U.S. Military Power

U.S. Military Power An Assessment of U.S. Military Power merica is a global power with global inter- Army might have 100 tanks, but to accomplish Aests. Its military is tasked first and fore- a specific military task, 1,000 or more might most with defending America from attack. be needed or none at all. It might be that the Beyond that, it must be capable of protecting terrain on which a battle is fought is especial- Americans abroad, allies, and the freedom to ly ill-suited to tanks or that the tanks one has use international sea, air, and space while re- are inferior to the enemy’s. The enemy could taining the ability to engage in more than one be quite adept at using tanks, or his tank op- major contingency at a time. America must erations might be integrated into a larger be able not only to defend itself and its inter- employment concept that leverages the sup- ests, but also to deter enemies and opportun- porting fires of infantry and airpower, where- ists from taking action that would challenge as one’s own tanks are poorly maintained, the U.S. interests, a capability that includes both crews are not well-prepared, or one’s doctrine preventing the destabilization of a region and is irrelevant. guarding against threats to the peace and se- Success in war is partly a function of match- curity of America’s friends. ing the tools of warfare to a specific task and As noted in the five preceding editions of employing those tools efectively in battle. Get the Index, however, the U.S. does not have the these wrong—tools, objective, competence, or necessary force to meet a two–major region- context—and you lose. al contingency (two-MRC) requirement and Another key element is the military’s ca- is not ready to carry out its duties efectively. pacity to conduct operations: how many of the Consequently, as we have seen during the past right tools—people, tanks, planes, or ships—it few years, the U.S. risks seeing its interests in- has. One might have the right tools and know creasingly challenged and the world order it how to use them effectively but not have has led since World War II undone. enough to win. Given that one cannot know with certainty beforehand just when, where, How to Think About Sizing Military Power against whom, and for what reason a battle Military power begins with the people and might be fought, determining how much ca- equipment used to conduct war: the weapons, pability is needed is an exercise of informed tanks, ships, airplanes, and supporting tools but not certain judgment. such as communications systems that make Further, two different combatants can it possible either for one group to impose its use the same set of tools in radically difer- will on another or to prevent such an outcome ent ways to quite diferent efects. The con- from happening. cept of employment matters. Concepts are However, simply counting the number developed to account for numbers, capabili- of people, tanks, or combat aircraft that the ties, material readiness, and all sorts of other U.S. possesses would be insufcient because factors that enable or constrain one’s actions, it would lack context. For example, the U.S. such as whether one fights alone or alongside The Heritage Foundation | heritage.org/Military 307 allies, on familiar or strange terrain, or with a on dominating the Asia–Pacific region. An- large, well-equipped force or a small, poorly other Administration might view China as an equipped force. inherently peaceful rising economic power, All of these factors and a multitude of oth- with the expansion of its military capabilities ers afect the outcome of any military contest. a natural occurrence commensurate with its Military planners attempt to account for them strengthening status. The diference between when devising requirements, developing train- these views can have a dramatic impact on how ing and exercise plans, formulating war plans, one thinks about U.S. defense requirements. So, and providing advice to the President in his role too, can policymakers amplify or downplay risk as Commander in Chief of U.S. military forces. to justify defense budget decisions. Measuring hard combat power in terms of There also can be strongly difering views its capability, capacity, and readiness to defend on requirements for operational capacity. U.S. vital interests is difcult, especially in such a limited space as this Index, but it is not im- l Does the country need enough for two possible. However difcult determining the major combat operations (MCOs) at adequacy of one’s military forces may be, the roughly the same time or just enough for a Secretary of Defense and the military services single major operation and some number have to make such decisions every year when of lesser cases? the annual defense budget request is submit- ted to Congress. l To what extent should “presence” tasks— The adequacy of hard power is afected most the use of forces for routine engagement directly by the resources the nation is willing with partner countries or simply to be on to apply. Although that decision is informed hand in a region for crisis response—be to a significant degree by an appreciation of in addition to or a subset of a military threats to U.S. interests and the ability of a giv- force sized to handle two major region- en defense portfolio to protect U.S. interests al conflicts? against such threats, it is not informed solely by such considerations; hence the importance l How much value should be assigned to of clarity and honesty in determining just what advanced technologies as they are incor- is needed in terms of hard power and the status porated into the force? of such power from year to year. Administrations take various approaches in Where to Start determining the type and amount of military There are two major references that one power needed and, by extension, the amount can use to help sort through the variables and of money and other resources to commit to arrive at a starting point for assessing the ade- it. After defining the national interests to be quacy of today’s military posture: government protected, the Department of Defense (DOD) studies and historical experience. The govern- can use worst-case scenarios to determine the ment occasionally conducts formal reviews maximum challenges the U.S. military might that are meant to inform decisions on capa- have to overcome. Another way is to redefine bilities and capacities across the Joint Force what constitutes a threat. By taking a diferent relative to the threat environment (current view of whether major actors pose a meaningful and projected) and evolutions in operating threat and of the extent to which friends and al- conditions, the advancement of technologies, lies have the ability to assist the U.S. in meeting and aspects of U.S. interests that may call for security objectives, one can arrive at diferent one type of military response over another. conclusions about necessary military strength. The 1993 Bottom-Up Review (BUR) con- For example, one Administration might ducted by then-Secretary of Defense Les Aspin view China as a rising belligerent power bent is one such frequently cited example. Secretary 308 2020 Index of U.S. Military Strength Aspin recognized that “the dramatic changes The QDR was replaced by the National De- that [had] occurred in the world as a result of fense Strategy (NDS), released in 2018, and the the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of independent perspectives of the formal DOD the Soviet Union” had “fundamentally altered review by the National Defense Strategy Com- America’s security needs” and were driving an mission, which released its view of the NDS in imperative “to reassess all of our defense con- November 2018. Departing from their prede- cepts, plans, and programs from the ground cessors, neither document proposed specific up.”1 force structures or end strength goals for the The BUR formally established the re- services.5 quirement that U.S. forces should be able “to achieve decisive victory in two nearly simulta- Correlation of Forces as a neous major regional conflicts and to conduct Factor in Force Sizing combat operations characterized by rapid re- During the Cold War, the U.S. used the So- sponse and a high probability of success, while viet threat as its primary reference in deter- minimizing the risk of significant American mining its hard-power needs. At that time, the casualties.”2 Thus was formalized the two- correlation of forces—a comparison of one MRC standard. force against another to determine strengths Dr. Daniel Gouré, in his 2015 Index essay and weaknesses—was highly symmetrical. U.S. “Building the Right Military for a New Era: planners compared tanks, aircraft, and ships The Need for an Enduring Analytic Frame- against their direct counterparts in the op- work,” noted that various Administrations posing force. These comparative assessments have redefined force requirements based on drove the sizing, characteristics, and capabili- their perceptions of what was necessary to pro- ties of fleets, armies, and air forces. tect U.S. interests.3 In an attempt to formalize The evolution of guided, precision muni- the process, and perhaps to have a mechanism tions and the rapid technological advance- by which to influence the executive branch in ments in surveillance and targeting systems, such matters, Congress mandated that each however, made comparing combat power more incoming Administration must conduct a difcult. What was largely a platform v.

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