Host a conversation on military readiness and the threat we face. Od, served two decades in the marine corps. Assessing military strength is a major undertaking. How does the Heritage Foundation try to do that . Gather all Public Information we can come across. Thecial testimonies from pentagon, acquisition reports on major programs. General news reporting from the community and our personal contacts in the services and pentagon. We gather all that all year long, go through analysis and writing processes, prepare last years information and this years and then issue a report card on the military. This year on a scale of one to five we would give it a marginal. We feel the u. S. Military at large is marginally able to meet the demands of National Security requirements. Meaning they can handle one major conflict in one part of the world, but not much more than that. We think it needs to be more than that because the u. S. Has global interests and responsibilities. Host the u. S. Military budget has increased under the trump administration. Has that made an impact . Guest it actually has and we have seen that in readiness. Things like building new ships and airplanes. These are multiyear references that take a wild to expand or grow. The same thing on manpower. The number of people you have as well, but readiness, where you get people you have with the equipment they have into the field to train and fly and shoot and drive and all those things, to be competent in what they are doing, that has really improved over the last 2 or 3 years. If we were going to pick one high point, it is increased readiness of the force we currently have. Host it is the 2021 index of u. S. Military strength. You can find it at heritage. Org. That is what we are talking about in this segment of the washington journal. If you would like to join the conversation with dakota wood, democrats can call 202 7488000, republicans 202 7488001, independents 202 7488002, active and retired members of the military we have a special line for you 202 7488003. Intoeport we want to dive is one of the key topics which is assessing the Global Operating environment. That is the threat we are facing in the world. Where are they coming from . Guest it is two parts you are talking about. Is it easy or difficult for the American Military to do what will be called upon to do . In that section look at friends and allies and where we have forces. Do they know how to work in a particular area . The threat section is to your point and we look at russia, korea, and, north the destabilizing influence of terrorism in key parts of the world. We assess the threat environment in general is high. Not the highest category, a four, but in the high category because the main competitors, like china and russia, have really made serious investments in the military capabilities. Expanding their reach, power projection, really improved the capability of their forces with longerrange guided munitions, a lot more attention to training for readiness, and combat competency. Iran has expanded its portfolio of missiles to 3000 ballistic missiles. You see in the News Headlines with china and what they have been doing in the South China Sea, so it is a worrisome environment for my threats perspective. From the ally perspective they have been making some progress, especially in the last year or two. Among nato members making more investments in their own defense, but they are still falling short. Host we encourage viewers to go to heritage. Org and open up this very easy to navigate index because you can follow along with some of the easytoread charts we are going to be going through for our visual learners. Ofare showing in capability the threats around the world. You talk about russia and china being rated as formidable threats. On the lower end of the threat scale are those that you consider to be capable threats. Middle east terrorism falls into that as well as afghanistan and pakistan terrorism. Explain why that is on the lower level of capability. Guest in those tables, we tried to use descriptive words. Language to convey a something you need to be concerned about or just generate urgency. When we look at threats it is a combination of intent and capability. You cannot really measure intent so you look at behavior. How has a country been behaving and as it has been behaving more or less aggressively what are the tools it has . When you look at terror groups and they do not possess submarines and combat aircraft fleets and large land forces ballistic missiles, but they do pose an immediate threat, especially in a politically destabilizing way. You can have a terror group like al qaeda or an Islamic State that is very aggressive in its rhetoric, but there capability is limited to small arms, manufactured bombs, may be smaller gauge rockets. We give them a lower score on the capability side even if their activity is very aggressive. Host here is the part of that report that those are calling in on active and retired lines will probably be most responsive to. It is talking about the capabilities, readiness and capacity of the military branches in this country. Just taking a look at the comparison between the army and navy, the army rated very high when it comes to readiness. Weak when it comes to capacity. You can see the comparison to the navy. Capacity,it comes to readiness on the marginal level. Explain the differences to that and why you chose those rankings. Guest the capacity is very important to understand our scoring. We think the u. S. Military needs to be able to handle 2 major problems. If you got tied up in the asiapacific region, some