Episode 308 Show Notes- American Military Readiness Continues to Decline Pre-WWII Deja Vu
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Episode Description
The most powerful military the world has seen, the United States military is woefully unprepared for a conflict and our military readiness continues to decline. Our readiness levels continue to decline for several reasons. Military readiness has taken a backseat to politics and it’s one of the major reasons America no longer wins wars. Now is not the time to ignore military readiness as the world stage becomes more unstable, threats continue to increase, and an eerie feeling of pre-WWII déjà vu.
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Show Transcript- American Military Readiness Continues to Decline Pre-WWII Deja Vu
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Intro
Welcome to The P.A.S. Report Podcast.
I hope your week is going well, and I want to thank all of you who reached out to me about Monday’s interview with Dr. Ben Carson. He is a remarkable man. He is genuine and down-to-earth. He has such love and devotion for the United States, and everything America has to offer. I wish more public servants had his attitude.
If you haven’t yet listened to the Dr. Ben Carson interview, I suggest you do.
Getting to today’s episode, I want to focus on our military. Growing up in the 1980s and the 1990s, we were spoiled. The American military was supreme. There wasn’t a country out there that could challenge us militarily. It was the most powerful, sophisticated, well-trained military the world had ever seen, especially coming off the 1991 Desert Storm victory.
But like everything else, a lot has changed since then. And as America continues to decline in power and influence so too does the military.
But far more concerning is our military readiness is declining at the same time we are witnessing growing instability around the world. We are witnessing an increase in global threats. Understand, this is not a coincidence. As a superpower declines in its power and influence, including militarily, instability always increases.
That’s international politics 101, and we can use the Levels of Analysis to see just how the threats to American dominance continue to build.
However, I think the most frightening aspect is that our military readiness levels are at historic lows. We haven’t been this unprepared since Vietnam or maybe even since the 1930s, yet no one seems to care.
And given everything going on, the industrial media complex has virtually ignored the story. Sure, you may have heard about some recruitment problems through some of the media outlets, but the problem is far deeper than that.
Our military is unprepared for the rising threats in the 21st century, and many within the top brass care more about politics than winning a war or meeting today’s challenges.
I’ll explain it all, but before I do, be sure to click the follow button so you never miss an episode and visit The P.A.S. Report website to sign up for my newsletter.
Pre-World War II Déjà Vu
When you look at the current international environment and the lack of our military readiness, it is eerily similar to pre-WWII. It’s almost like déjà vu.
If you’ve listened to this podcast since the start of the coronavirus, you may remember that in April of 2020, when the coronavirus was in its infancy and the world was locking down, I did an episode on The Post-Coronavirus World Order.
We’ve got a lot of new listeners since then as The P.A.S. Report audience continues to grow tremendously so if you haven’t listened to that episode, I suggest you do. Even if you have, it may be a good time to get a refresher on what I said. I link to the episode in the show notes of this episode so you can check it out.
And I want to emphasize that this episode was done at the start of the coronavirus. As a student and teacher of world politics and history, I was alarmed by what I was seeing, and I knew that we needed to tread carefully.
Unfortunately, the elitists completely ignore people like me because I’m not one of them, but I spoke about the distribution of power within the international system, and how this will alter that power. I explained that when the distribution of power gets disrupted, instability increases as other countries will compete to acquire more power.
I also spoke about the coming economic storm. While all these morons were saying that the economy is going to be fine, anyone with a brain knew that the government’s determining what businesses are essential and which ones weren’t was going to be a disaster. Anyone with a brain that saw governments around the world inject tons of cash into their economies was going to have an adverse effect.
Anyone who understands anything about government, particularly ours, knew that governments, especially our Congress, don’t have the creativity or the intelligence requirements to think out of the box and use targeted stimulus effectively. Instead, they just threw money at the problem.
I explained how the economic realities will be grim when all is said and done. While I thought the economic pain would start sooner than what we are currently witnessing, all of this was largely predictable.
In that episode, I made comparisons to the Great Depression of the 1930s. I acknowledged how our economy and the world economy are a lot different from the 1930s, but at the same time, there were similar parallels.
I talked about how so-called democratic governments were assuming too much power and authority within their countries. How we would see a rise in internal civil unrest throughout the world. Countries, that many thought were largely stable, would be challenged to their core, and governments may ultimately collapse.
