Our military can’t meet its mission if we underfund it 

Once in a while, real-life events serve as analogies that sum up what everyone knows, but most do not want to admit. This past week, we were presented with another example of this phenomenon: the U.S. Army’s floating pier to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza became unmoored and went adrift due to heavy seas.  

The image of an unmoored and adrift floating pier aptly describes the direction of our military, unmoored as it is from the reality of the threats facing it and without the resources needed to confront them.  

In this case, one has to ask how the United States can spend $320 million to install a pier it already owns. This is truly a case of how inefficient and ineffective the Department of Defense has become, even for a mission that it has been doing for over seven decades. One has to wonder if anyone actually understands that bad weather occurs and seas get choppy. This debacle, coming on the heels of the botched withdrawal in Afghanistan, repeated delays in needed munitions for Ukraine, and the waffling about red lines in Rafah, makes the administration and Defense Department look incompetent at best — and reckless at worst. 

On top of all this, we have a defense budget for 2025, proposed by the White House and agreed to in principle by the Republican-controlled House, that amounts to a cut in real terms and leaves unfunded priorities from our warfighting leaders at over $29 billion.  

Recently, the Senate Armed Services Committee’s ranking member, Sen. Roger F. Wicker of Mississippi, released his plan for a generational investment in our defense capabilities. This report should serve as a wake-up call for those who represent the American people to take their constitutional roles seriously in providing for the common defense. While reasonable minds can debate the specific investments Wicker proposes and the overall cost, the central argument of the report — that the U.S. military needs “generational” investment and reform — is one that would likely enjoy broad bipartisan support in both chambers, if only it could be brought to a vote. 

Wicker’s plan is both comprehensive and expensive. He is calling for $55 billion to be added to the fiscal 2025 defense budget, while setting a goal to grow defense spending to 5 percent of GDP in the coming years. This is indeed expensive; however, as has been stated by many, the only thing more expensive than preparing for war is fighting a war, and the only thing more expensive than fighting a war is losing a war. 

What reason does the senator give for this proposed increase? First and foremost, he states that this funding would help “prevent wider conflict.” A military that is undersized fails at basic operational tasks, and one that advertises it can only fight one quick war at a time is a military that is not serious about deterrence. The United States faces four main adversaries today — China, Russia, Iran and North Korea — and these nations are increasingly working together to undermine American interests around the globe by sharing weapons, thwarting sanctions and coordinating actions.  

Second, Wicker rightly calls for the rebuilding of the industrial base that supports our military.  He is correct in urging that the 20th century industrial policies that drive Pentagon processes and decisions must also change. The independent commission created to review the military’s planning and budgeting processes concluded that the structure of the budget itself, which is divided into titles that follow an outdated industrial age process, is not suited for 21st century technology development programs. 

As Wicker notes, military development programs continue to take longer while commercial development timelines are accelerating. And while defense leaders love to embrace commercial innovation publicly and create new organizations to prove their commitment, the valley between development and production remains wide and deep. A healthy industrial base requires predictability in funding and a customer that is willing and able to reward success by scaling production of weapons and programs that prove their value. 

More broadly, Wicker’s proposal makes the important point that the U.S. military is in desperate need of change. It cannot continue on its current path of divestment, downsizing and delay. Increases in research and development funding have not been matched with proportional increases in procurement funding to build weapons at scale. The size of the active-duty military is on track to be the smallest it’s been since the end of World War II, and it is likely to get even smaller on the current budgetary path. Money alone cannot pull the Defense Department out of its force structure-readiness death spiral, but when combined with substantive reforms and strategic investments, the nation can turn this around. How much money we spend on defense is important, but how we spend it is even more important. 

Our military is adrift because the defense budget and industrial base that support it are also adrift. They amount to a 20th century approach that may be well-intentioned but is late to need, inefficient and highly vulnerable. What the nation needs is a bridge to a 21st century military, one that is wide enough and strong enough to get us through this perilous time of evolving threats.  

Retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. John G. Ferrari is a senior nonresident fellow at AEI. He previously served as a director of program analysis and evaluation for the service.  

Todd Harrison is a senior fellow on the Foreign and Defense Policy team at the American Enterprise Institute.