Think Tank Panel Tells House U.S. Military Faces More Challenges, Suggests Pentagon Spending Reforms

http://news.usni.org/2015/02/11/think-tank-panel-tells-house-u-s-military-faces-challenges-suggests-pentagon-spending-reforms



Think Tank Panel Tells House U.S. Military Faces More Challenges, Suggests Pentagon Spending Reforms
By: John Grady
February 11, 2015 4:40 PM

When a quartet of defense budget experts was asked how it would spend the Pentagon’s money now versus last year, they all recognized that “creeping aggression” in Eastern Europe, across the Middle East and into the waters off China is causing them to re-evaluate their positions.

“Doing more with less is not sustainable over the long term,” Ryan Crotty, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) on Wednesday.

As Thomas Donnelly, fellow at the American Enterprise Institute said, “there is no theater, no domain of warfare where the United States is not being challenged.”

Jim Thomas, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, noted “subconventional threats” from undeclared forces aiding Russian separatists in Ukraine, the Iranian Quds force operations in Iraq and Syria and forceful Chinese coast guard patrols in the Pacific highlight “weak front-line states” struggling to counter those growing regional threats.