The 2023 Index of U.S. Military Strength

It looks really bad, and its worse than it looks...

If you’re in the military and haven’t read The Heritage Foundation’s 2023 Index of U.S. Military Strength, take a moment to at least read the executive summary. As you can see, it looks bad. Across the board there are intractable issues with no immediate solutions that are politically expedient. Worse, it doesn’t seem to take as a given that there isn’t really a way to curtail inflation without crashing the economy, although it does note that budgets aren’t being adjusted to account for inflation resulting in a dramatic decrease in the purchasing power of said budgets. I’m not looking to talk about the economy though. Too complex, too much back story, and other people already do it better than I can. I want to talk about the Army and why I believe its overall rating of ‘Marginal’ is unrealistically… optimistic.

“The Highest State of Readiness”

The ‘Marginal’ score that the Army earned is a composite of subscores for Capacity, Capability, and Readiness. Just like the overall U.S. Military Score of ‘Weak’ depends on the accuracy of the scores for each individual branch, the Army’s overall score depends on these subscores. Let’s take a look:

As you can see, Readiness is a clear outlier. Applying a praxeological frame and considering that the organization we’re considering here is a bureaucracy, I think there is fairly straightforward hypothesis to explain this relationship: Capacity and Capability are assessed based on quantitative metrics while Readiness is almost entirely qualitative (when you drill down). Let us examine each individually with a critical eye to see if this ‘Marginal’ rating holds up.

Capacity

Capacity has to do with the personnel and materiel the Army has on hand. That can’t be faked, it is what it is. Our National Defense Strategy says we need 50 Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs) to do the job, we have 33. No way to spin that.

Capability

Capability has to do with what that materiel can do relative to our adversaries. In the Army, all of our platforms are at the end of their lifecycle. The backbone of our Armored Brigades (Abrams and Bradleys) came out of the tail end of the Military Reform Movement era when we had people like John Boyd and his acolytes at the pentagon speaking truth to power and doing what they called ‘The Lords Work.’ If not for one Lt. Col. James Burton, the Bradly might’ve been a death trap for untold numbers of Soldiers in the Gulf War. Who is left at the Pentagon now to fight such fights? People that are willing to sacrifice being somebody to do something? If we’re to judge from the procurement process for the F35 and Littoral Combat Ship, then we can be pretty confident that the answer to that question is no one. What hope do we have of procuring a next generation of vehicles for the Army that actually work at a price that we can afford? As it stands, little to none, so we’re going to have to make due with what we got. Also, don’t forget that they’re very committed to transitioning away from diesel to battery power to ensure that the Army is doing its part to combat climate change, a goal that I’m sure places combat effectiveness somewhere in the top 10 priorities.

Readiness

The ‘Very Strong’ rating here is on the back of the assertion “that 25 of the Army’s 31 active BCTs were at either C1 or C2, the two highest levels of tactical readiness.” So what goes into these ratings? What does it take to be at a C1 or a C2? Do these ratings correspond to any objective combat performance that we could expect from these units? To answer that last question, we need only look back to the executive summary where one of the contributors observes that “how these “ready” brigade combat teams would actually perform in combat is an open question.” So basically no one has any idea (or if they do, they’re not willing to say). I’ll try to provide a general answer to the first two questions.

Readiness Rating Inputs

Basically these ratings are dependent upon unit reporting. I won’t go into detail about what gets reported and how other than to give a specific example of one key input below. First we need to recognize that everyone knows there is a massive problem with ethical and accurate reporting in the Army. Sgt. Maj. Mark Kirchoff wrote a quick primer on this issue here. In that primer, he wrote something that stood out to me:

Leaders who fail to apply the Army values when making decisions send a clear message to subordinates that values and ethics are expendable so long as they accomplish the mission.

This was written in 2020, right at the dawn of People First. This desire to accomplish the mission that Kirchoff notes was the justification for cutting corners in the past, but the mission provided some kind of ethical guideline as to what corners were most appropriate to cut. I argue that in the new age of People First, Sims’ Paradox ensures that all those folks who were making reasonable common sense decisions as to what corners to cut in the interest of putting the mission first are all being marginalized and pushed out of the organization. I’ve also argued previously that there is an overwhelming incentive to coordinate all of your activities in a effort to please your boss. Even so, there were always leaders of principle about that would still put the mission first if and when they were forced to choose between the two by incompetent leadership. What now that the mission is no longer first? This elevation of an abstruse ‘People’ over ‘Mission’ undermines those leaders of principle and reinforces the perverse incentive to do whatever you boss says, even when all of your training and experience tell you its wrong.

