Wes Martin, a retired U.S. Army colonel, served as the first Senior Antiterrorism Officer for all Coalitions in Iraq and holds a MBA in International Politics and Business.

While President Donald Trump has earned praise from his “America First” base of support for a measured approach to end the war in Ukraine, many of his most loyal defenders like Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon have harshly condemned the aggressive foreign policy elsewhere.

During his first term, the president was correct in eliminating Iranian Quds Force Commander Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Iraq. Trump was also correct in launching missile strikes in Syria to punish then-President Bashar Assad for using chemical weapons against his own civilians. Unlike Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, Trump has proven his red lines are not drawn with disappearing ink.

This term, Trump has escalated both the threat and use of military force much further. Given the frenetic pace of news cycles nowadays, it’s easy to forget what happened last week, let alone last year.

To recap, Trump sent our military to bomb Houthi terrorists in Yemen who were relentlessly attacking international shipping in the Red Sea. He followed up by bombing Iranian nuclear facilities that posed an existential threat to Israel and our Gulf allies. He just bombed ISIS terrorists in Nigeria for killing Christians.

Following up on a month of striking Venezuelan and Colombian drug boats and seizing oil tankers at sea, Trump ordered the bombing of Venezuela. Joint operations and elite commandos resulted in the capture of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, who had been indicted in New York on drugs and weapons charges.

Trump’s pursuit of a muscular foreign policy must be backed up with credible force. So far against Syria, Iran and Venezuela this has been the case. Truth is the American military of the late 20th century could have defeated these nations in their current state. Grenada, Panama and the First Gulf War prove that point.

Problem is these countries are not our long-term threat, while American readiness weakens with each passing year. Specifically, our domestic military manufacturing capability has been slowly and steadily compromised from decades of globalization combined with advances in technology. We must fix it immediately.

Since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, America has seen thousands of our own factories close while Beijing seemingly can’t build them fast enough. Meanwhile, once relatively simple weapons systems are now extraordinarily complex, with millions of parts required to operate our military machines. For instance, modern fighter jet engines may rely on 50,000 parts or more.

When we combine the effects of globalization with the increase in military parts, we get things like Chinese alloys in magnets appearing in our F-35s, compromising their reliability in combat. Though it’s challenging enough that deliveries of our fifth-generation fighters were periodically shut down in 2022 over fixing this problem, the Government Accountability Office released a report last July showing the macro-issue of overreliance on foreign suppliers and COVID-19 supply chain issues haven’t gone away.

Trump and Congress must do more to revitalize our domestic manufacturing sector and ensure “buy American” policies. The president recognizes that proper investment in our military must be a priority. Just this week he posted on Truth Social that “our Military Budget for the year 2027 should not be $1 Trillion Dollars, but rather $1.5 Trillion Dollars. This will allow us to build the “Dream Military” that we have long been entitled to and, more importantly, that will keep us SAFE and SECURE regardless of foe.”

To that end, they should adequately fund research and development of key weapons systems where we’re already falling behind China, like sixth-generation fighter aircraft.

While China has already flown two different versions of such advanced stealth fighters, our equivalent, the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) platform, won’t be ready for years and is already late.

Moreover, its pending engine system, the Next Generation Adaptive Propulsion (NGAP) system, is also woefully underfunded. It also saw a significant decrease in funding for fiscal year 2026, down by 23% from the previous year to $330 million. That is a glaring red flag in military readiness that needs to be fixed and something the president should demand as part of his call for increased defense spending.

As a ground warrior and combat veteran, I always respected and depended upon American air superiority. We simply can’t cede these types of advantages to rival and potentially hostile powers like China.

We would do well to remember that one of America’s legendary leaders, President Teddy Roosevelt, famously described foreign policy as “speak softly, but carry a big stick.” While no one can accuse Trump of speaking softly, he ought to at least ensure that the big stick is solid and reliable. The American people deserve nothing less.