Of the 1.11 trillion dollars used for discretionary spending in 2015, 598.5 billion dollars were used for military defense. This makes up about fifty-four percent of all government spending in America. Our military budget is as much as China, Germany, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France, the United Kingdom and India combined. With such massive amounts of money going into our military, one would think we must have incredible military intelligence and the armed services that knows nothing but precision and perfection, but in recent months, this has turned out to be far from the truth.
Our nation is currently facing one of its biggest, dealing with the ever-growing threat of the Islamic State, this is a time when our defense should be in top shape and prepared to protect us. We haven’t seen a foe this great since the Nazi regime in the forties, but for some reason, we do not seem to be as prepared now as we were then. While our military claims to be fighting the Islamic State with all we have, our nations has seen no advances in this so-called battle, only bitter failure after bitter failure. With a nation who spends fifty-four percent of its discretionary spending on the defense budget, one shouldn’t see so many horrendous failures, so the question is “what’s the problem with our defense?”
The first noticeable failure of our defense this year took place in early October when U.S. troops dropped bombs in Afghanistan to protect U.S. troops but ended up hitting an Afghan hospital full of wounded patients, killing approximately twenty-two and wounding thirty-seven. A full investigation was launched over the incident but the damage was already done. The U.S. could offer no more than their condolences to those who were wrongfully lost in the bombing. Misinformation seemed to be the culprit in this horrifying situation that couldn’t be taken back. Many were outraged at the mishap; however, even the strongest military has its moments, and was soon pushed to the back of our minds.
Just as we had pushed the memory of the hospital bombing away, something far more questionable occurred. In mid-November, just says after the Islamic State attack on Paris, Russia blasted ISIS with one of the largest bombing raids in decades. Gen. Valery Gerasimov, chief of Russia’s general staff stated that the airstrikes destroyed fourteen important Islamic State targets by thirty-four air-launched cruise missiles. Since September of 2014, there have been nearly 3,000 airstrikes against ISIS, ninety-five percent by the U.S. and yet, we have been unable to hit any major targets.
Russia has a fraction of the military budget that the U.S. holds and yet, after a few ruthless airstrikes, they were able to locate and hit at least fourteen major targets. How can this be? President Obama was put in some hot water after these attacks and questioned hard about why America has not been able to find any targets and Russia found them so quickly. While little reply was given to these answers, people were shocked that such a strong military has now not only failed once to halt the Islamic State, but twice in a matter of months. No major targets are being hit, only tragic causalities. Americans might have been able to push past the first failure, but a second mistake so quickly was becoming a tad outrageous.
Lastly, last Friday for the third time in a single year, our military dealt us with a third horrific failure. A U.S. led coalition has been struck up with Iraqi soldiers recently in order to battle off the Islamic State together, but last Friday, instead of bombing Islamic militants, the U.S. bombed allied Iraqi soldiers. Once again, the suggested culprit was misinformation and the Pentagon claims it was fault on both the U.S. and Iraq. This devastating mistake will undoubtedly put a strain on the already fragile relationship the U.S. has with Iraq when it is obvious we will need every ally we can obtain in this battle the defeat ISIS. This third mistake has brought outrage to many American citizens who hold their military to a much higher standard than this. If questions about these “mistakes” weren’t being raised before, they are definitely being raised now after this third and final straw.
As Americans, we pride ourselves on having one of the strongest, if not the strongest military in the entire world. We are known for our precision, our power, and our efficiency. Why else would we spend hundreds of billions of dollars more than other nations just to keep our military at its very best? But somehow, something has happened to the efficiency of our military. We’re no longer effective, causing harm and collateral damage rather than actually defeating the enemy. We’re spending more time cleaning up our own messes than destroying our foes. Many are puzzled at the grave mistakes our military has recently made, but no one knows why we continue to make these mistakes. When you spend the most, you expect the most, but that hasn’t been the case recently. As questions of our efficiency continue to be raised, we hope that the accuracy of our defense improves swiftly and begins to make advances on one of the most brutal enemies this world has ever seen.