Modern and Historical Lessons

It is one thing to read an article. If you really want to understand the kind of pressure leaders are under to falsify their candid assessments related to unit reporting, watch my friend and fellow substack author Dave candidly recount his experience trying to give an honest assessment of his unit’s training status (one of the key inputs that determines if a unit is C1 or C2):

For an historical example, look no further than the story of Task Force Smith. From the linked article:

Nonetheless, Task Force Smith had met the Army’s abstract standard for “readiness” before the war. While the actual training reports do not survive, according to Bill Wyrick, who served as a platoon leader in Task Force Smith, on paper the unit had completed all “individual and collective training program tasks,” and as mentioned above, the battalion had achieved the highest score in Japan on its tactical evaluation.

So, was Task Force Smith “ready” or not? Lt. Col. Smith himself would later say that his training regime “was almost non-existent” and that claims that he conducted useful live fire training were “hogwash,” seemingly contradicting Wyrick. If you tell this to modern soldiers while conducting a staff ride at Osan, they suspect they know the game the unit was playing. The late-1940s Army was beginning to adopt mandatory training regimes to ensure readiness that survive in other forms to this day. In all probability, the soldiers of Task Force Smith were among the first representatives of the Army’s enduring tradition of achieving impossibly ambitious training objectives by recording training that never occurred, thus achieving “paper readiness.” Indeed, the veterans of Task Force Smith seemed certain that the higher echelons of their chain of command were blissfully unaware of their low readiness. As a group of them wrote to President Reagan in 1985: “We are sure President Truman did not know how badly we were equipped when we were committed.”

Is there any reason to think that anything has changed?¹

Our True Strength

The Heritage Foundation’s assessment is pretty bleak, and at least in terms of the Army, I don’t think it is nearly bleak enough as the ‘Marginal’ rating depends largely on a ‘Very Strong’ score for a qualitative ‘Readiness,’ which all available evidence suggests is both currently and historically wildly exaggerated. Would looking more closely at the other services reveal the same? I don’t know, but I’m interested in the perspectives of individuals within those services, especially the USMC with their conspicuous ‘Strong’ rating. Is the best case that the overall strength of the U.S. Military is ‘Weak?’ I actually don’t think so. Keep in mind something that I mentioned in passing early on in the article. These ratings are all based upon the requirements outlined in the National Defense Strategy (NDS). These requirements assume that the U.S. is trying to maintain a “rules-based international order” as General Milley likes to say. Perhaps if we weren’t pretending like this is a realistic goal, and that our military should really be focusing on supporting and defending the constitution and the people of the United States over policing the world, then our military wouldn’t be so weak. Is it possible to pursue such a foreign policy? I don’t think we have a choice. If America keeps lending its military might to the transnational GAE agenda, we’ll not escape ruin. Towards that end, our military is less than weak and every trend that can be accounted for suggests that this weakness will only deepen and expand with time. If we shift focus we can apply the might that we have available to secure the interests of the American people while allowing for the emergence of a more diverse, multipolar world. To those enamored with the ‘international order’ this will probably sound like treason, but truth will doubtless ring of treason by those sporting a pair of GAE ears. This sentiment is not new. The idea that American foreign policy had to have limits to ensure that we do not outstrip our capacity was articulated over 200 years ago by John Quincy Adams thus:

AND NOW, FRIENDS AND COUNTRYMEN, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and Shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind?

Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity.

She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights.

She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own.

She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart.

She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right.

Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.

But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.

She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.

She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.

The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force....

She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit....

[America’s] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.

I have hope for a military with leaders that look to great speeches like this and timeless books of old for wisdom. Leaders that can quickly recognize that books like ‘White Rage’ are intellectually, morally, and spiritually bankrupt. To recognize and discuss the challenges we face candidly, so that we may fully understand them in the first place and develop realistic solutions. I will hold onto that hope and fight for that future as long as I wear the uniform. I could be wrong. Perhaps all of the GAE dreams that I associate with an unconstrained vision can come true if everyone just believes hard enough. But I don’t believe. To believe, I need sound reasons and evidence. I don’t need someone to baselessly assert that I’m wrong, that doesn’t scratch the itch. I need to know exactly why I’m wrong. Call it a personal failing if you must, I call it doing my duty.

1. An interesting side note, I attended such a staff ride at Osan as a young infantry lieutenant over a decade ago, assigned to very same unit that comprised Task Force Smith and similar thoughts, although I was way more cynical back then, if you can imagine that. Gimlets!