5 things to remain powerful

(Editor’s note: This is an interview with a former Pentagon official about what America needs to do to remain a super power.)

First, we must invest in a force with an eye on the 21st century realities and sufficiently fund the Pentagon to field a true two major regional contingencies capability. Even though past administrations embraced the two-war policy, they never provided the funding to ensure sufficient forces and capabilities to achieve that goal.

Today, the U.S. defense budget is roughly 3.7 percent of our GDP, a figure that is insufficient to defend our freedom going forward and by comparison at the peak of World War II our government spent 79 percent of the GDP, much for the war effort.

Second, we must focus on contingencies in Europe against Russia and in the Pacific against China. Both countries present true existential threats albeit for different reasons – Russia’s nuclear capability and China’s multi-pronged, all-domain capabilities. Otherwise, we must also sustain engagement in the world’s other regions or risk flare-ups that impact our national interests.

Third, we must become serious about arming our forces with the latest technology. We’ve fallen behind China in key areas because of two decades of distraction and now Beijing aims to lead the world with its Military-Civil Fusion development strategy, an integrated national strategic system to accelerate the modernization of its military.

Fourth, we must streamline our outdated military procurement process. The Pentagon’s processes are encumbered by congressionally mandated nonsense, preventing quick decisions because of legal constraints, and also by Pentagon officials who build-in layers of red tape to protect themselves.

Finally, stop the social engineering. Building a fighting force is hard enough without imposing sex-based social causes and politically-driven agendas on the force. They hurt our fighting capability.

The 21st century presents the U.S. with real challenges from the authoritarian regimes in China and Russia. That means our full-range of security capabilities must be ready to fight on at least two fronts across all domains (land, air, sea, space, and cyberspace). Right now, we lack that elastic capability and if we are to survive as a free people, we must make changes like those outlined above.