US Military Faces a Crisis and Needs More Money, Report to Congress Warns (Source The Fiscal times)

America’s military superiority “has eroded to a dangerous degree,” leaving the national security “at greater risk than at any time in decades,” a bipartisan commission warned Wednesday in a congressionally mandated report.

The National Defense Strategy Commission, made up of 12 Republican and Democratic national security experts selected by Congress, was tasked with evaluating the Trump administration’s 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS), released last January, which seeks to restructure the military, with a particular focus on preparing to meet renewed challenges from China and Russia in addition to threats from Iran, North Korea and radical terrorist groups.

The panel endorsed the new strategy and its emphasis on future competition and conflict with those rising powers. But it warned that the strategy “too often rests on questionable assumptions and weak analysis, and it leaves unanswered critical questions regarding how the United States will meet the challenges of a more dangerous world.”

Rising risks: America’s ability to defend itself, its allies and its interests “is increasingly in doubt,” the report says. Shifting regional military balances in Eastern Europe, Asia and the Middle East are undermining the confidence of U.S. allies and emboldening adversaries, raising the likelihood of military conflict.