We are witnessing the beginning of this take hold. Just look at countries like Sri Lanka, Panama, and Argentina. Look at several countries on the African continent including Egypt and Nigeria. Look at what’s happening in the Netherlands, Germany, and other developed countries. We are now seeing farmers’ protests spread to other countries. The situation in Europe will deteriorate as energy shortages increase.
There is nothing more dangerous than surging costs of energy and food, and at the same time, you have energy shortages. As people’s desperation increases, they begin to lash out. Political leaders attempt to deflect blame only to inflame tensions. It’s a recipe for disaster.
I talked about Putin and Ukraine. I talked about the growing threat and power of Communist China. I explained military moves that raised red flags.
The variables leading up to WWII are different, but there are some parallels we can draw on. As power vacuums become more apparent, countries will compete to fill the void and that’s exactly what we are witnessing.
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American Military Readiness Declining
As the world stage becomes increasingly unstable and ripe for conflict, our military readiness is declining at the worst time possible. At the same time, military readiness is dropping so too is trust in the military.
This is unheard of in my lifetime. The last time we saw trust in the military decline was during Vietnam. This should raise red flags throughout our government, especially the pencil pushers in the Pentagon, but it seems that no one is taking this seriously, and we have to ask why is our military readiness and trust in the military on the decline?
This goes beyond the toxic woke BS that is being pushed on the soldiers. I’ll talk about that in a minute.
But one of the main reasons trust in the military has declined is because of the debacle in Afghanistan. Afghanistan was a catastrophic failure. We spent 20 years in that hellhole to the tune of over $ 2 trillion. (Brown University) We lost nearly 2,500 brave service members, and over 20k service members were wounded, some with life-altering injuries. For what?
Throughout the 20 years, the policymakers, the generals, the spooks, and the diplomats, were all telling the American public that we were making progress. That the Afghan government was stable. That the Afghan military and police forces would be able to hold their own with less support from us. It turns out that none of that was true and they knew that. We now have The Afghanistan Papers where our officials knew the war was unwinnable. Whether we pulled out in 2011 after bin Laden’s death or in 2021, the country would not become this thriving beacon of democracy, and it would remain unstable.
This is why the generals, the spooks, and the diplomats, ramped up the warnings to President Biden that if he withdrew, Afghanistan would collapse, but don’t think for a second that they were operating in good faith. Instead, they were in cover their ass mode and knew that for a decade they lied to the American people and Congress.
After 20 years of war, the sole superpower of the world announced our intent to withdraw, and the Taliban were able to retake control over the country in less than a week. In fact, they are better armed and equipped today than they were 20 years ago.
We sacrificed so much, and for what? Since this embarrassing collapse, who has been held accountable. Not a single person from the military, the intelligence community, or the state department has been held accountable. In fact, the only person who was charged and punished was Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller because he had the nerve to publicly criticize the top military brass for the failures in Afghanistan and call for accountability.
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We Don’t Fight Wars to Win Anymore
Gone are the days of the General Patton’s and the General MacArthur’s. Instead, we have a bunch of incompetent people driving our military and our military readiness into the ground.
If you want to know why so many lost trust in the military, just look at Afghanistan, and that’s one of the main reasons. We don’t fight wars to win anymore. If you look at the last 70 years, ask yourself, how many wars have we won?
What I mean by won, I mean that we defined clear objectives, and successfully met those strategic objectives giving us the ability to declare victory.
The answer is one. One friggin war out of countless military engagements over the last 70 years, and the one victory was over Iraq and Saddam Hussein in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. That’s it.
Knowing that you have to ask why we don’t fight wars to win anymore? Sadly, I don’t have an answer to that. I know why we lose wars, but I can’t explain why we don’t fight to win.
We lose wars because we attach political objectives rather than military objectives. It’s important to know that while we do lose wars, we do win most military battles. We lose military engagements because we don’t meet the political objectives of the conflict.
Take Afghanistan again, what were the overall objectives? Most people can’t answer that question because they were never really defined. Sure, they morphed into creating a stable, democratic country, but what the hell does that mean? What does a democratic Afghanistan even look like?
What about Iraq? Or what about any number of countries we’ve been militarily engaged in over the last several decades?
