Chapter 2: Trump’s Perception of the American National Capability
2.3 Trump’s Discourse on U.S. Military Capability
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generally positive yet somewhat ambiguous view; that is, numerous underlying factors contribute to the wax and wane of state power, and latent economic capabilities comprise but a small part of national power. Having employed various indicators to measure the U.S.
latent economic power, the author then turns to look at the American military power in the next section. From the perspective of offensive realists, military capability is of the utmost importance in maintaining the U.S. international leadership and the U.S.-China balance-of-power.
2.3 Trump’s Discourse on U.S. Military Capability
During his campaign for president, Trump often railed against the trillions of dollars that the U.S. has spent on wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan and on its intervention in foreign civil wars. After he took office in the White House, in spite of his frequently engaging in blustery and bellicose rhetoric, the President seems to have been careful when it comes to putting American troops into harm’s way. Why is his action paradoxical to his rhetoric? To give an answer to President Trump’s paradox and see whether it actually bears some kind of truth, the author carefully scrutinizes the subtle relation between the fluxing world affairs and the U.S. military expenses.
In the wake of the end of Cold War, the number of great-power wars has dropped sharply and even seem to have disappeared. America has since depicted itself as a liberal hegemony that is devoted to spreading democratic values.41 But in truth, the U.S. has more often participated in regional conflicts around the world. For example, at the turn of the new
41 John J. Mearsheimer, “Donald Trump Should Embrace a Realist Foreign Policy,” The National Interest, November 27, 2016, accessed on February 23, 2018,
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/donald-trump-should-embrace-realist-foreign-policy-18502.
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millennium, President George W. Bush declared the “War on Terror” and led his country into years of war in the Middle East; but the region soon became the breeding ground for radical terrorist groups and brought more chaos to America and the world. Following 2010, the U.S.-Russian relationship turned sour over geopolitical issues in Syria and Ukraine.
Moreover, as the U.S.’s attention was distracted from the Asia-Pacific, China has been gaining incremental influence over the region. Faced with these challenges abroad, the demand for a stronger U.S. military is greater than ever before.
Is the U.S. military strong enough to defend its homeland and achieve its foreign policy goals abroad? To answer this question, the author must first the suitable indicators to measure the current U.S. military power. While wealth was employed to assess a state’s latent power, it is unreliable when used to measure hard power. For example, historical records have revealed that an affluent state may not necessarily possess a more powerful army than its relatively less prosperous rivals. This could be because the state’s existing power is sufficient to cope with the external threats, and it would be meaningless to exhaust additional resources to increasing the power-disparity between itself and its enemies, especially when such differences could be easily offset. This shows that wealth cannot be used to evaluate hard power directly. However, wealth is prerequisite to military strength, as money is needed for funding equipment, technology development, and the remuneration for military personnel. The author thus first looks at the underlying impacts of U.S. budgetary policies on its military buildup.
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Figure 2.8. United States Military Spending from 2000 to 2017. Statista, accessed October 4, 2018, https://www.statista.com/statistics/272473/us-military-spending-from-2000-to-2012/.
The U.S. defense spending is regulated by the Congress mainly through the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and the defense appropriation bill. The former is designate the annual budget and expenditure of the Department of Defense (DoD) and the later specify the amount of funding and policies for the agencies in details. As shown in Figure 2.8, the U.S. military spending has increased significantly since the early 2000s;
after reaching the peak in 2011, it began to decrease as Obama started his second term. This decline in expenses was due in great part to the Budget Control Act (BCA) introduced as a solution to the U.S. debt-ceiling crisis of 2011.
The BCA is “aimed to reduce annual federal budget deficits by a total of at least $2.1 trillion from FY2012 through FY2021, with approximately half of the savings to come from
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defense.”42 Note that this defense spending limits apply to national defense but not to the funding allocated to the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO). This imply that the DoD may have less resources to train military personnel and meet other defense requirements.
Hence, the impacts of the BCA can be observed in the military preparedness in the U.S.’s four branches of armed forces, including the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy (USN), U.S. Marine Corps (USMC), and the U.S. Air Force (USAF).
To determine the military power that is necessary for the U.S. to properly handle international challenges, the DoD developed the “two-war requirement” or the “two-MRCs”
rationale: the ability to engage in two major regional contingencies (MRCs) simultaneously.43 The Heritage Foundation has concluded in the “2019 Index of U.S.
