My side-eye analysis of Project 2025 continues with Section Two, The Common Defense (pp 87-131 of the text, including endnotes).
It starts with a load of whining about how our defense has atrophied due to leftist politics and how recruitment is down.
They blame vaccine mandates and “a risk-averse culture,” saying nothing of how many military personnel commit suicide, suffer disabling injuries, struggle to find work after separation, and – let’s not forget – are killed on the job. See casualty statistics HERE, keeping in mind the narrow definition of casualty.
If I were eighteen years old, I wouldn’t give serious consideration to enlisting either, even though many members of my extended family have served.
Okay, got derailed there. Moving on. P25 wants to demote or separate officers who don’t pass its political test and then ramp up for war with China, or anywhere else we could use military force to get what we want. In other words: be like Russia!
Next comes reform of the State Department – a mere sketch here (there’s a whole chapter about it coming up), summarizable as: flush out anyone who disagrees with America First and Might Makes Right. They take jabs at Disney and the NBA, which “directly benefit from doing business with Beijing (p. 89).”
I hate to break it to you, but the entire US economy benefits from doing business with Beijing … and with every other functional economy on the planet. This ties into P25’s dislike of economic globalization. I’ll be interested to see, later on, if they have any actionable suggestions for meeting market demand through domestic production.
Damn it, veered off again. I swear, it’s mostly because P25 can’t stick to its thesis. They have so much agenda that it gets in the way of focused, logical treatment of the issues.
Chapter 4, starting on page 91 of the text, concerns the Department of Defense. “The Department of Defense (DOD) is the largest part of our federal government. It has almost 3 million people serving in uniform or a civilian capacity throughout the world and consumes approximately $850 billion annually – more than 50 percent of our government’s discretionary spending.”
First they blame the Biden Administration for wasteful spending and poor discipline, then note that “more than 100,000 Americans die annually in large measure because of illicit narcotics flows … .” Why is this in their analysis of the DOD? Does P25 think we should use the military to fight the global drug trade? Who knows; they drop it and move on to the changing nature of war; new technologies, etc. Then they state four priorities (p. 92) which are as vague as a high-school essay topic (and, in one case, directly contradict a recommendation made in the preceding section). Next, more hyperventilating about China as an acute military threat.
Girl, it’s not. Not to the US. To Taiwan and Hong Kong, yes. But China has its own problems, and from what I can see, it’s much more concerned with finding solutions to those – through research funded in part by its trade with the US and others – than with getting into any big fights.
The real, actual, acute military threat is Russia, which has already invaded one peaceful neighbor and can be counted on to invade others if NATO and the US continue letting it be the Big Swinging Dick of the Northern Hemisphere.
And P25 does acknowledge that Russia is a problem, but it still hates China more. Hmm, could that be because Putin looks white and the Chinese don’t? It’s a short step from calling China an acute military threat to banning Chinese immigrants again.
A first list of Needed Reforms on pp 93-95 includes nuclear modernization and expansion. Just what the world needs: more nuclear weapons! The next list of Needed Reforms (pp 95-98) concerns defense budgeting, planning, procurement, manufacturing, etc. Yet more Needed Reforms (pp 99-100) involve military R&D. All involve spending more money.
Then, on page 100, comes a call for the US to “regain its role as the ‘Arsenal of Democracy.’ In fiscal year (FY) 2021, U.S. government foreign military sales (FMS) nosedived to a low of $34.8 billion from a record high of $55.7 billion in FY 2018.”
In other words: we should aspire to be the arms dealer to the world, handing out weapons to every other aggressive government or insurgent force that can pay for them. Remember Iran-Contra? Most people considered that an embarrassment. Not P25, I guess!
And here come some more Needed Reforms (pp 100-102), emphasizing arms sales, “collaboration,” and contracting.
Next come Needed Reforms about personnel (pp 102-104), which include putting military recruiters in all secondary schools that receive federal funding and requiring every student in those schools to take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB).
Kids, it’s a short step from having recruiters in schools and forcing you to take the military entrance examination - that’s what ASVAB is – to reinstating the draft and forcing you to serve. Hey, it’s one way to solve the recruitment problem, isn’t it?
Plus, this set of Needed Reforms includes disqualifying or discharging applicants and servicemembers “predisposed to require medical treatment (for example, HIV positive or suffering from gender dysphoria) … .” Here is where they kick all queer servicemembers out again, and also start weeding out the people with uteruses, because those people can get pregnant, which means they’ll require medical treatment.
Oh and, don’t make me laugh, the next Needed Reform is: “Eliminate politicization.” Subtopics to that one: more chaplains, no DEI offices or staff, no Marxist indoctrination (where is that even a thing?), eliminate tenure for instructors, and whatever you do, don’t help a pregnant servicemember terminate a pregnancy.
I’ll have to continue this chapter in the next post. Just one comment to close:
One good thing about shuttering the federal Department of Education (as some members of the red tide want to do) would be no more federal funds going to public schools, which means we could much more easily keep the military out of them.