Our military is in big trouble in part because woke ideology has more negative consequences than we can imagine. 

Analysis. From The Federalist. Amid the first conventional war in Europe since 1945 and China’s massive military buildup — including nuclear weapons — the U.S. military is experiencing a dangerous drop in its warfighting capability. The U.S. Army, the largest service, has only reached 40 percent of its recruiting goal with just more than three months remaining in the fiscal year.

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This military decay will continue under President Joe Biden’s disastrous anti-leadership and likely will take many years of concerted effort to reverse. Further, combined with the chaotic defeat in Afghanistan, America’s ability to deter its enemies from taking hostile action is at a low not seen since the late 1970s, making a major war far more likely.

There are three growing signs of trouble: an alarming collapse in recruiting, a profoundly unserious national security leadership, and weakness in the military supply chain and procurement.

Recruiting Collapse

The military is facing its most severe staffing crisis since the advent of the all-volunteer force in 1973. In March, the Department of Defense (DoD) announced it would reduce its active-duty end strength by 0.2 percent to a little more than 2.1 million. Pentagon comptroller Michael McCord assured us that it’s “not about making the force bigger. We’re looking at making the force more capable.” But only three months later, word broke that every branch in the military is having trouble meeting its recruiting goals….

Biden’s defense officials may hope money solves the problem, but they’d be better advised to look in the mirror instead. When you openly accuse the military of being rightwing and harboring white supremacists, insist on schooling them in transgender pronoun usage, and then force them to get vaccinated for a Covid-19 virus that’s less threatening than the flu for the young and healthy military demographic, you shouldn’t be shocked that they don’t want to enlist under a leadership they neither trust nor admire….

Profoundly Unserious Leadership

There are multiple warning flags that our civilian and senior military leadership are majoring in the minors while ignoring warfighting at our collective peril. Whether it’s the aforementioned policies or claiming climate change is an existential threat, our national security apparatus appears intent on losing its first engagement with a revanchist People’s Republic of China….

The over-hyped fear of a military overrun with right-wing extremists is especially maddening as Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin initiated a military-wide standdown and struggle session on the premise of false reports from CNN and NPR….

Military Procurement Weaknesses

The U.S. military supply chain has become increasingly reliant on the import of key items, such as computer chips. America makes 10 percent of the world’s computer chips with 75 percent of global production in East Asia and some 90 percent of the most advanced chips made in Taiwan.

Every Javelin missile launched in Ukraine at invading Russian forces uses a Javelin missile Command Launch Unit (CLU), and every CLU has more than 250 computer chips in it….

Javelin orders take 32 months to deliver, and in recent years, the United States has been buying only 1,000 Javelins per year with a maximum production rate of 6,480 per year. But the semiconductor-using industry typically has less than five days of chips on hand and it will likely take a year or more to reach the maximum production rate — assuming the chips will be available.

Unlike Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a land war in which American supplies of anti-tank missiles, anti-aircraft missile, and artillery, have been sent in large numbers, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would mostly involve the Navy and Air Force. Unfortunately, naval ship building and drydock repair is a glaring weak spot in our national security. America now builds fewer than 10 vessels for oceangoing trade every year — China builds more than 1,000….

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(Excerpt from The Federalist. Photo Credit: Canva)