Why is the US National Defense Commission's 2024 report so alarming?

The 29 July, the National Defense Commission of the American Congress, published its new report, an event long awaited by the Pentagon and American parliamentarians, as the previous version of the report, dating from 2018, had contributed to a significant change in trajectory regarding American defense investments.

As one might expect, the 2024 edition of this report paints a worrying picture, to say the least, of the evolution of the global geopolitical situation, pointing out, in particular, the growing threats posed by China and Russia, as well as than by Iran and North Korea, the traditional “Usual suspects” of American international policy in recent years.

However, this time the report goes much further than a simple call for more funding for the American military. Indeed, by his argument, but also by the tone used, he paints a picture that is alarming to say the least, in the short term, as to the capacity that the American armies have, and will have, to contain these threats, and calls for a rapid awareness, followed by a profound questioning, of the United States, its armies, and its population, to stop this deadly trajectory, or presented as such.

While this report is published a few months before the American presidential elections, and certain echoes suggest that temptations exist, particularly in the Republican camp, for a return to a form of isolationism, accompanied by a reduction in defense budgets, we can think that its content is designed to provoke awareness and a reaction towards greater American military power.

So, is the 2024 report from the National Defense Commission, which is today making headlines across the planet, as distressing as it is, excessively alarmist, for domestic political purposes, or is it is it an objective and relevant portrait of the situation that is emerging?

A report awaited in a context of tensions without equivalent in the last 40 years

Created in 2017 by the joint will of Senator John McCain and General James Mattis, then Secretary of Defense in the Trump administration, the National Defense Commission is a bipartisan emanation of the American Congress, bringing together senators and representatives from both chambers , as well as civil and military experts, with the aim of providing an objective and pressure-free look at the evolution of geopolitical threats, as well as the effectiveness of the armies and the Defense policy of the United States, to answer to.

Its first report, which dates from 2018, thus drew up a picture without artifice, pointing out the opposing trajectories of growing threats in the World, in particular linked to the rise in power of the Chinese and Russian armies, as well as Iranian and North Korean threats, observed over the last ten years, then that, at the same time, the American defense effort, in constant dollars, had lost 25% of its amount.

This report played a decisive role in the reversal of trend observed from 2019 in the American defense effort, an effort which was continued throughout the Democratic mandate of Joe Biden.

In fact, while the United States is a few months away from a major electoral deadline, and global tensions are at their peak since the end of the Cold War, the new report from the US National Defense Commission was highly anticipated. And the least we can say is that it did not disappoint expectations.

The National Defense Commission of the US Congress draws up a very worrying inventory of threats and American military capabilities to respond to them.

Indeed, this report brings together two findings that are, to say the least, alarming. First, it analyzes the evolution of threats to the interests of the United States. Unsurprisingly, the trajectories of modernization and rise in power of the Russian, and especially Chinese, armies are widely highlighted, as is the 2027 deadline, now used as a pivotal marker in the transformation of the balance of power in the Pacific. , as well as in Europe.

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