Don't build a hollow military. Fielding a military that looks capable is more dangerous to American security than having a military obviously ill-prepared for war.
By pouring billions into procurement for new ships, planes, and sensors, without a corresponding transformation in how we budget for their operations and sustainment across their lifecycle, we are jeopardizing future readiness for acquisition speed today.
This doesn't mean we won't budget for operations and sustainment--and the realistic training to use the weapons and systems--in future appropriations acts. But readiness isn't something we can assume just happens. I want a reverse emphasis:
Readiness in materiel and leadership/training is hard to maintain but easy to squander.
If we repair our defense industrial base, readiness, and leadership first, expansion of our military forces to global war standards could be done when threats become more active and imminent. We could expand to the limits of our revived industrial capacity. If we reverse that we risk having an impressive-looking but hollow military. Which is a problem.
Granted, my focus was on the problem of expanding the force structure at the expense of sustaining our military in a war. But focusing on modernization at the expense of readiness gets us to a similar bad place of not being able to sustain what we send to war.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
NOTE: You may also like to read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved. Go ahead and subscribe to it. It's the right thing to do!
NOTE: Welp, grabbed the image from someplace and forgot the source. Or it was a DOD source.
