General Key Capabilities By Service Component

P.W. Singer and August Cole’s 2015 novel, Ghost Fleet, demonstrates how the American military’s trending dependence on high-tech, networked warfighting may be vulnerable to foreign near-peer and hybrid threats. Merging expertise from Washington-based foreign policy think tanks and defense technology sectors, the authors weave a fictional, yet plausible depiction of a near-future war featuring the United States, China, and Russia.

Consequently, the Obama Administration has silenced defense leader for a long time, so he could keep his Budget Control Act or (BCA). For example “8 years under the Obama Administration, top defense officials were largely silenced and prevented from articulating their concerns about budget cuts and decreased readiness”(Cooper pg1). The Obama Administration neglected top defense officials, which has resulted in “Army has lost more than 205,000 soldiers, or 30 percent of its staff”(Spencer). Nevertheless, this has also resulted in “3 of 58 Army brigade combat teams are considered ready for combat”(Cooper). Conversely, Obama cut down the military so far that America has 150,000-225,000 troops ready in the Army when all of our combat teams should be ready for combat, so that the armed forces can protect America’s interests at home and abroad. Moreover, the Army is not the only who has experienced decreased readiness, for example, there have been budget cuts across the board which have resulted in “The Air Force is the smallest and oldest it has ever been”(Cooper). “80 percent of the United States Marine Corps or (USMC) do not have the minimum number of aircraft they need for training and basic operations”(Cooper). “The Navy’s fleet is the smallest it has been in nearly 100 years”(Cooper). “Maintenance period will increase costs 2.6 times”(Pickup). Accordingly, all parts of the Armed forces have experienced budget cuts

The United States from the Cold War and into the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) continues to face challenges in translating military might into political desires due to its obsession with raising an army, electing politicians and assembling a diplomatic corp that continue to gravitate towards State-to-State engagements that if not rectified could lead to substantial delays in fighting terrorism and non-terrorist adversaries or worse total failure of the United States Military’s ability to properly carry out it’s politicians objectives due to being blindsided.

In a 2015 article, “Is U.S. military becoming outdated?” written by Stuart Bradin, Keenan Yoho, and Meaghan Keeler-Pettigrew, the authors argued that despite the U.S. military maintaining a position of global dominance “without peer” during conventional operations, it is not the ideal force against current and future threats. The authors claim that there are several negative factors arising due to the past sixteen years of war against several state and non-state elements, inferior cultural differences of government bureaucracy compared to commercial firms, and a misallocation of defense spending that leaves the US military waging war inefficiently while simultaneously losing technological dominance against current and future threats.

After unraveling of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the Berlin Wall, fears of war breaking out between the major powers of the United States and the Soviet Union were greatly reduced. Numerous commentaries, reports, and studies arose out of the question of what to do with the excess U.S. forces, and how to reshape them for a new era (Snider & Carlton-Carew, 1996). Since the birth of the United States, the military has been an important part of the United States. The US military has been a fundamental part of foreign policy, including fostering democracy, establishing rule of law, and assisting with economic development in territories allied with the U.S. (Ludema, 2007).

With our country’s focus on the strengthening of military weapons and protection programs against foreign enemies,

Lastly, the federal government should consider cutting budgets on the military. There are US troops in 130 countries and there are those who don’t need defending at the time. Then also there are weapons that are not being used in current missions so they are going to waste. The Pentagon should watch its overruns on how much its spending as

With Trump’s election this year, his rhetoric of “Making America Great Again” and therefore revitalizing our military will soon become a reality. Trump has formally requested a reappropriation of funds; around $54 Billion, towards the US military. Part of Trump’s campaign promises had to do with making the military more robust; ensuring America’s title of militarily strongest in the world. In order to achieve this goal. Trump’s federal government has the option of many different aspects of the military to focus on. Of these, funding weapons of mass destruction, cyber security, and further military research and development prove themselves as most relevant in the contemporary military.

The threat environment has expanded from a strategic, nuclear, symmetrical threat from bombers, ICBMs, and air-or-sea-launched cruise missiles, to a continuing symmetrical threat in addition to an emergent asymmetric threat, focused across all domains, borders and agencies. Accordingly, our political leaders recognized a need to transform the military for a new ‘home game’. United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) was established to assume responsibility for the defence of the US homeland, and this new Command was tasked to provide military assistance to civil authorities (MACA).

To spend or not to spend, that is the question. America is torn, not sure whether it should increase military spending or if it should considerably slash the budget. Advocates for a higher defense budget claim more spending will lead to a stronger, better trained military, which would in turn help secure our status as the superlative military power of the world. However, supporters of the defense budget cuts argue for a reduction in troop size, which they believe would save the country billions and allow the nation to focus those savings on next generation technology for protection. This argument has raged for decades with no solution in sight. Maybe we have been approaching this problem all wrong. Perhaps, instead of the shortsighted approach of either raise or lower the budget, we try a smarter, more efficient method of spending to ensure every dollar of our annual military budget positively impacts our national defense.

Today, we grapple with both the might of Russia, but also a complicated conflict in the Middle East and consistent threats from North Korea. Clearly, we won’t see a decrease in military spending any time

Threats are being made to the U.S. on a regular basis because we have a presence in foreign countries, due to our outstanding armed

Threats The defense budget of the United States has been declining. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has revised its military strategies. The Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991 rendered

The US strategic guidance places an emphasis on focusing on irregular warfare threats but does not dismiss the possibility of conventional threats. The National Security Strategy states:

As the future of warfare becomes more sophisticated, what will be the military technology of tomorrow? The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, believes that there are three possible answers to that question: nuclear warfare, biological/chemical warfare, or cyber warfare. While nuclear and biological warfare is conducted on a battlefield, cyber warfare operates via the Internet and computers. All of these weapons have the same destructive potential, but the circumstances surrounding