Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel told Charlie Rose that U.S. military capability is “being threatened,” echoing statements from his speech at the Reagan Library on Saturday.
Hagel said the capacity of the U.S. military to effectively respond
to global crises has been “taken for granted” since the end of World War
II.
“I am worried about it; I am concerned
about it; Chairman Dempsey is; the chiefs are–every leader of this
institution. Now today, right now, as we sit here, we still are the most
dominant, most powerful, most effective country, economy and military
in the world, There’s no one close to us right now,” Hagel told Rose
during a PBS interview aired Wednesday.
“But as I also said in that speech, our
ability, capability is something we can’t take for granted. We
essentially kind of have taken it for granted since World War II because
we’ve been willing to invest the resources in this because American
people have felt, every American leader, that it’s important that the
military not ever been our military in fair fight.”
Hagel addressed plans to maintain the technological dominance of the U.S. military
and said he would “fail his job” if he was not forthright about what
the military is lacking as it faces growing challenges and crises across
the globe.
“It is being threatened Charlie, and the American people got to know
that. I would fail my job if i wasn’t honest,” Hagel said. “The congress
needs to know this. They need to understand it. Our leaders have been
very clear on this. Now we’re not up on the roof with a white flag. It
isn’t a crises point. But this business is investment and the main
responsibility for any leader, Charlie, you know, is to prepare your
institution for the future.”