The reason we were able to declare victory in the first Desert Storm War in 1991 is that we had S.M.A.R.T. objectives. Objectives that were Simple, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. The objective was simple, it was to repel Saddam’s forces from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and destroy his military capabilities so they couldn’t do another invasion.
You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand those objectives. They are pretty simple. These objectives were easy to measure as we can see in real-time Saddam’s forces surrendering and withdrawing. The objective was attainable. We did it in 43 days so I would say it was pretty timely, and the objectives were certainly realistic. Notice how it wasn’t about overthrowing a government. It wasn’t about building a democracy.
We Should Be Focusing on Our Failures
You would think we would be focusing on our failures over the last several decades, but no. Of course not. See, the powers that be in this country are never held accountable, and they don’t see themselves as failures. Many of these frauds think they are the greatest thing since sliced bread. Don’t ever underestimate the ego of a politician, a government bureaucrat, or the academic elite.
Just take General Milley. He played a major in overseeing the training of the Afghan army. He failed. Instead of getting fired, he got promoted. That’s a government thing. Only in government can you repeatedly fail, but you still get promoted because they know how to play the political game. They ignore and wash their hands of their failures as if those failures never existed.
And it’s not just the military. Look at the intel community. Remember, Iraq had WMDs. Remember, how we’ve been wrong every step of the way when it comes to North Korea’s nuclear progression where they continually show that their lightyears ahead of where we assessed they were. We were surprised at the achievements of China and Russia when it comes to hypersonic weaponry. What about China’s growth and the sophistication of China’s intel apparatus is infiltrating all aspects of our society, especially college campuses. They obviously missed that.
Part of the reason I decided to do this episode was because of my discussion with Professor Adam Ellwanger a few weeks ago.
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Military Survey
Imagine that, focusing on the failures. They should also be focusing on a very concerning survey that raises several alarm bells. Our military is made up of an all-volunteer force. Those who willingly decide to enlist do it knowing that at any moment, they can be sent to war and pay the ultimate sacrifice.
Most people joining the military do so for the love of the country. They are patriotic individuals willing to put their lives on the line to protect this nation.
They also sign up for the opportunities the military affords them. From traveling and seeing the world. To get specialized training. To get the GI Bill and attend college.
The Military Family Advisory Network surveyed current members of the military and veterans. They run this poll every two years. (Military Times) In the survey, they were asked if they would recommend military life to others. In 2019, 74.5% of respondents said they would recommend the military. In 2021, there was a 20-point swing. The percentage that would recommend declined by 11.6 percentage points, and there was a 10% swing in those who would not recommend military service.
8,638 people participated in the survey so that’s a wide sample. One of the main reasons they gave was the long separations from family. Understand, that when it comes to deployments, we have asked so much more of our soldiers than previous generations. Many of the soldiers today went on four, five, or six tours. Some went on ten tours of duty. That’s unheard of. If you think back to WWII, the majority of soldiers served one or two tours.
So, we have placed enormous burdens on our soldiers and it’s taking its toll. I also do not doubt that those that served several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan are pissed about how we withdrew- Iraq in 2011 and Afghanistan in 2021. They probably feel that all their hard work was for nothing. All their sacrifices down the tubes because of bureaucrats in Washington DC and failed leadership.
Another problem is that when there is rising inflation, it’s devastating to military families. Consider that if you’re a soldier, you’re making between $20-$30k a year. If you’re deployed to a combat zone, you get an additional $225 a month. Wow, big whoop. It’s ridiculous. If you’re an officer, you make between $35-$50k.
Sure, they get other benefits, but when you’re in an inflationary period and struggle to put food on the table, it becomes a major financial burden on the family unit. Many people are completely unaware of how some of our soldiers have to use social welfare benefits. Think about that. These are people who are doing their patriotic duty, putting their lives on the line, and they have to use federal assistance programs like food stamps and welfare because when you factor in a spouse and children, they fall below the poverty line.
Maybe the military should focus on that because it’s certainly impacting our military readiness. That would make sense, but most of those in leadership positions lack common sense. Instead, they operate in the world of theory. Then they wonder why we are having recruitment issues.
