Jim Hartman: Ignoring the threat of World War III

A devastating report on global threats and American weakness has been met with indifference.

The recently released report of the Commission on the National Defense Strategy concluded World War III is becoming more likely in the near term, and the U.S. is too weak either to prevent it or, should war come, to be confident of victory.

The bipartisan commission of eight experts, named by the senior Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, was chaired by former Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-Calif.).

The panel consulted widely, reviewing both public and classified information, and issued a unanimous report.

Their report details a picture of political failure, strategic inadequacy and growing American weakness in a time of rapidly increasing danger.

The U.S. faces the “most serious and most challenging” threats since 1945, including the real risk of “near-term major war.”

The report warns: “The nation was last prepared for such a fight during the Cold War, which ended 35 years ago. It is not prepared today.”

Worse, “China and Russia’s ‘no limits’ partnership, formed in February 2022 just days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has only deepened and broadened to include a military and economic partnership with Iran and North Korea. … This new alignment of nations opposed to U.S. interests creates a real risk, if not likelihood, that conflict anywhere could become a multitheater or global war.”

Should such a conflict break out, “the Commission finds that the U.S. military lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat.”

The report notes the U.S. military “is the smallest (American) force in generations,” adding: “It is stressed to maintain readiness today and is not sufficient to meet the needs of strategic global competition and multitheater war.”

President Biden is shrinking the U.S. military. His defense budget request for 2025 was $850 billion, a mere 1% increase over 2024. That’s a real cut after inflation, Biden’s fourth proposed real budget cut in a row.

By comparison, interest payments on the national debt totaled $892 billion in 2024, exceeding the entire defense budget.

Our Reagan-era defense budget was 6.8% of GDP in 1983. Today, Biden’s defense request is 3%.

The Trump and Biden administrations both aimed for a small military too reliant on technology.

The commission’s key finding was that the current defense budget and size of the military are utterly inadequate to the challenges America faces.

It’s a devastating indictment of failed national leadership.

But it’s not new. Congress, most of the media and public opinion generally have ignored alerts from respected defense leaders at least since Obama’s defense secretary, Robert Gates, warned 12 years ago about the dangerous consequences of defense cutbacks.

Even more disturbing than the report itself is the general indifference with which it was received. In a healthier political environment, the report’s conclusions would be the central topic in a great national discussion. Instead, the report is ignored.

Neither Kamala Harris nor Donald Trump gave the report’s findings serious attention. Instead, time has been spent debating imaginary cat-eating Haitians in Ohio and the significance of Taylor Swift’s presidential endorsement.

We are in a much more dangerous world than President Biden inherited. His chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan was his single most damaging decision. It has led to cascading trouble, in Ukraine, throughout the Middle East and with China.

This represents the worst decline in world order, and the largest decline in U.S. influence, since the 1930s.

The next president’s first task must be to restore U.S. deterrence, which clearly requires more hard power – procuring weapons and expanding manpower. Whoever wins the White House will have to abandon Biden’s weak, failed policies.

Americans urgently need to wake-up or the U.S. will careen into global conflict with catastrophic results.

E-mail Jim Hartman at lawdocman1@aol.com.