From Superpower to Paper Tiger: Part Two

 The other half of the equation is how we are planning our military budgets to meet the threats we face from China, Russia, Iran, and other adversary nations. Biden's policies are changing the culture of the military, perhaps irreparably. This is worse than the social experimentation of the Clinton and Obama days.

Air Force Analysis

• Today's Air Force is smaller, older, and less ready than it has ever been
• It lacks the ability to fight a peer conflict, deter elsewhere and defend the homeland as required by the National Defense Strategy
• The Air Force has less than half its fighter force and only one-third of the bombers it had in 1990
• Its latest proposed budget divests about 1,000 aircraft more than it buys over the next five years which will create an even smaller and older force in the near term

The Navy's picture is just as bleak

• The Navy is about the same size as it was in 2005, with only about 295 deployable ships
• According to Adm. Mike Gilday, the chief of naval operations, the Navy needs a fleet of 530 ships - 12 aircraft carriers
• 60 destroyers and probably 50 frigates, 70 attack submarines and a dozen ballistic missile submarines
• 100 support ships and probably 150 unmanned.
• These numbers go well beyond what the Navy's 30-year shipbuilding plan calls for
• Going forward, military leaders should be asking some very tough questions
• Not just about how many ships, aircraft, and missiles we buy, but which systems to buy to answer the threats as well as how many

The era of the aircraft carrier may be coming to an end

• Aircraft carriers are floating air bases that have to get within aircraft range of their target to launch strikes.
• China has designed its naval and missile forces around the concept of denying U.S. ships - especially carriers - from getting within range.
• Carriers can be tracked by satellite and sunk by missile attacks.
• We have 11 carriers now. Should we be building more carriers?
• Planning, thinking, and spending on what comes next after the carrier must begin now.

https://spectator.org/from-superpower-to-paper-tiger-part-two/