Panel, Conference Presentation
Countdown: Improving Military Readiness for the 21st Century| Global Conference 2025
Milken InstituteSusan Eisenhower, Joe Dunford, Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, Mara Karlin, Kevin Rudd, James Stavridis
- The current security environment is characterized as the most challenging, complex, and volatile since World War II, with an alignment of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea creating a threat landscape with three major nuclear powers and no existing arms control regimes.
- Deterrence strategies must shift from countering terrorist groups to addressing "total war" involving state actors and nuclear threats, requiring the U.S. to be prepared to fight two near-pure nuclear adversaries (China and Russia) in separate theaters simultaneously.
- Warfare is evolving toward artificial intelligence, cyber, space connectivity, and high-end capabilities while retaining traditional 20th-century combat elements, necessitating a reconceptualization of military readiness to manage risks between immediate operational needs and future technological preparation.
- A significant risk involves the possibility of conventional conflict escalating to nuclear war, exacerbated by Russia potentially stationing tactical nuclear weapons outside traditional theaters and a lack of crisis communication or transparency with China.
- The U.S. remains the indispensable global power, but failure to maintain deterrence credibility could lead to world order destabilization similar to the 1920s and 1930s, whereas success promises another decade of strategic stability.
- Partner nations including South Korea, Japan, Germany, and Poland are increasingly considering their own nuclear capabilities, creating a landscape of latent nuclear powers, while China actively seeks to fracture U.S. alliances in the Indo-Pacific and Europe through diplomacy and economic aid.
- The U.S. military faces significant personnel and recruitment challenges, with only 25% of American youth eligible for service due to obesity, drug issues, and medical problems, alongside equipment maintenance burdens that currently impede readiness.
- Structural barriers to reform include a congressional budget process that is described as untenable for agility, the inability of all branches except the Marine Corps to pass a clean audit, and an outdated nuclear weapons infrastructure older than 40 years.
- The Department of Defense currently spends less than 20% of its budget on force modernization, with over 50% allocated to personnel and the remainder on existing infrastructure, a distribution that prevents restoring competitive advantage against current global realities.
- Historical analysis suggests restoring competitive advantage requires 3% to 5% real budget growth above inflation, yet resources have remained flat, causing the U.S. to tread water or fall behind despite top-line increases in specific areas.
- Future funding outlooks include increased money for defense coupled with cuts to excess infrastructure and personnel costs, alongside a push to break the current two-plus-year congressional budget cycle to enhance flexibility.
- Specific initiatives include a $250 billion U.S. program to build nuclear-powered attack-class submarines for Australia over a decade, proposed investments in India as a geopolitical actor, and the controversial suggestion to create a dedicated cyber force for all services.
- Allies are expected to "lean in" further to the deterrence task with Europe's collective defense budget now exceeding that of China and Russia, though European spending is currently described as mismanaged despite a shared understanding of the Russian challenge.