kind of conflict with china, it is not that you can leave the middle east or europe when you have iran and russia. You have to have a large capability that you can address u. S. Interests in multiple regions. That is why we think this two war capacity is critical. When we look at the navy and army they just do not have the numbers of units. It does not mean the individuals, soldiers are weak or not competent, we just do not have enough of them. The army has paid a lot of attention to the readiness of its forces. Sending combat teams to the National Training centers, really making the shift from counterterrorism focused operations to readying itself if it had to go into largescale conventional conflict against a major opponent like russia or china. Their readiness is almost off the charts. They spent a lot of time getting their units back up to speed where is navy has had problematic maintenance areas. Keeping ships out at sea, doing quick turns with shipyards, the backlog maintenance that occurred over many years. When you look at those scores the force we have today not the 15 years from now if called upon to go to war, the forces are too small for the task we think they would have. They need to do more focus on modernizing their equipment which is a lot of money from congress and spending time and attention to make those forces competent. That is kind of explaining the methodology. Host if you agree or disagree, you can take it up with dakota wood directly. He is Defense Programs Senior Research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. That line for active and retired military is 202 7488003. That is where we are going to start. Ed out of jacksonville, florida, retired military. Caller good morning. I was wondering if your report looked at those who served. Guest we addressed the criticality of reserved forces. There is so much complexity in the political establishment of our National Guard and our reserved forces. A lot of variability in different units across the country depending on what their particular focus might be and whether youre talking individual Ready Reserve over selector units. What we do is we look at the active components in the scores we use those active combat units as a bellwether. They are representative of components of the total force. Be firste units would thrown into the breach. We have to make sure they cannot do they cannot do anything over a sustained time without reserve forces. The ones we actually score in those tables are the active component elements. Host one of the top line conclusions from the report notes americas leadership remains in question and security interests are under significant pressure. Challenges continue to grow, longstanding allies are not what they once were, and the u. S. Is increasingly bedeviled by debt and constraints to sustain its forces with its interests. That was from the index of u. S. Military strength. Focus on longstanding allies not what they once were. Guest when you think about nato, members and the forces they used to have, at the end of the cold war west germany alone had 5000 main battle tanks, a sufficient navy, a competent air force. Today the combined germany, 20 or 30 years later, has fewer than 300 tanks. 5000 per west germany and 300 or fewer today. Two years ago they had no operationally deployable submarines. They had a contract civilian companies to get their military pilots sufficient time and helicopter cockpits to maintain certification. That is an example. The british military. The size of the british military, airpower, navy, Royal Marines and army, the total is smaller than the United States marine corps alone. They only have 17 surface ships in the navy. China added that number of ships to his navy in the last two years or so. When we look at the investments of our partners and friends they have really fallen short for about 20 to 25 years. We talk about the importance of allies. If you are going to go to war, you want people helping you out and be there to help people. But if they are not doing what they should be doing, it is a great burden on the United States which increased our costs and risks. Host chris in massachusetts is next, line for democrats. Caller quick question, unlike iran and russia the united without ann sillier invitation from the government. It is without the United NationsSecurity Council authorization. The United States is an Occupying Force and appears to be looking after the interests of the saudis and israelis. Do happen to comment on that . Thank you and have a nice day. Guest thank you. We are talking policy decision. Force isf military different than the condition of military force. The policy debate going on in washington, Congress Continues to fund the defense department. They have not for bid and the use of military forces. Almost by default we have the u. S. Congress, representative branch and american people, going along with his use of military power. When those forces were introduced in syria it was absolute chaos. You had a lot of civilians being massacred by the recognized government, the use of chlorine gas, it was mayhem. There was an international effort, at least by coalition partners, to try and introduce forces, keep back the warring parties, support the civilians there were under assault, and a lot of Freedom Fighters were called back that were representative form of government. Things of consolidated a bit in the last year or two, especially because russia and iran came to support the regime. But i do not think anybody is military arehat advocates of peace, stability, helping their own population. For my understanding of the role of u. S. Forces to combat Islamic States, trying to provide some peaceful enclave and facilitate the support of humanitarian that thee, things Syrian Government would not be supporting. There are sometimes situations in which if you cannot get consensus among the international community, the right thing to do is go in, use military force for the right reasons, and see how the situation falls. Host out of sarasota, florida this is stephen a republican. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. It seems like some of the news programs seem to be a form of propaganda that help other countries and while we do not see and have not heard much in the last several years, other than conservative channels i watch both liberal and conservative channels and i hear things like russians targeting americans. Sort of like propaganda. They do not talk about the good things that have been going on in our military and i was wondering why we would use to hurt ourselves . Networks that are almost antiamerican. It seems strange to me we are hurting ourselves. Guest i think the past year has pointed out the differences of opinion across the United States. We will see with the Electoral College decides on who the next president is. It does appear to be remaining in joe bidens favor on that, but even with that said 74 Million People voted for the current president. Obviously more voted for the contender. It is just an example that people hold very strongly held views. There are differences of opinion on the role of the United States and the world and how it executes that role. Is it primarily economic, military, is it a mixture of all those things . I think what we have seen in the news Media Establishment at large is really picking sides on that. There is a philosophy that pervades a lot of the reporting based on either the journalists involved or the Editorial Board or whoever is writing the checks for a particular news outlet. We see this preference for viewpoints coming through. I think the really educated consumer appears to be taking in multiple streams. Winging, the right web, looking at international reports. What are the brits, germans, japanese writing about . That is the way to get a holistic view and then you throw your voice and like you have done on this program. Host coming back to this issue of assessing military strength, writes, you seem to have a more negative position. Guest strength is a relative. Person per person, unit for unit, we would dominate on the battlefield. We have really good people, good leadership, kind of the american model where you put initiative in the lower ranks opposed to other models which are more authoritarian. They do not have that kind of free play were personal Initiative Comes up. Experience. Have the the last time china went to war with anybody was against vietnam in 1979i believe. They did not fare too well. That does not mean you recognize your shortfalls and improve your situation, which is what china is doing. Where we have a negative view on these things is if you had to go more than one place at one time, we do not have the capacity. The military skills we have are great, what we are using equipment that is 30 and 40 years old. The average age of a Fighter Aircraft we see flying around his 30 years old. More than half of the navy ships are greater than 20 years old. The marine corps uses amphibious vehicles that were purchased in the 1970s. It is a comparison thing. Where would you put a u. S. Force on a map against an opposing force if that is all they had to be concerned about . We are pretty sure they would win in that conflict. But it was more than that, if you had to be more than one place, old equipment and small capacity. Host we have a space force now. What about assessing the strength of the space force . Guest it was an easy move to take. Individuals in the air force that focused on space carved them out, but was still a 20,000 or more space oriented personnel in the army and navy that are not part of that space force. It is a great first step. We think it is needed because of the unique nature of space and Space Operations and the different platforms you can put up for various reasons. But it needs to continue to expand. That is just in the military services. You still have Intelligence Community that are huge consumers of space and space products that are not part of that space force. We think the initiative is good, very aggressive and trying to get their feet under them and develop an identity and culture, which will take time, but the effort needs to continue and be much more comprehensive. Host it is the index of u. S. Military strength we are talking about. Yearly index put out by the Heritage Foundation. Dakota wood is the Defense ProgramSenior Research fellow and served two decades in the marine corps, taking your phone calls this morning. Lynn is next out of virginia, independent. Caller thank you for taking my call. I have been trying to get hold of cspan for the last seven months. Host you are on now. What is your question or comment. Caller i have a comment. Civilianrdinary citizen. I just have a comment about our military system. I am so proud and impressed of what our President Trump has done for the last four years. Though i am an ordinary citizen, but i watch the correct news and you can feel it, you know it, that we are in much safer place in the last four years than for a long time. That is my simple comment. Host are we in a safer place . Guest i think we are more realistic. In that sense, yes, i think we are. Timeuring that period of the world does not stand still. You have a china that has dramatically