Military Strength” (2019 Index) that America requires a joint force of 50 brigade combat teams (BCTs) in the Army, 400 ships and 624 strike aircraft in the Navy, a Marine Corps with 36 battalions, and Airforce with 1,200 fight aircrafts to meet the “two-war requirement.”44
Looking at each armed division independently makes it all the more evident that the U.S. military preparedness is exceedingly inadequate. To begin with the American land power is primarily based on its Army. The 2018 NDAA authorized an increase in the U.S.
Army “end strength” to 1,026,500 soldiers, including 483,500 in the Regular Army, 199,500 in the Army Reserve, and 343,500 in the Army National Guard. The end strength refers to the number of active-duty military and civilian personnel in an armed force calculated on
42 U.S. Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, The Defense Budget and the Budget Control Act: Frequently Asked Questions, by Brendan W. McGarry, R44039 (2018).
43 Daniel Gore, “The measure of a superpower: a two major regional contingency military for the 21 century,”
The Heritage Foundation, January 25, 2013, accessed October 4, 2018,
https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/the-measure-superpower-two-major-regional-contingency-military-th e-21st-century.
44 “2019 Index of U.S. Military Strength,” The Heritage Foundation, October 4, 2018, accessed October 15, 2018, https://www.heritage.org/military-strength.
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the last day of the accounting period. However, even with this increase, the size of the U.S.
Army is still too small for the missions it has been assigned. The 2019 Index estimated that it is ideal to have between 540,000 to 550,000 active-duty personnel in the Regular Army.45 Another way that the Army evaluates its military capacity is in terms of brigade combat teams (BCTs). Currently, the U.S. Army has 31 BCTs, which is less than the 50 BCTs required for the “two-MRCs.” More troubling is that the combined impacts of the BCA and the relentless overseas operations during the past years have greatly reduced the U.S. Army “preparedness”; among the 15 BCTs, only half of them are now considered
“ready” and eight of them are “fully ready.”
The American maritime force comprises the Navy, the Marine Corps, and the U.S.
Coast Guard (USCG). The author only looked at the first two uniformed services as the USCG mainly operates under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in peacetime, and will only be transferred to the Department of the Navy in wartime or when necessary.
Offensive realists have traditionally prioritized the land power in measuring national power, yet the U.S. should place great emphasis on its naval force as it is the key to sea control and power projection. The current USN has 284 vessels in the battle force, which distinctly miss the minimum mark of 400-ship battle force preparedness for two MRCs. Up until 2018, the USMC has 24 battalions prepared for contingency.
The U.S. Marine Corps is America’s main expeditionary force that is stationed around the world. The basic unit of the USMC is infantry battalion, each consists roughly 900 Marines. Based on the historical record of the Korean War, the 2019 Index estimate that 15
45 “Senate Armed Service Committee Holds Hearing on the Fiscal 2019 Budget Request for the Army Department,” Bloomberg Government, April 12, 2018. accessed October 22, 2018,
https://tjaglcspublic.army.mil/documents/27431/61281/SASC+Army+Posture.pdf/a60adafd-8a7e-4540-b681-a 25a6c8fc1ed.
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battalions are needed for one MRC, making it a minimum of 30 USMC battalions for the
“two-MRCs.”
Finally, the U.S. Air Force serves as America’s central strategic air power. While the USAF is the youngest among these four The Heritage Foundation reports that the USAF material strength is also weakening; the aircraft inventory has decreased by 57 percent over the past 30 years. The two-MRCs benchmark for the USAF is 1,200 fighter aircrafts, the actual number in 2018 sits at 924.
The size of the American armed forces implies that the U.S. military is underprepared.
Many reasons have combined to bring about this result, however, the reduction in defense budget have aggravated the situation. Edwin Feulner, the founder and former president of the Heritage Foundation, asserted that “The main enemy facing our military today isn’t a foreign army. It’s a domestic tool known as the Budget Control Act.”46
Apart from the budgetary reduction, another domestic reason contributing to the shrinking American military size is the difficulties of finding new recruitments. The Pentagon stated in 2015, that 71 percent of America’s 17 to 24-year old population are ineligible to serve in the military. To maintain the number of servicemen, President Obama lifted the ban that had prevented women to join the combat force. Yet John W. Spencer, the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute, pointed out that this policy does little help to solve the problem of an understaffed armed force as only ten percent of the military positions restricted female combatants.47
46 Edwin J. Feulner, “The Declining State of the U.S. Military,” Heritage Foundation, November 3, 2015, accessed October 2, 2018,
https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/commentary/the-declining-state-the-us-military.
