April 9 (UPI) -- The U.S. military's ability to meet demands has largely degraded over the past two decades, a Government Accountability Office report said on Friday.
"GAO found that reported domain readiness did not meet readiness recovery goals identified by the military services," a GAO statement on Friday said.
The Navy, the report said, has "limited maintenance capacity at private and public shipyards as the primary challenge for recovering ship and submarine readiness."
In the Air domain, the report spotlighted "the effects of Hurricane Michael and its associated infrastructure limitations on the Air Force's F-22 fighter jets; the effects of trained pilot shortages on the Army's AH-64 attack helicopter; and the effects of limited depot repair capacity on the Marine Corps' light attack helicopters."
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The report also noted a lack of "readiness reporting" and goals in the Space Force.
"Based on our analysis of readiness data for selected force elements and mission areas within each of the five domains, readiness increased in the ground domain, declined in the sea domain, and had mixed changes in the air, space, and cyber domains," the 39-page report concluded.
The report emphasized numerous maintenance backlogs, notably with Navy vessels and aircraft, and noted that "two decades of conflict has degraded military readiness at a time when the National Defense Strategy calls for preparedness for great-power competition."
A classified version of the report offered a deeper analysis, with more examples, of what has hampered the U.S. military's readiness.
The report added that the Defense Department has already begun a plan, the "Readiness Recovery Framework," but has not established recommended metrics "to measure readiness in each domain."
