US Military preparedness

As currently postured, the U.S. military is at significant risk of not being able to defend America’s vital national interests. This is the inevitable result of years of prolonged deployments, underfunding, poorly defined priorities, wildly shifting security policies, exceedingly poor discipline in program execution, and a profound lack of seriousness across the national security establishment even as threats to U.S. interests have surged. In 2023, this has been compounded by the cost of U.S. support for Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s assault, which is further exacerbated by the limited willingness of allies in Europe to shoulder a greater share of the burden. The war has laid bare the limited inventories of equipment, munitions, and supplies of all supporting countries as well as the limitations of the industrial base that will be required to replenish them.

Heritage Foundation summary