The US isn't ready for a major two-theater war. How can we prepare?

We have to have an increase in the ongoing defense budget

We are at a time in which we ever get into a serious conflict, we will have a conflict in more than one theater

We are not prepared for that today. Is the United States ready for a two-theater war

Senator Mike Rounds, a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, says no

Let's get some more context on this. Joining us now is Matthew Shoemaker

a former intelligence officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency. So, Matt, do you agree with the senator's assessment

Short answer, kind of. So built into his question are a whole lot of assumptions that he's making

One of the assumptions that he kind of alludes to is if we get into one war, we're therefore going to get into a couple or a few wars

That's an assumption. There is no guarantee that that's going to happen, right

but he is 100 right with regards to his comments about how we need more artillery production we

need more production with regards to hard hit if you will with regards to military equipment

and materiel he's not wrong about that at all a lot of our stuff is a lot older uh than what

our adversaries such as china in particular are is making um so we certainly need an influx in

production capability with regards to that. And another element to it as well is, you know

is the solution really just throw more money at the problem? I am of the opinion that that's not

the solution and that what DOD really needs to do, they really need to go into their books. They need

some sort of independent organization, whether it's Doge, whether it's someone else, someone

other than military and military contracting people who are going to benefit from this system

to look at those numbers and look at the budget and say, are these elements that we currently have

is that actually necessary? Can we save that money and put it into a more useful place elsewhere

rather than just throw more money at the problem? So you just said throwing more money at the

problem may not be the answer. Let's put that into perspective. In 2024, the federal government spent

$1.6 trillion on discretionary budget items. So that's pretty much everything other than Medicare

Medicaid and Social Security. Of that $1.6 trillion, they spent $842 billion on defense

programs and $750 billion on literally everything else. So how do we still have a readiness issue

when we spend all that money on the military? You know, I ask myself that question every single

day up until about last year when they alleviated this problem that I'm about to articulate a bit

Up until last year, the estimation coming out of DOD itself was that roughly 20 to 25 percent of all military personnel were either food insecure or at risk of being food insecure

So, you know, that begs the question, what in the world are we spending our money on

And that's why I come to the conclusion that throwing more money at a problem is not the solution

It's how we're spending that money. And the Pentagon has a big problem because it's, you know, the fox guarding the hen house in terms of who these people are that make decisions about where the money goes to, what requirements are for the money

You know, a lot of these three, four star generals and admirals, as soon as they get out of the military, they go and they work for defense contractors

You know, on the one hand, they've got a lot of institutionalized knowledge. They know exactly you know in theory what is needed and who to talk to about that So from the more positive and positive assumption side of things there is a value in that

But on the negative side of it is that's a great place for corruption as well

So there's a lot of issues that DOD needs to tackle when it comes to monetary issues

And providing for a world-class military is expensive. So let's be clear, you know, to be the best, you got to spend to be the best

So it's going to be expensive, but we got to make sure that we're getting the best bang for our buck

And I do not think that that's the case at this point in time. You and the senator also mentioned modernization

As an example, Hoovey rebels were using drones, which cost an estimated $2,000 to attack commercial vessels in the Red Sea

the Navy was shooting those drones down with missiles that cost $2 million apiece

And then in addition, Houthi rebels in Yemen have used missiles estimated to be in the five-figure range

to shoot down six MQ-9 Reaper drones that cost $30 million apiece

Should the U.S. be using these advanced expensive technologies to take out rudimentary weapons

You know, that really is, it's a philosophy question more than anything in terms of what we want the philosophy of our military to be

Do we want to make the decision to go towards a, you know, high number system that might cost very little

So, for example, you know, we we get a bunch, you know, we buy a ton of very small drones and let's say they're kamikaze type drones or so that might cost like a million dollars or so per system

And then just, you know, flood the area with it. That would be a that is a type of philosophy question that we have to ask about what we want our military to be

That certainly would, in theory, at least protect a lot of lives, especially with regards to our pilots and such

and it would be a good bang for the buck, you know, whether or not we have the political will

to achieve that. I don't think it's there at the moment. It's not part of the political discussion

with regards to the military. It is kind of on the below the surface element to it, but there's

always a lot of money flowing through these things. And when, you know, a system like the F-35 can

cost upwards of, you know, $100, $150 million per item, you know, there are a lot of very

high-profile individuals and high-profile companies that want to make sure that they get their voices

heard to make sure that they can produce those sorts of things. So, you know, it really comes

down to political will. I hope we can eventually get there. The fact that we're even having this

discussion about that I think is helpful. So hopefully one day we can get there. I don't

think we're there just yet. Now let me go back to where we started. What makes a country prepared

for a two-theater war? Yeah. So within that question is going to have to be a whole lot

of assumptions made about what that two theater war looks like, who it's going to be, what time

of year it might start, what the objectives of that two theater war might be, and what the

capabilities of that, you know, those hypothetical countries are in order to tackle that. So you got

to make a whole lot of planning assumptions. So just for the sake of argument, you know

if we wanted to take, for example, like a Russia-China-U.S. war, there's, you know

that's going to be very different from, let's say, a North Korea-Iran style, you know, two-theater war

So with regards to that, you know, China, you're going to focus, at least in the initial stages

on their capabilities and their focus, which is going to be anti-access area denial of the