Dwindling Military Hardware and Capabilities
When examining our military readiness, it is important to look at equipment, and many aren’t paying attention to our dwindling military hardware. The Congressional Budget Office issued a report earlier this year that our aircraft availability has declined within the Air Force and the Navy, and flying hours per aircraft also fell considerably. What is going on?
According to the report, aircraft availability declined from 60% in 2000 to less than 45% in 2020. Flying hours declined from an average of 300 hours per year to about 230 hours. The numbers for fighter and attack planes dropped from 200 hours per year to 125 hours per year. We have fewer aircraft available, and our pilots are getting less flying time. This as Communist China continues to make advances both in the air and on the seas, and they have completely modernized their military. Think about that.
In another survey, this one conducted by the army, 14% of respondents said their unit would be ready to deploy, fight, and win anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice. Of those, 20% of warrant officers were confident their unit could win today, while 40% of generals said they were confident that they could immediately deploy and win.
First of all, it’s scary that only 40% of generals felt this way. Secondly, it’s even more concerning that 20% of warrant officers believe this, and it shows the disconnect with top leadership. Warrant officers actually go to the battlefields and fight. Generals are mostly far away and insulated. I trust the opinions of those who are on the ground than senior leadership hundreds of miles away from the theater of war.
In another assessment report, 58% of brigade combat teams were at the highest levels of tactical readiness. Army policy is that 65% of brigade combat teams should be at the highest levels. Even worse than that is the number is down 16 percentage points from the year before when the number stood at 74%. That’s a huge drop-off. (Heritage) Talk about our military readiness deficiencies.
Depleting Our Weapon’s System
And what about our weapon systems and their availability? Having stockpiles of weapon systems is essential to ensuring military readiness.
I’m going to say something that you’re not supposed to say. If you bring it up, you’re declared an agent of Russia. A stooge for Putin. But something that’s getting very little attention is how we are rapidly depleting our stockpiles with all the military hardware we are sending to Ukraine.
Here are just a few examples. We have sent over 25% of our shoulder-fired Stinger missiles to Ukraine. Raytheon Technologies makes these weapons, and the CEO stated that they will not be able to ramp up production until next year due to parts shortages. It’s estimated that if we continue on the current trend, we can completely deplete our inventory of stinger missiles.
When it comes to the javelins weapon systems, we’ve sent over a third of our javelins, 7,000, to Ukraine. We produce about 600-800 javelins a year so do the math. And again, it’s not like we can just ramp up production due to the ongoing supply chains. The javelins use more than 200 semiconductors. The same semiconductors that are already in short supply.
We are seeing shortages even down to the most basic, artillery shells. This is a disaster, and when asked about this, what does the top brass say? Many of them have stated that this has no impact on our military readiness. Are you kidding me? How am I supposed to take these fools seriously when they say such obvious untruths or outright lies?
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What is the Top Brass Focused On
So, they don’t focus on the real issues affecting military readiness. Instead, where do they decide to focus their attention? White supremacy, white rage, and diversity, inclusion, and equity, of course.
Sound Clip Secretary Austin DEI & Milley White Rage
Remember when the Secretary of Defense issued a 60-day stand-down order to investigate white supremacy and right-wing extremism within the military?
For years, pencil pushers in the bureaucracy have been warning that a growing number of soldiers are susceptible to white supremacy and extremist activities.
But it’s even worse than that when you consider this statement by the Secretary.
Sound Clip Secretary Austin Enemy is Within
Think about that. Imagine you’re in the military, and the leader of the military says that the enemy has infiltrated the military. Think about it. Would you begin to start to look at other soldiers with suspicion wondering if they’re one of these enemies, not sure of who you can trust and who you can’t?
Then you get all this racial garbage shoved down your throat. You joined the military knowing of the potential that you may eventually pay the ultimate sacrifice, but the top leadership views you as a possible white supremacist or right-wing extremist.
Think about how destructive that is within the military. First of all, if you’re white, you may begin to grow bitter and resentful given that you’re sacrificing so much, but now your character is being called into question simply because of the color of your skin.
And then think of the distrust it sows in the military. If I am a Black or Hispanic person, and my military leadership is telling me that white supremacists have infiltrated the military, how is this going to impact my relationship with my peers? Am I going to start to look at them that they may be white supremacists or radical extremists? Does this do anything for military cohesiveness?
