None of America’s armed forces can meet all of the demands placed on them by commanders today.
Just last week, the U.S. Navy said that for the second time in seven months, equipment failure prevented an amphibious assault ship, the USS Essex, from meeting a commitment at sea.
Unfortunately, this is not surprising. The U.S. military faces a readiness crisis — one confronting not just its people and end-strength cuts — but pushing equipment to the breaking point. Across all services, long-standing readiness problems are worsening and breakdowns are happening more frequently.
Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert, testifying to Congress last July shortly before his promotion to Chief of Naval Operations, said: “The stress on the force is real. And it has been relentless.”
The overall picture is dismal: While the Navy’s fleet has shrunk by about 15 percent since 1998, the number of ships deployed overseas has remained constant. Each ship goes to sea longer and more often, resulting in debilitating maintenance problems. Simple wear and tear is weakening defense capabilities across the board as the military’s major platforms age after high wartime usage rates and a lack of major recapitalization since the Reagan buildup.
Today, Washington wants to divert even more defense dollars to debt reduction — even in the face of the rapidly declining readiness of the U.S. military. This will only exacerbate the problem of how to meet the urgent need to conduct overdue maintenance on older ships, planes and vehicles.
The latest defense budget takes a half trillion dollars out of military spending over the next decade even though Pentagon leaders expect no let up in demand for U.S. forces worldwide.
Should an unforeseen crisis arise, the consequences could be deadly.
Mackenzie Eaglen is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
