The U.S. military was considered overall "marginal" and the U.S. Army is ranked "weak" when it comes to military power, according to the Heritage Foundation in a report released last week.
The 2017 Index of U.S. Military Power scores are based on the military's "capability or modernity, capacity for operations, and readiness to handle assigned missions successfully."
The assessment of the U.S. Army is the same from last year yet only a third of its units are prepared for war, according to the document.
"Even for units deployed abroad, the Army has had to increase its reliance on contracted support to meet maintenance requirements," the report states. "In summary, the Army is smaller, older, and weaker, a condition that is unlikely to change in the near future."
President-elect Donald Trump has called for increasing the size of the Army to about 540,000 active-duty soldiers, the Marine Corps to 36 battalions, the Navy to 350 surface ships and submarines, and the Air Force to at least 1,200 fighter aircraft.
