Condition Red

Be afraid, America: your armed forces are in bad shape

Who stands with them?

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That the armed forces of the United States have fallen on hard times no doubt comes as welcome news to progressives, for most of whom military culture is tantamount to fascism. But it is, or ought to be, of grave concern to the rest of us. For a country to be successful, it must be secure. And since the presidency of Barack Obama, that necessary measure of national security has been frittered away.

Many of the deficiencies that plague the American military are material. The Navy has insufficient ships. The Army and Air Force are too small. Many units are maintained at low levels of readiness due to personnel shortages, maintenance backlogs, etc. America’s military industrial base has been left to languish. Recruiting and retention present a worrisome picture. These problems are serious enough, to be sure, but they pale by comparison with the steady erosion of military morale and spirit.

The dysfunctional Biden Administration has of course done nothing to correct these deficiencies. Indeed, its politization of the Department of Defense has only made matters worse. By infecting the American military with the virus of postmodern progressivism, Joe Biden and Barack Obama before him have done much to erode American military culture.

It is a truism that a country’s military establishment bears the stamp of that country’s history, political system and societal norms. The many peculiarities of the British Army as memorialized by Rudyard Kipling derived from the larger peculiarities of British politics and society. But perforce, the armed forces stand apart from the nation they serve. Another great Englishman, George Orwell, put it thus: “We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.” America is a democracy, yes, but of necessity its defense is entrusted to an authoritarian state within a state.

American military culture is founded on disciplined submission to lawful authority, as set forth in the Constitution and personified by the President in his capacity as Commander in Chief. Discipline. It’s a word to conjure with. Discipline is the nail, the screw, the bolt, the clamp, the glue that binds together every military unit, from the squad of a dozen soldiers to the five branches of our armed forces. Without discipline, there is no spirit of the body, just an armed mob. It follows, therefore, that any lapse of discipline undermines the good order, efficiency, and morale of the military establishment.

Po-mo progressive dogmas—DEI, CRT, fourth-wave feminism, transgender ideology— stand in direct opposition to the concept of disciplined submission to lawful authority, and to the values associated with military service. The United States Army defines those values in seven words: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage. In the Newspeak of progressivism, however, those values are swallowed up by such terms as toxic masculinity and acting White.

CRT (critical race theory) holds that America is an irredeemably racist country in which “people of color,” other minorities, and women are ground under the heel of White Supremacy, not to mention the Patriarchy. (Don’t take my word for this: Check in with Ta-Nehisi Coates and Ibram X. Kendi.) In our public schools and (formerly) great universities, young Americans are being indoctrinated with this narrative. Why would they volunteer to serve and defend such an evil regime?

DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) sorts people into mutually antagonistic groups, demands equal outcomes regardless of individual capacities, and excludes all considerations of merit or superior performance. In short, it subverts every principle on which American military culture is founded. How can a disciplined, combat-ready force be maintained when its members are encouraged to cultivate their differences? How can leaders be developed in the face of demands for equal outcomes?

Since Joe Biden became president, this destructive ideology has wormed its way into the Pentagon, corrupting everything it touches. The Army, for instance, has an Equity and Inclusion Agency. Its motto is a prize specimen of word salad: Diversity is the Force, Equity is the Goal, Inclusion is the Way. Right, that’s sure to be a big help on the battlefields of the next war. What does it even mean in the context of an armored battalion, a destroyer at sea, a fighter squadron?

The senior leadership of the armed forces, civilian and military, subscribes—or affects to subscribe—to this nonsense. In 2021, General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, defended the inclusion of critical race theory in military education. Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee, he piously intoned: “I want to understand white rage, and I’m white.” This, mind you, from a four-star flag officer.

It may be doubted whether General Milley actually believes what he said. Nowadays, playing politics is how a military officer gets to the top of the greasy pole. That means going along with the orthodoxies of the moment, even if they’re obviously stupid or actively destructive. The Pentagon, as opposed to the actual armed forces, is a massive bureaucracy, shot through with politics, a world apart from the daily realities of military service in the field. This has always been true to some extent, but today the disconnect has become critical, even dangerous.

For all these reasons, I believe that Donald Trump’s nomination of Pete Hegseth to be Secretary of Defense is a sound move. Enough with the military bureaucrats—they’ve lost the plot. Enough with the social science experiments—they’ve undermined readiness and morale. The young men and women of our armed forces deserve a leader who is of them and with them. Hegseth, an Army veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, led a rifle platoon in combat, along the way earning two Bronze Stars and the Combat Infantry Badge. As I contemplate the parlous condition of the American military, that’s good enough for me. Hegseth could hardly do worse than Lloyd Austin.