Annual Heritage index rates U.S. military as 'weak'

The Heritage Foundation's annual index of military strength has rated the U.S. military as "weak" when measured against the requirements the conservative think tank says are necessary to win two "major regional conflicts."

“In the aggregate, the United States’ military posture can only be rated as ‘weak,’” the 578-page report states.

Heritage says the Air Force is “very weak,” the Navy and Space Force are “weak,” and the Army is “marginal.” The Marine Corps and nuclear forces are rated “strong.”

“[B]ut the [Marine] Corps is a one-war force, and its overall strength is therefore not sufficient to compensate for the shortfalls of its larger fellow services,” the report states. “And if the United States should need to employ nuclear weapons, the escalation into nuclear conflict would seem to imply that handling such a crisis would challenge even a fully ready Joint Force at its current size and equipped with modern weapons.”

Heritage says threats emanating from China, Russia and North Korea make the “two-war or two-contingency requirement” necessary.

“The 2023 Index concludes that the current U.S. military force is at significant risk of not being able to meet the demands of a single major regional conflict while also attending to various presence and engagement activities,” the report states. “The force would probably not be able to do more and is certainly ill-equipped to handle two nearly simultaneous MRCs -- a situation that is made more difficult by the generally weak condition of key military allies.”

Last year, the Heritage index said the U.S. military was “likely capable” of winning one regional conflict but would “certainly would be ill-equipped to handle two” simultaneously. At the time, the index rated the Marine Corps as “strong,” the Army and Navy as “marginal” and the Air Force and Space Force as “weak.”

But this year’s report argues the services are mostly too small and not modernized enough. For instance, Heritage says the Navy needs a battleforce of 400 manned ships “to do what is expected of it today,” but has only 298 ships. Heritage says the “very weak” rating for the Air Force stems from “problems with pilot production and retention, an extraordinarily small amount of time in the cockpit for pilots, and a fleet of aircraft that continues to age compounded challenges even more.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. National Security Strategy released last week embraces a doctrine of “integrated deterrence,” which calls for U.S. military strength backed by technological innovations and foreign allies, arguing the nation cannot “rely solely on conventional forces and nuclear deterrence.”

“Integrated deterrence requires us to more effectively coordinate, network, and innovate so that any competitor thinking about pressing for advantage in one domain understands that we can respond in many others as well,” the NSS states. “This augments the traditional backstop of combat-credible conventional and strategic capabilities, allowing us to better shape adversary perceptions of risks and costs of action against core U.S. interests, at any time and across any domain.”