expanded its capabilities, improved skill levels. They have gotten more serious about a power projection force to secure its commercial routes from china proper through the South China Sea into the indian ocean and middle east. It is a much different china. While we have gotten better in terms of our focus less counterterrorism and much more on the Great Power Competition the people talk about our adversaries, competitors, have also made improvements. The first step in dealing with any kind of problem is recognizing that you have a problem. Now it is one of my going to do about that . We talked about improvements in readiness. The military services have really matured the requirements. What they believe they would need to prevail in a larger scale conventional conflict. That is great and we would be much better off. Where we fall short is the funding for the programs needed to give the forces with a need and defense spending, well it does increase in real dollars, it does not keep pace with the ravages of inflation or the premature wearing out of equipment that has occurred in these continuing operations for 20 years. The price of outfitting the average soldier has increased 16 times the rate of inflation since the vietnam war. It is five times the rate of inflation, or expensive to buy a ship or armored vehicle, tank for example, as well. I think the realities of these numbers have not been shared with the american public. It seems odd 700 billion is enough but falls short of what we had to spend during the cold war when you had a contest against one competitor. We still have a global contest with four major competitors in different parts of the world. Our government has not done a good job in conveying that reality. People find it shocking that our military is falling short in terms of what it has in numbers and capabilities. Host dave in seattle, democrat, you are on with dakota wood. Caller hello. I had a couple of things to say. When i was in the army a number of years ago i was an infantry unit. It seems like we did a lot of training. It was not individual enough. We learned other peoples jobs well enough. In combat, you could lose a squad leader or machine gunner in no time at all. The other people in the squad did not know anything about being squad leader or machine gunner or working the radio. It seemed like everything was for show. Lets put a good show on and the officers would say, this is wonderful that is not real combat. There is a deficiency in our training. My dad worked for shipyards for a number of years and the used to make destroyer escorts. I do not think Todd Shipyards is even in seattle anymore. You do not hear anything about making destroyer escort ships or anything. Host lets take of those two subjects. Guest we are talking about professionalism of the force. I spent 20 years as a u. S. Marine. Mine were really well let and the others too had to scratch your head. That is just human nature. Differences between companies, sports teams, family members. It is people being people. When we talk about small unit leadership, small unit training, whether it is individual or aggregated to larger size units, it is incumbent upon that service, the operating forces in various levels of command, to figure out what it is they should be doing and do you have quality people who are held accountable for how well they are training their forces . Year,ill vary year to unit unit, persontoperson. On average we have really good people trying to do the right things for the right reasons. You can always find shortfalls or something has gone wrong. You have the skipper of a ship relieved of command because the higher command lost confidence or something bizarre happens. Instances be those because we are talking about human beings. But i think we are better inture today than we were past years. As far as industrial capacity, this is a 30 year problem. At the end of the cold war no soviet union, no way to competitor, china was not a Global Economic power like today, technology did not enable countries like north korea to become a nuclear power, or a iran to have missiles. The u. S. Military shrank dramatically in the 1990s. Towent from 770,000 soldiers 480,000. 580 ships in the navy and now it is 298 or so. The air force is two thirds the size or one half the size in some cases then we had in the 1990s. You do not have as big a force and you do not need as Many Companies making as many things. If you do not have business, you go out of business. Our Defense Industrial base have shrunk in number. Is there ability to produce theirft and ships ability to produce aircraft and ships has decreased. That is only lima, ohio makes tanks. If you need a dramatic expansion of tanks, where are you going to get them . That has evolved over 30 years. There was not a compelling case to spend taxpayer money if you thought you needed a small military. When i talked about this capacity issue it is the need to rebuild, be able to deal with the world as it is today, for military power enabling and strengthening diplomacy. We are falling short of that. Host how many aircraft carriers do we have right now . Guest Congress Wants us to have between 12 or 13. I think there is a mandated minimum of 11 and we have nine out and about. Most of those are in shipyards under standard maintenance. We have deployed any one time two or three. There is a lot made about the United States having 11 carriers and any other country might have one or two. What doesnt come across in that argument is that, through your navy, you only have a small percentage that is available for deployment. Lets say we had 300 ships. 