The U.S. military is no place for “woke” policies to exist

October 7, 2025

The U.S. military services have a very specific, narrow and critical duty: to protect the United States from its enemies. That requires the personnel in all of the individual services to be highly capable, well-trained, well-disciplined and laser-focused on and heavily devoted to their duties.

Those who served during World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and in the years following know well how the military operated, and how the various branches were focused on their duties.

In recent years, particularly during the tenure of former-President Joe Biden, that attention to the critical and highly focused job of the military took a sharp turn away.

Some of the mis-focused elements came before Biden took office, but they reached a critical level during those horrible four years.

Two people in the highest military leadership positions during that time were Lloyd J. Austin, the Secretary of Defense, and General Mark A. Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and were guilty of pushing these ideas.

For many years the “woke” syndrome infected the military, replacing sensible ideals such as military capability and lethality, with foolishness like diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). This caused division among members of the military forces, and diverted needed funds away from the necessities of the military.

One important thing the military had been emphasizing for decades was discouraging racism. But in June of 2020, Mark Esper, the Defense Secretary at the time, employed a new idea: teaching service members about “implicit bias.” This is the idea that there is an unspoken bias favoring white male service members, to the disadvantage of female and non-white service members.

He also established a system of DEI, which expanded during the Biden administration. Spending on this system totaled $68 million in 2022, increased to $86.5 million in 2023, and in 2024 the Department of Defense requested $114.7 million for DEI. 

The DEI system included pushing critical race theory, which is a Marxist concept where everyone is either an oppressor or is oppressed. Ideas such as white privilege, and systemic racism even infected the military academies, accompanied by encouragement of academy students to report any private conversations that contradicted the DEI concept.

Instead of military personnel spending their time maintaining and improving their high levels of performance and their sharp focus on military readiness, much of their time and mental attitudes were sidetracked toward ideals that are not just non-military, but are anti-military.

So, a bad trend that began small quite a few years ago has been growing, and growing quite fast in the last few years. But blessedly, the newly elected Donald Trump administration has a much clearer view of how the military must function, and why.

A new day has dawned at the Department of Defense. And two things are now prevalent and have created much controversy. The second of those is the decision by Trump to return to the Department its original title: The Department of War. As with everything Trump does or says, this has brought criticism.

But not nearly so much as the first of those two things: his choice for the Secretary of the then-Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth. Prior to his nomination, Hegseth worked for Fox News as a co-host on the network’s Fox and Friends Weekend program. 

Needless to say, the left went wild with criticism of his background at Fox News, and other things that the critics found to complain about. A predictable and fair question was, what qualifies him for this job?

Hegseth does have a military background, although some say it isn’t deep enough and broad enough for him to be in charge of our military forces. Some think that a better choice would be a flag officer with 20 years of service.

However, before his work in TV, Hegseth completed Reserve Officers’ Training Corps training while attending Princeton University. He later served as an officer in the U.S. Army National Guard from 2003 to 2021. He attained the rank of captain, and was deployed to Iraq in 2005-2006 with Army National Guard’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division. 

He was deployed to Afghanistan in 2011-2012. He served in Kandahar province with the Minnesota National Guard’s 1-194th Armor Battalion. And during his service he was awarded the Bronze Star.

Hegseth has offered a 10-point strategy to clean up the military branches, and to restore the military’s former and necessary discipline and focus. Those 10 points are:
1. Ending “politically correct leadership”
2. Imposing new physical fitness standards
3. Tackling ideological “garbage”
4. Eliminating anonymous complaints
5. Reinstating discipline and grooming standards
6. Focusing on military strength
7. Emphasizing merit
8. Redefining “toxic” leadership
9. Purging “woke” leadership
10. Revising personnel record retention

The hoopla over gender and ethnicity equality must be put aside. The gender and ethnicity of service members are irrelevant. What is relevant is each person’s ability to meet a set of standards designed to put the most qualified people in uniform. We want and need the most qualified people possible, and the mix of gender and ethnicity will be whatever it turns out to be, based upon choosing highly qualified people.