47 John Spencer, “the U.S. Military’s Real Problem: Fewer Americans are Joining,” Politico, December 27, 2015, accessed on October 15, 2018,
https://www.politico.eu/article/the-militarys-real-problem-fewer-americans-are-joining/.
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In contrast, President Trump’s military policy aims to strengthen the American national defense on all fronts. On February 9, 2018, President Donald Trump signed into law the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, which amended the BCA and increased discretionary defense spending limits by the largest amounts—to $629 billion in FY2018 and to $647 billion in FY2019. However, this increase does have setback on national debt. The BCA had previously brought the annual federal budget deficit from $1.1 trillion (6.8% of GDP) in FY2012 down to $665 billion (3.5% of GDP) in FY2017; following Trump’s Bipartisan Budget Act, the deficit is projected to increase to $1.1 trillion (4.9% of GDP) in FY2021.
Furthermore, the federal debt held by the public has increased from $11.3 trillion (70.4% of GDP) in FY2012 to $14.7 trillion (76.5% of GDP) in FY2017, and is projected to further increase to $19 trillion (83.1% of GDP) in FY2021.48
In August 2018, President Trump signed into law the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, authorizing $717 billion defense bill. This includes $616.9 billion for the base Pentagon budget in fiscal 2019. The NDDA authorizes $21.9 billion for nuclear weapons programs under the Energy Department, and another $69 billion to fund U.S. war efforts under the Overseas Contingency Operations account.49 Notably, “The new NDAA also underscores Defense Secretary James Mattis’ shift away from battling terrorist insurgencies and toward the growing threats from Russia and China”50 which indicates that the U.S. has finally recognized the “China threat” and is taking steps to confront it.
48 U.S. Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, The Defense Budget and the Budget Control Act: Frequently Asked Questions, by Brendan W. McGarry, R44039 (2018).
49 Dave Boyer, “Trump Signs Defense Policy Bill that Rebuild Military, Boost Troop Pay,” The Washington Times, August 13, 2018, accessed on October 13, 2018,
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/aug/13/donald-trump-signs-new-defense-policy-bill-rebuild/.
50 Dave Boyer, “Trump Signs Defense Policy Bill that Rebuild Military, Boost Troop Pay,” The Washington Times, August 13, 2018, accessed on October 13, 2018,
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/aug/13/donald-trump-signs-new-defense-policy-bill-rebuild/.
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Lastly, the author believes that President Trump’s choices of Cabinet members has also offered some implications of the values his administration attaches to the military.51 This is particularly alarming for China as renowned hard-liners towards the PRC like John E.
Bolton and Harry B. Harris were also selected to oversee major issues in the Indo-Pacific.
Their presence near the core of the White House circle is likely a major reason that the U.S.
foreign policy is now ever more hawkish towards China.
Indeed, counting the numbers of military personnel, tanks, ships and aircrafts can perhaps only offer a superficial understanding of the U.S. military power, and it may be insufficient to analysis the multifaceted challenges that the America armed forces are facing.
Nevertheless, the author must emphasize that the realist theory is most concerned about
“relative power” and “relative gains” in international balance-of-power. America’s shriveling military power becomes ever more alarming as China and other U.S. rivals grow more powerful.
However, the people in the United States seems to have trouble standing united as the American national identity becomes dispersed after its years of practicing an internationalist policy. Today, the U.S. struggles to balance its national interests and the commitments made to allied countries, and it has difficulties weighting national security policy and the humanitarian agenda. In the next section, the author looked at “nationalism” as the core of President Trump’s “America First” policy.
51 Mark Thompson, “The Creeping Militarization of Donald Trump’s Cabinet,” Time, December 8, 2016, accessed on October 16, 2018, http://time.com/4596014/donald-trump-cabinet-military-mattis-flynn-kelly/.
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