100 of those would be available on any given day. Of that 100 you might have 60 that are in the western pacific. They are going up against the totality of the chinese navy of 350 ships. A sixe starting off with to one disadvantage. Russia, iran and the persian gulf, north korea with missile boats, china and the South China Sea, all their military power is applied and focused on their very near waters where is the United States has to sail across 8000 miles of ocean. It takes three weeks to get that military power where it needs to be. You have to sustain those operations over time. To do that the u. S. Just has to have more stuff that is able to be projected and sustained in a longer range of time. That is why you see investments like class carriers that have modern systems, better able to do what we what aircraft carriers to do. Host lancaster, california. This is glenn a republican. Caller god bless our troops. The hard working men and the hardest working president of the United States we have ever had. Here is one thing. What about joe biden . Is that a threat to our military, him working behind our obamaith china and barack sending planes of foreign money to iran . They are one of the biggest threats because of statesponsored terrorism. Nancy pelosi attacking our president after we attacked by ran by not letting him do his job. Not letting him have the military capability through powers. And the war she had this fake russia collusion. Host we got the point. Expectations for a biden administration. Guest they are going to inherit the world that is today just like trump inherited the world at the end of the Obama Presidency and obama inherited the george w. Bush presidency. A lot of things are set on campaign trails when you are talking to enthusiastic crowds, trying to generate support, and you will say, this is what i will do or this is where the person i am trying to unseat has fallen short and made major mistakes. What every president finds when they come in to office is that the reality is far different than the case they were making on the campaign trail. Thingsasier to do some usually it is far more difficult to do things they promised they would do when they come into office. Politics is always a part of governing. Do not want a unitary, authoritarian, autocratic system like beijing or moscow. If we are going to have different parties competing, you are going to see heated rhetoric. You are going to see people trying to undermine each other. I just have not seen too many instances where it was like, lets all pull together to get a job done. Although that is what every person running for office says we need. You get into office, there is power politicking, vying for positions and influence, trying to show your way would be better than 70 elses way. Another caller was talking about reporting that is come out. I would rather not get into the divisive politics that have permeated the general election. The area i like to focus on our u. S. Military forces and how those forces, in any administration, should be supporting them because to the point we have great men and women in the military. If we are going to send them potentially into harms way to interest,ational they have to have the resources, equipment, and training to be successful in combat. One would hope politics stops at the waters edge, but that does not happen. There was a different point of view of how the u. S. Should engage with nato, russia, north korea and china. Varying from team to team. While biden is putting his Team Together and announcing various individuals they do have philosophies and how they go about carrying that i will be transparent to the american people. Congress can either support them or try to push back and certainly the American Voter can make their voices known on shows like this in the ballot box when you come around. Host the latest reporting noting that president elect joe bidens choice for secretary of defense still in flux. What would be your thoughts on fornoy if she is picked . Guest they mentioned jeh johnson and others. Multinational,e multilateral perspective. Put a lot of stock in organizations like nato which has been dramatically successful, but it is also the case it has gotten lazy. Nato member countries have not been contributing to this collective security arrangement and power Projection Capabilities as they should. Japan is still to inward looking. They are starting to wake up to the reality of aggressive expansion of china. I think Michelle Forney or whoever is going to have to deal with the reality of the world in terms of the behavior of competitors, what types of things might the United States do that shapes that behavior that says, look, it is not just diplomacy we are bringing to the table. If you do not come to an agreement that suits both of our interests, especially the united militarye have the power to backup protecting our interests as well. How do you do that with a limited budget . How do you do that with a set of allies that have under invested in capabilities . How do you do that with leaders like Vladimir Putin and ping and kim jongun who have been extraordinarily aggressive and manipulative in Information Warfare improving military capabilities . Again, it is easier to write things in academia and write things from a think tank perspective and what the United States should do. Announcer we leave the last few minutes of this but you can find it online at cspan. Org. We take you live to the white house for a thanksgiving tradition getting underway. President trump and First Lady Melania Trump getting ready to pardon two turkeys named corn and cob