Decisive Weaknesses of the US Military

• In Event: Poster Session: International Security I

Abstract

The United States operates from the premise that its military forces are fully capable of defeating all other military forces. This reflects a belief that U.S. technological advantages are such that no other state can resist with equivalent lethality and reach. Such a belief permeates the literature on U.S. security policy especially in the academic realm where the analysis is often abstract. Demonstrations of U.S. strike capabilities in the first Gulf War have a shelf life that endures beyond the events. What arises is another version of the dominance of the offense in military conflicts. As a description of the past, this might have been accurate but over the past decade, this perspective persists despite changes in the strategic environment. Such changes are coming in several dimensions: technological, organizationally and political, domestic and international. The technological are the most obvious and clear: 1. Loss of technological edge – growth in the capabilities of other states at the cutting edge like the United States; 2. Vulnerability of the U.S. GPS system to attack, kinetic and electronic; 3. Proliferation of nuclear weapons and missiles to more states; and 4. The U.S. must fight in an expeditionary mode, striking at long distances while moving forces those same distances. Technologies enable U.S. forces but their per unit cost and time necessary for development hallow out existing forces. Organizationally, the volunteer military becomes both an asset and a liability. The asset aspect is the high quality of the force along with its experience in operations and logistics. As a liability, U.S. forces especially the Army but also the Marine Corps operate in a constantly turbulent personnel environment as the force size rises and falls in response to budget necessities while the operational tempo is unrelenting. This undermines the force’s capabilities in the long term as individuals leave the services in response to the demands destructive for families. Politically, the domestic situation is such that budgets and simple policy changes are stymied through lack of consensus on the state of the world. Internationally, the situation is that the U.S. has recently disrupted long standing alliances which undermines U.S. capability to confront regional opponents. U.S. military power outside the nuclear realm has always been premised on alliance partners who can provide part of the forces used to confront possible adversaries. That overcomes the smaller size of U.S. combat units when confronting regional powers with possibly large forces.

Author

• Roger B. Handberg, University of Central Florida