Fri Sep 20 08:48:24 UTC 2024: ## US Needs Cold War-Level Spending to Counter Growing Threats, Bipartisan Commission Warns
**WASHINGTON** – A bipartisan commission examining the National Defense Strategy has concluded that the US must significantly increase military spending to levels not seen since the Cold War to effectively deter threats from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
Chaired by former Congresswoman Jane Harman and Vice Chaired by Ambassador Eric Edelman, the commission, which was chartered by Congress, presented its findings to the Defense Writers’ Group on Tuesday.
The report states that the US faces its most serious and challenging threats since World War II, and the country is unprepared to handle them.
“We began to realize that the situation was even worse than it was in 2018 and that we were at the risk of having our authoritarian adversaries outpace us,” Harman said, referencing a similar report released in 2018. “We really run the risk of… a global conflict because of the incredibly dangerous international situation that we face.”
The commission calls for a fundamental shift in how the US views defense, including a redefinition of security in an interconnected world and a renewed focus on innovation. They argue the US needs to dedicate more resources to defense to keep pace with the rapidly evolving nature of warfare.
“We have been optimizing a system for acquiring extremely expensive, vulnerable platforms that we can’t afford to lose right when we’re on the cusp of a huge revolution in warfare,” Edelman said. “The Pentagon builds to the speed of bureaucracy. That’s not an industrial base or a business model that’s going to sustain us.”
The report emphasizes the need for collaboration between the Pentagon and the tech community to accelerate innovation. While initiatives like the Defense Innovation Unit, the Department of Defense’s Strategic Investment Office, and the Replicator program are steps in the right direction, the commission believes these efforts are insufficient.
“Replicator, for example, will build tens of thousands of drones,” Edelman said. “Ukraine and Russia are using millions of drones. Any conflict in the Indo-Pacific would dwarf those numbers.”
The commission urges a review of existing military systems with an eye towards agility, interoperability, and survivability in modern combat. They also recommend rebuilding the defense industrial base, which has atrophied since the Cold War.
“China has 10 shipyards building vessels for their navy. We’ve got kind of 1 1/2,” Edelman noted.
The report highlights the current state of the defense industrial base, citing the Sentinel missile system, a key component of the nuclear triad, as an example. The program is currently over budget and behind schedule, not because of a lack of expertise, but due to a shortage of skilled labor needed for construction.
“There are not enough welders or electricians or pipefitters for many of the projects or systems or infrastructure DOD needs,” Edelman said. “We have to look at our educational system to produce the kind of workforce we need to be able to sustain the effort that’s going to be required.”
The commission concludes that while the US possesses the resources and ingenuity to meet the challenges ahead, action is needed now to avoid being forced to react after a crisis.
“It is expensive to defend the United States of America, but what we’re talking about in this report is restoring our ability to deter conflict, and failure to deter conflict is always more expensive than spending the money that’s necessary to deter and defend,” Edelman said. “Our effort has been to try and create a moment of national discussion before the fact, rather than waiting till after the fact when it will cost more.”
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