than $800 billion last year on national defense.

The state of the military — and the growing challenges it is dealing with in Europe, Asia and the Middle East — are likely to be key topics of discussion and debate in a presidential election year. The conservative Heritage Foundation has emerged as a influential force in the campaign of Republican front-runner Donald Trump, with its Project 2025 initiative created to, in the think tank’s own words, “build now for a conservative victory through policy, personnel, and training.”

The dismal ranking results from years of prolonged deployments, poorly defined priorities, wildly shifting security policies, and a “profound lack of seriousness” across the national security establishment even as threats to U.S. interests have surged, Heritage officials said in releasing the latest ranking Wednesday.

“The military is too small, it’s too old in terms of the equipment it uses and it’s too unready,” said retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. Dakota Wood, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and editor of the military strength index. “All the equipment was bought with 1980s money and fielded in the 1990s. Just about all the primary end items are 30 years old or older.”

Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee and the potential chairman of the powerful panel

Republicans re-take the Senate in November, said the Heritage report’s title, “A Decade of Decline,” was “absolutely appropriate.”
“We are now living in the most dangerous moment since World War II. We need to be reminded of that,” said Mr. Wicker, who spoke at the event releasing the new report.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, part of a Heritage panel Wednesday outlining the findings, said the parlous state of the U.S. military should be a central part of the discussion in the upcoming campaign, which looks on track to pit Mr. Trump in a rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden. The top national security issues affecting the country today are the U.S.-Mexico border, the state of the military and regional threats in Europe, the Middle East and the Far East, he said.

“The Democrat, Biden, is ignoring all five. It’s almost like he’s spitting into the wind,” said Gen. Kellogg.

Joe Kent, a retired Army Special Forces officer running for Congress in Washington state, said the porous U.S.-Mexico border is a national security priority for a lot of Americans. The images of the U.S. military’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan also continue to resonate with voters, he said.

“That really did remind a lot of people who said, ‘What happened with this great military that was accomplishing all those great things — we thought — and what was it all for?’” Mr. Kent said. “Didn’t we just fight a war for 20-plus years in the Middle East? Now we’re being told we have to go secure shipping lanes? I think this will become a major campaign issue.”

Strong, marginal and weak

Of the Pentagon’s various service branches, the Heritage report rated only the Marine Corps as “strong,” while the Space Force — America’s newest military service — received a “marginal” rating. The Army also was listed as “marginal,” while the Navy was rated as “weak.” The Air Force ranked as “very weak,” suffering from low readiness and proficiency levels owing to a lack of flight hours, available pilots and funding for fuel and maintenance, the Heritage analysts said.

Since 2017, the Air Force has fielded only 32 active fighter squadrons. During the Cold War, it maintained 29 squadrons in Europe alone, the Heritage Foundation said.

The Heritage analysts said the Navy has a serious capacity problem. It has about 290 ships in the fleet, down from nearly 600 during the Cold War. However, Navy leadership keeps roughly the same number deployed at any one time, doubling the workload on ships, people and supporting maintenance yards, Heritage analysts said.

Ship maintenance in the Navy is consistently delayed in part because the number of service yards has been cut in half since the end of the Cold War to just four,  according to the Heritage report. China’s shipbuilding capacity is 230 times larger than the U.S., and Beijing launched 30 ships last year, including a new aircraft carrier, Mr. Wicker said.

The lawmaker said U.S. forces are being stressed at a time when adversaries are probing for weaknesses.

“Then there’s Russia. The good thing coming out of Ukraine is that it has awakened NATO,” Sen. Wicker said. “Strengthening NATO and making sure that they understand they need to pay their way is a good thing.”

While defense spending as a percentage of GDP is now “far lower” than it was throughout the Cold War, the military isn’t being asked to do less. Budget increases during the Biden administration haven’t kept up with inflation, meaning a loss in real buying power, Heritage officials said.

“There’s bloat and waste within the defense budget that is sucking up funding that would be better spent on military capability,” Heritage said in its report. “Our spending priorities do not reflect the immediacy of the challenges we face. We should be focusing spending on lethality — ships, planes, and munitions.”

Struggling allies

While the Biden administration and the Pentagon frequently cite America’s allies as a force multiplier, the militaries of nations like Germany, France, and the U.K. are also far short of their Cold War predecessors, according to the Heritage Foundation report.

Last year, Germany’s defense minister said the country’s armed forces weren’t capable of defending the country. Berlin won’t be able to field a fully-equipped and ready division until 2025 and a second won’t be ready before 2028 or later.

France has just over 220 tanks, down from more than 1,300 in the Cold War, about 250 jet fighters, down from a high of 686, and 19 large surface warships,  down from 41. A “senior defense leader” has questioned if the French military could operate longer than four days in high-intensity combat, Heritage said.

The British have the smallest army since 1710 and would be hard-pressed to field a single combat-ready division. Only 157 of its top-of-the-line Challenger II tanks could be made ready for operations in 30 days.

“The total UK military force is smaller than the U.S. Marine Corps: 160,000 vs. 174,000,” Heritage said.

Meanwhile, China is fielding modern aircraft, ships, submarines and missiles at an alarming rate, made possible by double-digit increases in defense spending for the past decade. It has more than 360 warships and will likely have more than 400 by 2030, according to the report.

Russia, amid a bloody war in Ukraine, is nevertheless producing more tanks and missiles than before the invasion. It typically fires as much artillery ammunition in 2-3 days as is found in the entire British inventory, Heritage said.

“They really stumbled out of the gate when they moved into Ukraine, but they’ve learned a lot,” Lt. Col. Wood said. “Russia is not out of this game. They haven’t used their bombers and still have a very capable submarine fleet — even if their surface fleet is pretty much junked out at this time.”

Mr. Wicker said the report’s findings strongly suggest Mr. Biden’s budgets haven’t been enough to address the country’s defense shortcomings.

“I think we are going to have to go big,” Mr. Wicker said, adding, “Increasing our defense budget by 3 to 5% I do not think is enough.”

• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.