The mission of Issues in Perspective is to provide thoughtful, historical and biblically-centered perspectives on current ethical and cultural issues.

David Wallace-Wells of the New York Times observes that “War is on the rise everywhere. When the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London published its authoritative Armed Conflict Survey in early December, it counted 183 conflicts globally in 2023—higher than had been recorded in 30 years. The most remarkable episode of this harrowing new era of global violence is an astounding spate of military takeovers in what has come to be known as the coup belt, stretching uninterrupted across Africa’s Sahel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea: six countries enduring 11 coup attempts, eight of them successful, since just 2020 . . . Counting by the number of conflicts, the world as a whole is a more violent place than it has been for at least 30 years. By some measures, it’s more conflict ridden than at any point since the end of World War II. Nonstate violence — conflict between nongovernmental armed groups, such as gangs — has more than tripled, according to Sweden’s Uppsala Conflict Data Program, since a low point in 2007. Violence by state forces against civilians has more than doubled since 2009, and assassination attempts are on the rise.”

In addition, Walter Russell Mead argues “that China is expanding the geographical reach and escalating violence in its campaign to drive Philippine forces from islands and shoals that Beijing illegitimately claims. And Bloomberg reports that Washington officials are fearful that Russia will help Iran cross the finish line in its race for nuclear weapons.  These stories, all from liberal news outlets generally favorable to the Biden administration, tell a tragic and terrifying tale of global failure on the part of the U.S. and its allies. China, Russia and Iran are stepping up their attacks on what remains of the Pax Americana and continue to make gains at the expense of Washington and its allies around the world.  To see what this all means and where it is leading, we must turn to the recently released report of the Commission on the National Defense Strategy. This panel of eight experts, named by the senior Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate Armed Services committees, consulted widely across government, reviewing both public and classified information, and issued a unanimous report that, in a healthy political climate, would be the central topic in national conversation.”

The bipartisan report details a devastating picture of political failure, strategic inadequacy and growing American weakness in a time of rapidly increasing danger. The U.S. faces the “most serious and most challenging” threats since 1945, including the real risk of “near-term major war.” The report warns: “The nation was last prepared for such a fight during the Cold War, which ended 35 years ago. It is not prepared today.”  Worse, “China and Russia’s ‘no-limits’ partnership, formed in February 2022 just days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has only deepened and broadened to include a military and economic partnership with Iran and North Korea. . . . This new alignment of nations opposed to U.S. interests creates a real risk, if not likelihood, that conflict anywhere could become a multitheater or global war.”  Should such a conflict break out, “the Commission finds that the U.S. military lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat.” To summarize, World War III is becoming more likely in the near term, and the U.S. is too weak either to prevent it or, should war come, to be confident of victory.

What is the Commission on the National Defense Strategy?  Congress created the Commission on the National Defense Strategy in the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act as an independent body charged with assessing the 2022 National Defense Strategy. Its members are non-governmental experts in national security. The Commission released its final report on July 29, 2024. [RAND contributed analytic and administrative support]

Here are a few excerpts from the executive summary of the report:

• “The United States confronts the most serious and the most challenging threats since the end of World War II. The United States could in short order be drawn into a war across multiple theaters with peer and near-peer adversaries, and it could lose. The current National Defense Strategy (NDS), written in 2022, does not account for ongoing wars in Europe and the Middle East and the possibility of a larger war in Asia. Continuing with the current strategy, bureaucratic approach, and level of resources will weaken the United States’ relative position against the gathering, and partnering, threats it faces. In its report, the Commission on the National Defense Strategy recommends a sharp break with the way the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) does business and embraces an “all elements of national power” approach to national security. It recommends spending smarter and spending more across the national security agencies of government.”
• “The United States was slow to recognize the threat of terrorism before 2001 and late to understand the rising strength of China and the renewed menace posed by Russia. According to the Commission, the time to make urgent and major change is now. That change will mean fundamental alterations to the way DoD operates, the strategic focus of other government agencies, and the functionality of Congress, as well as closer U.S. engagement with allies and mobilization of the public and private sectors. The Commission presents its unanimous conclusions and recommendations on how to accomplish these changes in its report.”

Commission Findings and Recommendations for Policymakers:

• The United States faces the most challenging global environment with the most severe ramifications since the end of the Cold War. The trends are getting worse, not better.
• DoD cannot, and should not, provide for the national defense by itself. The NDS calls for an “integrated deterrence” that is not reflected in practice today. A truly “all elements of national power” approach is required to coordinate and leverage resources across DoD, the rest of the executive branch, the private sector, civil society, and U.S. allies and partners.
• Fundamental shifts in threats and technology require fundamental change in how DoD functions. DoD is operating at the speed of bureaucracy when the threat is approaching wartime urgency.
• The NDS force-sizing construct is inadequate for today’s needs and tomorrow’s challenges. We propose a Multiple Theater Force Construct—with the Joint Force, in conjunction with U.S. allies and partners—sized to defend the homeland and tackle simultaneous threats in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East.
• U.S. industrial production is grossly inadequate to provide the equipment, technology, and munitions needed today, let alone given the demands of great power conflict.
• The DoD workforce and the all-volunteer force provide an unmatched advantage. However, recruiting failures have shrunk the force and raise serious questions about the all-volunteer force in peacetime, let alone in major combat. The civilian workforces at DoD and in the private sector also face critical shortfalls.
• The Joint Force is at the breaking point of maintaining readiness today. Adding more burden without adding resources to rebuild readiness will cause it to break.
• The United States must spend more effectively and more efficiently to build the future force, not perpetuate the existing one. Additional resources will be necessary. Congress should pass a supplemental appropriation to begin a multiyear investment in the national security innovation and industrial base. Additionally, Congress should revoke the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act spending caps and provide real growth for fiscal year 2025 defense and nondefense national security spending that, at bare minimum, falls within the range recommended by the 2018 NDS Commission. Subsequent budgets will require spending that puts defense and other components of national security on a glide path to support efforts commensurate with the U.S. national effort seen during the Cold War.

