America faces its biggest war threat in 80 years, and is not ready for it, commission reports

The US is facing its biggest war threat in almost a century and is woefully unprepared, according to the leaders of a congressionally chartered commission.

Immediate threats not felt since the Cold War from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, must be tackled with additional spending and weaponry reviews, said members of the bipartisan commission, which was tasked with examining the country’s defense strategy.

Arguing that things have gone from bad to worse since a review six years ago, former Congresswoman Jane Harman told reporters at a Defense Writers’ Group on Tuesday: “When we got together for this report…[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 and that we really run the risk of…a global conflict because of the incredibly dangerous international situation that we face.”

The commission recommended “rebuilding the defense industrial base,” noting that China has 10 shipyards making vessels for its Navy while the US has “kind of 1 1/2.” And as Ukraine and Russia use millions of drones in their conflict, a new initiative in the US would build only tens of thousands, the commission said.

“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,” said Ambassador Eric Edelman, vice chair of the commission. “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 leaders pointed to the need for a partnership between “the Pentagon and the greater tech community” to increase innovation and urged investment in a