"There is a strong fear of complacency, that people have become so used to the United States achieving what it wants in the world, to include militarily, that it isn't heeding the warning signs," said Kathleen Hicks, a former top Pentagon official during the Obama administration and one of the commissioners. "It's the flashing red that we are trying to relay." The report warned that China's army, pictured here during a winter training drill in 2016, could defeat the US. Credit:AP The picture of the national security landscape that the 12-person commission sketched is a bleak one, in which an American military that has enjoyed undisputed dominance for decades is failing to receive the resources, innovation and prioritisation its leaders need to outmuscle China and Russia in a race for military might reminiscent of the Cold War. The military balance has shifted adversely for the United States in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, undermining the confidence of American allies and increasing the likelihood of military conflict, the commission found, after reviewing classified documents, receiving Pentagon briefings and interviewing top defense officials. "The US military could suffer unacceptably high casualties and loss of major capital assets in its next conflict. It might struggle to win, or perhaps lose, a war against China or Russia," the report said. "The United States is particularly at risk of being overwhelmed should its military be forced to fight on two or more fronts simultaneously."

In its list of 32 recommendations, the commission urged the Pentagon to explain more clearly how it intends to defeat major-power rivals in competition and war. It assailed the strategy for relying at times on "questionable assumptions and weak analysis" and leaving "unanswered critical questions". Loading Eric Edelman, a top Pentagon official during the Bush administration, who co-chaired the commission along with retired admiral Gary Roughead, said the report wrestled with the consequences of years of ignored warnings about the erosion of American military might. Russia and China have "learned from what we've done. They've learned from our success. And while we've been off doing a different kind of warfare, they've been prepared for a kind of warfare at the high end that we really haven't engaged in for a very long time," Edelman told Michael Morell, the former acting director of the CIA and a fellow member of the commission, during a forthcoming episode of Morell's podcast Intelligence Matters. Edelman said people had lost sight of how complicated the international security environment had become for the US, and argued that for a lot of reasons the American public and Congress haven't been as attentive to the urgency of the situation as they should be.

Neglect and complacency in the US has put the country's army at risk, the report to Congress warned. Credit:AP The commission argued that despite a $US716 billion ($991 billion) American defence budget this year, which is four times the size of China's and more than 10 times that of Russia, the effort to reshape the US defence establishment to counter current threats is under-resourced. It recommended that Congress lift budget caps on defence spending in the next two years that in the past have hobbled the military's ability to plan for the long term. "It is beyond the scope of our work to identify the exact dollar amount required to fully fund the military's needs," the report concluded. "Yet available resources are clearly insufficient to fulfil the strategy's ambitious goals, including that of ensuring that [the Defence Department] can defeat a major-power adversary while deterring other enemies simultaneously." Loading The call for even more robust defence spending comes as the Democrats take over the House and seek rollbacks of key Pentagon programs. It also comes after the White House instructed the Pentagon to pare back its planned budget for the coming year by some 4.5 per cent, or about $US33 billion, after the federal deficit increased sharply following last year's tax cut.

White House national security adviser John Bolton recently said he expected the defence budget to remain relatively flat in the coming years, as the administration seeks to cut discretionary spending, and suggested the Pentagon would need to reshape the military with funds derived from cuts to other areas. Money saved from planned Pentagon reforms will prove insufficient to see through the kind of investment the military needs to see through the new national defence strategy, the commission found. It also said Congress should look at the entire federal budget, including entitlement spending and tax revenue, to put the nation on more stable financial footing, rather than slash defence spending. To counter Russia and China, the commission said the Navy should expand its submarine fleet and sealift forces; the Air Force should introduce more reconnaissance platforms and stealth long-range fighters and bombers; and the Army should pursue more armour, long-range precision missiles and air-defence and logistical forces. In its recommendations, the report advocated seeing through the modernisation of the US nuclear arsenal and putting a top Pentagon official in charge of developing additional air and missile defenses.

Washington Post