US would struggle to win a war against Russia and China, report warns

The US would struggle to win a war against China or Russia after cuts made under President Obama, a bipartisan report warns.

A show of strength by the Chinese army. Picture: AP

The US is at risk of losing a war against China or Russia, especially if it were attacked on two fronts, a bipartisan congressional report has warned.

Moscow and Beijing are building up their militaries with the aim of “neutralising US strengths” in Europe and Asia, the National Defence Strategy Commission of former senior Republican and Democratic officials said. Their report called for extra military investment of 3 to 5 per cent a year.

A separate study found that the US had spent $5.9 trillion on wars since 2001, often with poor outcomes. This week President Trump has continued to demand increased defence spending by allies in NATO against the backdrop of suggestions, from President Macron of France, of a new European army.

The commission of a dozen experts examined the national defence strategy (NDS), which highlights a new era of “great power competition” with Russia and China. The report said: “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 US is particularly at risk of being overwhelmed should its military be forced to fight on two or more fronts simultaneously.”

A Chinese navy's missile destroyer during a China-Russia joint naval exercise in the Yellow Sea. Picture: AP

The Trump administration secured a record $716 billion budget for defence this year, three times the Chinese military budget and ten times Russia’s. Yet the US, with its military of 1.3 million and 850,000 reservists, trails both in the number of military personnel. The report said that cuts under President Obama had degraded capability.

“America’s military superiority — the hard-power backbone of its global influence and national security — has eroded to a dangerous degree,” the commission said. A focus on counter-insurgency over the past ten years had led to a weakening of other areas such as missile defence, cyber and space operations and anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare. “Many of the skills necessary to plan for and conduct military operations against capable adversaries — especially China and Russia — have atrophied,” the report added.

The commission attacked “political dysfunction and decisions made by both major political parties”, especially budget control measures in 2011. “The convergence of these trends has created a crisis of national security for the United States,” the report claimed. It criticised the Pentagon for “questionable assumptions and weak analysis”.

A military parade in the country’s northeast. Picture: AFP

In Asia and Europe, influence was being eroded and military balances had shifted in “decidedly adverse” ways that raised the risk of conflict. Funding was still clearly insufficient to meet the goals set out in the NDS, it concluded.

The Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University put the cost of wars since 2001, the year America invaded Afghanistan in response to the September 11 attacks, at more than three times the Pentagon’s own figure of $1.8 trillion, with 480,000 people killed in the conflicts.

The study included domestic counterterrorism spending by the Department of Homeland Security, interest payments to cover government borrowing costs and estimates of future medical care for wounded veterans.

The Times