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The U.S. military also responds to humanitarian crises, including the recent hurricanes that devastated Puerto Rico. Responding to such emergencies is expected to become more challenging as climate change contributes to more natural disasters, potentially sparking international conflicts over fresh water, food and other resources.14

Defense spending in recent years peaked in fiscal 2010 at $691 billion, and Trump's proposal would not bring it up to that level. Some of the country's potential adversaries, meanwhile, have stepped up their military outlays and activities.15

China's defense spending increased 26 percent between 2013 and 2016. In addition, since 2014, China has built 3,200 acres of military bases on artificial islands in the South China Sea that U.S. officials say are part of Beijing's plan to dominate Asia.16

Russia's military also has become increasingly aggressive, raising alarms among NATO countries in Europe that the United States is pledged to protect under Article 5 of the organization's charter. In September, Russia conducted its largest military exercise in recent history in an area that included the Arctic, the Far East, the Black Sea and Russia's border with Ukraine. The exercise involved tens of thousands of troops, along with warships, submarines, fighter jets, helicopters, tanks, artillery, anti-ship missiles, intercontinental ballistic missiles and swarms of drones.17

Another U.S. foe, Iran, says it has increased domestic weapons production 69 percent in the last three years. In January, it conducted its 10th ballistic missile test in two years, raising concerns that it had violated a 2015 agreement with the United States and other world powers to limit its nuclear program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions. According to military reports, 36 U.S. military bases overseas are within range of Iran's missiles.18

Joint Chiefs Chairman Dunford last year identified Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, along with Islamic extremism, as the country's top military threats.19

But none of those countries matches the United States in military might, analysts say. China, for example, is at low manpower levels, and troops have not faced sustained combat since the Vietnam War and are weak on training, coordination and logistics, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the research arm of Congress.20

As the debate about U.S. military readiness continues, here are some of the questions that policymakers and defense experts are asking:

Is the U.S. military too small?

President Trump announced in January that he wanted to oversee “a great rebuilding” of the U.S. military, detailing plans for 540,000 Army troops, 350 Navy ships and a modernized nuclear arsenal.

Pentagon officials and congressional Republicans praised the proposal, although they said it could take years to rebuild the military to something close to Cold War levels, when the Army had more than 750,000 active-duty troops.

That number decreased to about 480,000 during the 1990s, rose after the 2001 terrorist attacks and dropped again beginning in 2011. The Army had 475,000 troops on active duty in fiscal 2016.21

As troop numbers have declined, however, their quality has improved, said Steven Kosiak, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. Higher spending on military health care and veterans’ benefits has attracted more high-quality recruits as measured by “education, aptitude and level of experience,” he said.22

But demands on U.S. soldiers are increasing, which means troop strength also should increase, some defense experts say.

Since the end of the Cold War, “the range of potential conflicts we have to be ready for has grown exponentially,” says Todd Harrison, director of defense budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank that researches national security and other issues.

In addition to conducting counterterrorism operations, today's soldiers must be ready to fight “old-fashioned” conventional wars in places such as North Korea, while also preparing for a potential cyberwar, says James F. Cunningham, a former senior research associate at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington.

Yet keeping a full brigade trained and ready is difficult when troops constantly rotate out for home leave or are lost through attrition, Cunningham says. “What we have right now is not sufficient,” he says.

Dan Goure, senior vice president of the Lexington Institute, a conservative think tank in Virginia focused on national security and other issues, said today's military “is too small, with too few technological advantages and facing too many threats.”

“There is now a very real possibility that in a future conflict … U.S. forces could suffer such high casualties that regardless of the outcome, this country will lack the capabilities needed to deal with any other major contingency,” Goure said.23