Perceptively, David Leonhardt observes that, “One of the bipartisan group’s central arguments is that American weakness has contributed to the new instability. ‘This is not a report encouraging the U.S. to go to war,’ Jane Harman, the former Democratic congresswoman from California and the commission’s chair, told me. ‘It’s a report making sure the U.S. can deter war.’  If the U.S. doesn’t do more to deter aggression, living standards in this country could suffer, Harman and her colleagues argued. Iran-backed attacks in the Red Sea have already raised shipping costs, while Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made energy more expensive. A war in Taiwan could cut off access to the semiconductors that power modern life.  Harman told me that she believed the warning signs today were similar to those in the run-up to both Pearl Harbor and 9/11—serious and underestimated.”

Jack Detsch of Foreign Policy writes, “For most of the post-Cold War era, the United States had a two-war strategy in place, calling on the U.S. military to be prepared to fight and win two wars at once. And after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. military spent the better part of the next two decades fighting two wars at once—in Iraq and Afghanistan—though never at the scale of conventional wars of the past such as Korea, Vietnam, or World War II.  But fiscal austerity—especially the budget caps Congress enacted during the Obama administration in an effort to slash the national debt—combined with a strategic pivot toward China under the last three U.S. presidents has made maintaining a two-war military no longer a pillar of Pentagon strategy.  With two wars no longer a requirement and low unemployment making military recruiting much more difficult, the U.S. military’s overall end strength is smaller than it has been in 80 years.”

“The call to fight wars in multiple different areas—or ‘theaters,’ in military jargon—is distinct from the old two-war construct, the report said, as that approach called on the United States to be prepared to defeat rogue states in northeast Asia and the Middle East, such as Iran and North Korea, that might not have first-world military capabilities. Today, the report said, the U.S. military needs to be able to defend the U.S. homeland, lead efforts to deter China in the Western Pacific and Russia in Europe, and defend against Iranian malign activities.”

The report recommended increasing military spending, partly by making changes to Medicare and Social Security (which is sure to upset many liberals) and partly by increasing taxes, including on corporations (which is sure to upset many conservatives). But, in terms of the US budget, the national debt realities are ever present.  For example, as William A. Galston of the Wall Street Journal reports, “. . . defense spending, which has averaged 4.2% of GDP over the past 50 years, will shrink to 2.8% by 2034.  The growing burden of interest payments, including foreign creditors, makes it harder to afford the national security we need.”

A single commission does not unravel the hard strategic issues facing the country: How much money should the U.S. spend on the military, given other priorities and the large federal debt? How much waste can be cut from the Pentagon budget? Which foreign conflicts are vital to the national interest — and which are a distraction?  All these questions are vexing. But Americans do face a more dangerous world than many realize. The unexpected global turmoil of the past decade makes that clear.

But as Mead makes clear:  “A more devastating indictment of a failed generation of national leadership could scarcely be penned.  This is not, or should not be, a partisan issue. No recent president and no party escapes responsibility for our current plight. Red and blue America will suffer equally if the global slide toward war continues unchecked.  Even more appalling than the report is the general indifference with which it has been received. Aside from a few honorable exceptions . . . the commission’s report sank like a stone. There has been no uproar in the press, no speechifying by presidential candidates, no storm on social media, no sign that the American political class takes the slightest interest in the increasing fragility of the peace on which everything we cherish depends.”

“That isn’t new. Congress, much of the media and public opinion at large have ignored alerts from respected defense leaders at least since Robert Gates warned almost 12 years ago of the dangerous consequences of defense cutbacks. The commission’s report is now warning that the long-deferred bill is coming due.  If history teaches anything, it is that decadence this deep, carried on this long, entails enormous costs. Our adversaries’ conviction that the inattention of a flabby political class is bringing the Pax Americana to an inglorious end is a key reason why nations as suspicious of one another as China, Russia, Iran and North Korea have chosen this moment to make common cause against us.”

The prophet Ezekiel spoke about the duty of the watchman on the city wall to sound the trumpet when enemies approach. The Commission on the National Defense Strategy has fulfilled its mission. But judging from the indifference with which its report has been greeted, more and louder trumpets need to sound. Not since the 1930s have Americans been this profoundly indifferent as a great war assembles in the world outside, and not since Paul Revere traversed the dark country lanes of Massachusetts have Americans more urgently needed to rouse themselves from sleep.

See David Wallace-Wells in the New York Times (29 February 2024); Walter Russell Mead in the Wall Street Journal (17 September 2024); Report of the Commission on the National Defense Strategy, 29 July 2024; David Leonhardt, in The New York Times, “The Morning” (23 September 2024); Jack Detsch, “The U.S. Must Prepare to Fight Simultaneous Wars, Oversight Panel Says” in Foreign Policy (29 July 2024); William A. Galston in the Wall Street Journal (19 September 2024.).