U.S. military unable to carry out defense strategy to reduce troops: experts

According to experts, the U.S. military is unable to fully fulfill its defense strategy requirements due to years of troop reduction and failure to modernize its weapons.

“There is a huge gap between what defense strategies require of the Navy, Air Force, Army, and Marine Corps. [provide]And what they can actually offer today, “said Mark Gunzinger, Head of Future Concepts and Capability Assessment at the Mitchell Aerospace Institute.

“This is the product of 30 years of power savings and a delay in modernization.”

To make up for that fact and prepare for the possibility of a conflict with China, the United States may need to consider increasing the use of cheaper unmanned systems to boost its more expensive assets. Mr. Gangzinger said. Especially given that US officials have warned that China’s communist government could launch an invasion of Taiwan by 2027.

“How do you fill that gap, and in the time frame we’re talking about?” Gangzinger asked.

“Most of the answers in unmanned systems.”

Many US systems that do not support missions

Gangzinger delivery Remarks at the July 12 roundtable on US Air Force and Navy development issues hosted by the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank.

A group of experts discussed how unmanned systems could improve the viability and combat capabilities of US military units in the Pacific, even when the military is fighting a downturning readiness level.

One such sign of a decline in military readiness discussed was a decade-long decline in mission-responsive systems. This tendency is most pronounced in the Navy and Marine Corps, which are responsible for most combat during conflicts with China.

Perhaps the most annoying example of unpreparedness is about 50% of military F-18 Super Hornet fighters on duty, according to Diana Maurer, Head of Defense Capabilities and Administration at the Secretary of Defense’s office. It was considered unsupported.

“If half of the aircraft is unable to fly up into the air and perform a single mission, it really blunts the Navy’s ability to perform some of the operations it wants to perform,” Maurer said. ..

“That’s a concern.”

Maurer said there were similar concerns with many of the vessels commonly used to launch such aircraft, and that delinquency and delays in regular maintenance of naval vessels had a serious negative impact on the military.

To that end, Maurer said different service sectors need to do more to overcome “institutional prejudices” and integrate with each other in order to gain an edge in the Pacific War. ..

“To make that possible, we need to work together in a much more integrated and much more seamless way,” Maurer said.

U.S. military is not ready for China conflict

Overall, the United States will need to do a lot to regain its heights over China in the Pacific, according to Bryan Clark, a senior researcher at the Hudson Institute.

“The main challenge we face is the missile threat posed by China,” Clark said.

“Basically, China has the ability to reach out thousands of miles from its shores and threaten carrier strike groups … with a large number of precision attack weapons.”

As such, Clark said the U.S. military would need to operate in a highly constrained environment 1,000 to 1,500 nautical miles away from China’s coastline to be effective. But still, you will face the biggest challenges with Chinese aircraft equipped with cruise missiles and large-scale bomb salvos.

Clark and his Hudson colleague Timothy Walton co-authored the report (pdf) About this issue earlier this year. In that document, they argued that the Navy and Marine Corps should choose to deploy more F-18s and less expensive F-35s.

They said the operational benefits of the F-35 were virtually disabled given the need to be located away from the Chinese military. They recommended that the United States could make up for the difference much more efficiently through decentralized anti-aircraft operations that rely on more drones and layered short-range air defense.

But that may not be the direction the Navy had in mind.

“Our involvement with the Navy showed that they were thinking of getting long-range weapons to meet the challenge,” Clark said.

“Basically, they are constrained by the fact that their future attack aircraft portfolio is the F-35 and F-18, and no more aircraft penetrate the horizon.”

To that end, Clark said that physically larger missiles also mean reducing the size of salvos, and the strategy may not be large and affordable. Therefore, he and Walton’s report suggested overhauling American aircraft carriers to focus solely on strike capabilities, while shifting other operational capabilities to land and space assets.