Talked about u. S. Military strength in a discussion at the Heritage Foundation. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Heritage Foundation. Welcome all of you here in the auditorium and everyone online, as well. Its a great pleasure for us to be back in the building of the Heritage Foundation. Weve been away for some type teleworking. But this is my first day back for a while. Im very pleased to be back here today for this very important hl Heritage Foundation. Weve been away for sometime teleworking but this is my first day back for a while but im very pleased to be back here today for this very important event. Of launching the Heritage Foundations 2021 index of military strength. Now this is the seventh addition of the index. And the index has become one of Heritage Foundations flagship publications. Our goal is unchanged from the very first issue. Its to provide both the leaders of this country, and also the American Public a premier open source and authoritative assessment of Ame
And chair, eddie junior. A conversation on the u. S. Military readiness and the Global Threats we face. Defense Program Senior research fellow, served two decades in the marine corps. Assessing u. S. Military strength, a pretty major undertaking. How does the Heritage Foundation try to do that . Guest we gather all publicly available information we can come across, official testimony from the pentagon, acquisition reports on major programs, general news reporting from the defense reporting community, our own personal contacts in the services and the pentagon and on capitol hill, and we gather all that all year long, go through a several month analysis and writing process, compare last years information to this years information, and then basically issue a report card on the military, and this year on a scale of one to five, we would give it a three, or in the words we use, we call it marginal, and we feel that the u. S. Military writ large is marginally able to meet the demands of u. S
2021 index of u. S. Military strength. This is the seventh edition of the index and the index has come one of the flagship publications. Our goal has been unchanged. It is to provide both the leaders of this country and the American Public a premiere open source and author tatetive of Armed Services and their ability to protect the nation. I think we have not only achieved that goal but continued with this effort. And this years edition is the best ever. In addition to our usual subjects, it includes National Security concerns and one of these is the emergent of the new space force. We have a new chapter on the subject of space this year and look more hearing from the editor of the new index in his presentation later. Today as part of our launch, we welcome a speaker with decades of matters, representative Mac Thornberry. He was the first elected to congress in 1994 and has supported a Strong National defense since. He is currently the Ranking Member of the house Armed Services committ
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
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