South and East China Sea for example most likely in which case that going to be very heavily Navy oriented and to a certain extent Air Force versus you know a European theater style war which you know is what we planned for for the better part of the Cold War which was very heavy with regards to the Army

So those are, you know, how you tackle each of those is a great exercise in military planning

Let's put it that way. But within that as well, I think the Russian invasion of Ukraine plays a really good example in terms of the role and the value of planning for and whether it be an invasion or just a military operation itself

Because if you remember in February 2022, the Russians attempted to open up a three-pronged attack into Ukraine

It was going to go from the east, the north, down into Kiev, and then to a certain extent from the southeast

They were trying to do a three-pincer approach type thing. Having every element that you add to it, every direction that you're trying to attack from

that requires an extensive amount of planning, an extensive amount of logistics and logistical planning

to make sure that your warfighters have the equipment they need and the replenishments that they need when they need it in a quickly and timely way

And obviously, since we're still talking about this three years later and Russians haven't achieved their objectives

they clearly either did not plan accordingly or they didn't take into account that the enemy always has a say in the process as well

So they weren't able to pivot when necessary. So all of that is a great learning experience, at the very least for the Americans, of whatever a two-theater war is going to look like, you've got to plan like crazy in order to do it

And you've got to make assumptions in order to plan it. And then on top of it, you need the political will and the political side of things to actually give you the equipment and the material that you need in order to provide options if that two-pronged approach is ever necessary

So there's a lot of issues in there that could, you know, that's certainly one reason why having a world-class military is so expensive

because you now have to plan for all these things, especially now that the adversaries themselves are getting better and spending more money on their own military

So there's a whole lot of factors involved in all of this. You just mentioned a conflict with China would be reliant on the Navy and Air Force

So the Navy is trying to expand its warship fleet from 295 today to 390 by 2054

and the Air Force is trying to replace the F-22 Raptor with a next generation fighter in the 2030s

But in both those cases, you see it's going to take years or decades

and adversaries aren't going to wait for us to be ready. Like China is not going to say, oh, we better wait to move in on Taiwan

until the United States has its new 390 warships. So what do we do in the meantime

Yeah, so just for a little bit of clarity on that too

you know, built into your, you know, the question a little bit

It is the assumption that it's only the U.S. and only China, in which case that is a big problem, right, in the sense of China has very specific goals that they want to achieve, in theory, with regards to their military and with regards to their Navy, i.e. anti-access area denial of the East and South China Sea

So that's very limited in scope in what they do. The United States has global commitments, of course, in which case the United States is very hard pressed, let's say, to focus all of its resources just on the East and South China seas, whereas China has a much easier time of doing that

In which case and one reason why we seen over the past number of years the United States reach out to countries such as Japan Philippines Australia is an attempt to augment the American capabilities So in the event that

the United States and China ever do go into a shooting conflict, that the United States can

draw on resources and allies in the area that, number one, know the area a lot better. They have

their own resources relatively close to theater itself. And in which case, the United States can

now augment its own capabilities and act as a force multiplier rather than just have the United

States, which has, you know, at most 350 ships or so versus the Chinese, which have upwards of

you know, I think in terms of their actual Navy capabilities somewhere four or five hundred now

I'd have to check the exact number since it's changing every day. But they're all focusing

the Chinese are all focusing in that, you know, very limited area. So the United States is focusing

at least in theory, on augmenting and being a force multiplier with its allies. So the United

States doesn't necessarily need to be, you know, in terms of bean counting par for par with the

Chinese Navy if we focus instead on force multiplication with our allies. And final

question, you've mentioned multiple times that you have to assume certain scenarios when planning

which means to me that the military has to be ready for anything. So you think about times in

history like Lend-Lease during World War II, where the United States was not prepared and pretty much

needed every abled body to meet the moment. Do you think the United States is prepared to do that

if necessary? So military planning itself is, I think, one of the critical elements of any modern

military. I myself was not a military planner, despite the amount of time that I've spent

discussing it on this interview. I have a great deal of respect for the military planners, though

And one thing that I did learn from them along the way was that you're never going to be able to make a perfect plan, because as I also mentioned, the enemy always has a say in these things, and it's impossible to plan for every single contingency

Having said that, though, what the United States is able to do, especially by having these plans in place, even if they're imperfect plans, is having the institutionalized knowledge of how to think quickly on your feet, how to plan quickly when things do go sideways so you can correct for it

And in terms of whether or not the United States can ramp up production, you know, to fight a two-front war, you know, that unfortunately, and you use Lend-Lease as an example, which I think is a great example

You know, if I remember my history correctly, the United States really only jumped into things and ramped up its military production once, you know, stuff hit the fan and once the United States got involved

So I think from the way that the American political system is and how it has been historically going back, you know, however many decades or centuries that you want to go, until there's a problem, very rarely do we invest the way that we probably should

But once there's a problem, we have at least up until this point always risen to the challenge

So I think we certainly can solve any problem that we're associated with based off of, you know, the historical example of us doing so

It's not guaranteed, of course, but hopefully we'll get one day where we're able to plan accordingly so that we don't get to the situation where we have to catch up once problems actually arise

So we'll see. That's really what it comes down to, unfortunately. Matthew Shoemaker, former intelligence officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency

Thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it. I'm Ray Bogan for Straight Arrow News

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