“[Combat] Readiness has been degraded to its lowest level in 20 years.” Testimony of Army Chief-of-Staff Raymond Odierno before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Jan. 28, 2015
At some point in almost every professional sporting event I attend these days, the public address announcer calls the fans’ attention to the fact that members of the U.S. military are in attendance, and can we please rise and applaud these heroes in gratitude for their sacrifice.
It is a “feel good” moment, but it is also an act of after-the-fact gratitude for our troops, which is not the same thing as before-the-fact support for our troops. While we focus on thanking them for the fighting — with applause at ball games and military benefits such as housing and health care — our focus should be on preparing them for the fighting with the proper training, equipment, and support infrastructure. And in that we are failing them.
It is a bipartisan failure, although President Obama has led the effort by slashing some $500 billion from our defense budget, and the “sequestration” provision in the Budget Control Act of 2011 identified another $1 trillion in military spending cuts. For their part, Republicans have controlled the House of Representatives, where all spending and taxation legislation must originate, since 2010, and yet defense funding continues to be cut.
The result is a military force that is a shell of its former self. Active-duty Army troop strength will soon fall to 420,000, just over half of what it was in 1990. The Air Force is about to fall from 188 fighter squadrons to 49. The Navy, a 600-ship fleet in the 1990s, will soon be around 250. And this at a time when, according to the bipartisan National Defense Panel, America faces more danger from more enemies than we have in 20 years.
The inevitable result of fewer soldiers, sailors and air force personnel, together with less state-of-the-art military equipment, fewer support resources and less training, is the serious erosion of the combat readiness of our front-line troops. Which not only threatens our national security, it is a dereliction of our duty to those troops, who have voluntarily committed themselves — ours is an all-volunteer army today — to defend our nation even at the cost of their lives. Therefore, before putting them in harm’s way, we have a moral obligation to ensure that they are properly staffed, equipped and trained in order that they may defeat our enemies, but also so that they have the best chance possible of surviving.
Yes, budgets are tight, meaning priorities must be established. But according to the Constitution, defending the nation is the government’s highest priority, meaning standing by those doing the defending is just as high a priority.
