Military

US Army scores 'weak' in think tank's review of military power

A smaller  U.S. Army, stretched too thin to fight two wars simultaneously, was judged "weak" in an annual assessment of U.S. military power issued by a conservative think tank.

The declining state of the overall readiness of the force — a situation leaders from all military branches have long warned was reaching crisis levels — was a major factor in the poor scorecard, according to the Heritage Foundation’s 2016 Index of Military Strength, released Wednesday.

“(T)he U.S. does not have the right force to meet a two–major regional contingency requirement and is not ready to carry out its duties effectively,” said the Foundation, which is often critical of the Obama administration. “Consequently, the U.S. risks seeing its interests increasingly challenged and the world order it has led since World War II undone.”