Also, think about how this affects recruiting. If I’m a minority, and you’re telling me that there is a growing white supremacist and right-wing extremist movement within the ranks of the military, do you think I am more likely to volunteer for military service or less likely? Why would anyone want to join an organization like that?
But see they don’t think of things like that. Instead, they make general blanket statements, consequences be damned.
We heard a lot about this growing threat of white supremacy and right-wing extremism in our military. It was so bad that the Secretary of Defense gave a 60-day stand-down order, throughout every branch of the military, to address extremism in the ranks, and it took them a year to look into every soldier and their activities.
So, after a year of investigating, what did they uncover and why didn’t you hear about it? I mean, when Secretary Austin issued the stand-down order, that made big news. We saw segment after segment talking about the growing threat of white supremacy in the military so you would think after nearly a year of investigating, the media would be interested to know how widespread the problem is. You would think that this growing threat of white supremacy would be a big news story and validate what a horrible nation we are.
But you didn’t hear that. You didn’t hear anything about the report. It wasn’t reported on except by a few press outlets. Even when you try to search for the results it’s nearly impossible to find them. Try it, and you’ll find that every headline that pops up is about the initial stand-down order, but nothing about the results. Just about every mainstream outlet ignored the story, and the few that reported on it put in a disclaimer that the number is probably higher because of challenges collecting data.
We have nearly 2.5 million people serving as active duty and in the reserves. On Monday, December 20th, 2021, Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby announced that following the stand down order and the investigation, nearly 100 troops were discharged for participating in “prohibited extremist activities.” (Fox News)
So, 100 out of 2.5 million were bad seeds engaging in extremist activity. Now we have no idea what the extremist activity was because no one asked, and the Press Secretary never explained, but I would like to know specifics, especially the number of troops that engaged in white supremacist ideology.
Of course, one is too many, and we need to make sure that our military remains professional and colorblind. We need to make sure that the extremist elements are rooted out and discharged. However, with their reckless words and proclamations, they slandered the entire Armed Forces of the United States, and there is little doubt that the reckless statements lowered morale. There were no apologies for the irresponsible rhetoric. Instead, it was swept under the rug, and you haven’t heard anything about it since.
Every branch of the military is suffering from recruitment issues. Soldiers aren’t reenlisting, and the military is having difficulties finding new recruits.
Dropping Standards
The military’s move towards wokism is a big reason for that. Then factor in the obesity and mental health problems plaguing our society, and it’s the perfect storm when it comes to recruitment efforts.
There was a great piece written by Douglas MacKinnon and published in The Hill where Mr. MacKinnon explains how the military has dramatically watered down its high physical, mental and accountability standards. I have a link to the article in the show notes, so I encourage everyone to read it.
He reminds the readers how not too long ago, in 2016, the CDC warned how the obesity epidemic is impacting our national security and that “71 percent of young people in the United States would not be able to join the military if they wanted to.” I can imagine that this number has increased since then.
The CDC also stated that “overweight and obesity [status] among active-duty service members has risen by 73 percent,” between 2011 and 2015. Another number that has probably grown significantly since the last count.
Closing
Dropping standards doesn’t help the United States, our military readiness, and our national security. As the world becomes more unstable and 21st-century threats continue to rise, we need to be on our A game. Sadly, our leaders are more consumed with proper pronoun usage than winning wars.
It’s a pathetic display and it’s hard to watch as the greatest fighting force ever developed becomes a shell of what it used to be and a laughingstock among our adversaries.
It’s an embarrassment. We should want our all-volunteer force to be the best with no exceptions. If we continue down this path, our military readiness will continue to suffer, and it will only be a matter of time before we have to transition from an all-volunteer force to mandatory military service which will only make the problem far worse.
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The military leaders pushing politics over winning wars should be fired immediately. Those pushing this poison in the military are the real extremists and continuing down this path won’t do any of us any good.
Just think logically, do you think proper pronoun usage is going to matter if our military is defeated by a country like Communist China?
We need to wake up and need a complete overhaul of the leadership within this country. I’m talking about both the elected officials and the unelected bureaucrats. If you wanted a blueprint on how to destroy the most powerful military in the world, you would do exactly this.
Our adversaries are laughing, and the worst part of this whole mess is that it’s all self-inflicted. We are destroying ourselves.
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