There is an important debate about how much treasure the United States should be expending in our support for Ukraine and Israel.

While I mostly/sorta/kinda support aiding Ukraine (I have deep concerns about the scope of the US support and the ongoing corruption in the country), I am obviously a stronger supporter of US aid to Israel.

But I also believe that there are legitimate and non-prejudiced reasons for opposing more aid to either country. The US government’s primary responsibility is to the American people, and policymakers must provide a reason beyond “these are the good guys” for spending large amounts of money on support for other countries. Depending on the reasons for opposition to increased aid I can easily respect opponents.

With that said, I fear that there is another good reason to reconsider major expansions in our military commitments abroad: the US military is stretched really thin.

By now everybody knows about the artillery shell shortages, and that it will take years to rebuild our dwindling stockpiles. But a story I wrote about the other day (Israel Delays Ground Invasion Because the US is Unprepared to Defend Itself) reminds us that we have too few arms and ammunition to go around.

The War Zone (an excellent site, by the way) has a story focused on our insufficient air defense capability, and it should trouble you.

Inadequate U.S. Patriot Missile Force Size Highlighted By Middle East Crisis

Read out report by clicking the image below:https://t.co/mCV819Heas

— Tyler Rogoway (@Aviation_Intel) October 31, 2023

As I pointed out in the piece I linked above, Israel was forced to/asked to delay its invasion of Gaza because the US needed to rush air defenses to the region in order to protect our troops and assets. This was shocking to me because the Middle East is a…volatile…region and we should always be prepared to defend our bases and troops. Why weren’t we?

Well, it turns out that we can’t defend all our assets everywhere, which isn’t just unfortunate, but dangerous. After all, you have to expect attrition in a conflict, and we don’t have enough to go around for what amounts to peacetime. In a medium-intensity conflict, this is bad enough, but in a near-peer conflict, it would be deadly.

A significant portion of the U.S. Army’s Patriot surface-to-air missile force have been or are in the process of being deployed to the Middle East in response to the ongoing Israel-Gaza crisis. This is in addition to many other obligations around the globe. Though this reflects the immense ability of the U.S. military to project power worldwide, it also underscores the stark limitations of its existing ground-based air and missile defense capacity.

Concerns about what this means for the prospect of adequately defending U.S. forces deployed overseas, as well as the U.S. homeland, is something senior U.S. military leaders, as well as The War Zone, have been drawing attention to for some time.

The Patriot missile is the backbone of our air defense (it shares the same name as the missile that had its coming out “party” in the first Iraq war, but is substantially upgraded), and there just aren’t enough of them to go around.

The Army’s two Patriot battalions may not look like much of a contribution at first glance, but the service only has 17 of them in total.

Each battalion has a headquarters element and between three and five firing batteries. Each battery can have up to eight trailer-mounted launchers, as well as an AN/MPQ-65 multifunction phased array radar and requisite fire control, communications, and other support equipment. The latest generation of Patriot launchers can be loaded with a mix of different interceptors optimized for various, including cruise missiles and drones flying at lower altitudes and certain types of ballistic missiles in the terminal stages of their flight.

This brings up the obvious question: given how limited the supplies are, and how inadequate the batteries are for swarm attacks, why do we have so few available?

It’s not like we can expect to face the 1990 Iraqi Air Force in the next conflict. And given what we have seen about the rapidly changing threat environment, it’s pretty clear we desperately need more and more varied air defense options.

Of the 17 battalions the Army has, two are dedicated training units that are not available for deployment. In addition, at least four of the Army’s remaining Patriot battalions are in Germany, Japan, and South Korea. Other Patriot units have been deployed elsewhere in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia, in the past, as well.

So, the pair of battalions that have been tasked to deploy to the Middle East represent just over 13 percent of the Army’s total deployable Patriots and at least around 20 percent of those systems, and possibly more, that aren’t already on station elsewhere outside the United States.

This is unforgivable, and the blame falls on both Congress and the Executive Branch. It’s not like they haven’t been spending money we don’t have with abandon. It is a matter of priorities. And right now we are spending a lot of money on other people’s wars.

Of course, if it turns out that our own security is enhanced by that aid, that could be a good bargain. We spend money but little to no blood. But it sure doesn’t look like the case is being made in a serious way instead of just serious tones. I would like to see a concrete analysis of the costs and benefits of how that money is being spent and what American taxpayers are getting for it.

Helping the “good guys” is a noble talking point, but I can think of plenty of times when helping “not-so-good guys” was the right thing to do (Shah of Iran, anybody?), and others when we declined to help when there were moral arguments to do so.

Whichever side you come down on regarding military aid to our friends, you should definitely be concerned about our own military capabilities. They are simply inadequate to the needs we are committed to. We either have to reduce our commitments or expand our capabilities.

There are two wars right now in which we are involved; what happens if Taiwan becomes a third?

Nothing good.