The introduction of wokeness into our military weakens it

August 29, 2023

Last July a retired U.S. Army general spoke to an audience on the state of the nation’s military forces. Thomas Spoehr attained the rank of Lt. General in his career spanning more than 36 years in uniform. During that time, he served in positions in the Pentagon, with the 82nd Airborne Division, the 1st Armored Division, and as Deputy Commanding General of U.S. Forces in Iraq.

Spoehr was concerned with some things that had transpired that worked against the efficiency and strength of our military, and shared his concerns with the audience at the AWC Family Foundation Lecture Series at Hillsdale College. Following are some of his concerns. 

In 2015, a U.S. Marine Corps study concluded that gender-integrated combat formations did not move as quickly or shoot as accurately, and that women were twice as likely as men to suffer combat injuries. The study was rejected by then-Secretary of the Navy, Ray Maybus.

Later, the Department of Defense under Secretary Ashton Carter opened all military combat jobs to women, committing to “gender-neutral standards” that ensured that female service members would meet the requirements. The Army began to put in place the gender-neutral test promised by Carter. 

However, after finding that women were not scoring as highly as men, the Army threw out the test. Now there is no test to determine whether any soldier can meet the fitness requirements for combat specialties.

Also, that year, President Barack Obama initiated a change to the Pentagon’s longstanding policy on transgender individuals in the military. But after he was elected President, Donald Trump put that change on hold. His Defense Secretary, James Mattis, had information showing, among other things, that transgender individuals suffering from gender dysphoria attempted suicide and experienced severe anxiety at nine times the rate of the general population.

The Trump administration then imposed restrictions on military service personnel suffering from gender dysphoria. However, as one of his first actions, newly elected President Joe Biden signed an executive order that cancelled those restrictions and allowed all transgender individuals to participate in our military services. Later, Biden’s administration allowed active duty military personnel to take time off from their duties to have sex-change surgery, related hormones and drugs, which would be paid for by taxpayers.

The Biden administration has also removed a policy that prohibited personnel with HIV from serving in combat zones, due to the need for special medications and the danger of transmission through shared blood. 

And in recent years, our military’s strenuous physical fitness standard has been weakened, with the goal of “leveling the playing field.” This allows people previously not up to the physical standard to now serve.

In July of last year, a drag queen story hour was scheduled at the base library of Ramstein Air Base in Germany. A drag queen was going to read to children of Air Force personnel stationed there. However, when this news reached lawmakers in the U.S., who complained to the Secretary of the Air Force, the event was cancelled.

Also, in 2021, the Navy released a video instructing Navy personnel that they need to create a “safe space for everybody.” This includes using “inclusive language,” such as saying “hey everybody,” instead of “hey guys.” Spoehr wondered what other “woke” changes might follow. 

Taking things a few steps further down the path, Biden required through an executive order that all organizations in the military services must create Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) offices, and to produce DEI plans and track the progress toward those goals. The purpose of this is to advance “equity for all.”

Spoehr also mentioned that Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the idea that capitalism is racist are also being used to indoctrinate personnel. The charge of CRT being used was denied by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, but Spoehr said much evidence contradicts Austin’s denial. 

Legislation introduced this year in Congress would halt the use of CRT, the creation of diversity offices, and the easing of physical requirements. Whether this legislation will pass is an open question.

In a write-up of Spoehr’s address printed in Hillsdale’s publication, “Imprimis,” is this: “Wokeness also comes in the form of conflating the mission of the military with environmental ideology. A year ago, President Biden told a group of overseas Air Force airmen that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had determined that the greatest threat facing America was global warming—a claim the Joint Chiefs had to walk back. 

“In the same vein, Biden signed an executive order imposing a massive regime of environmental goals and requirements for the Department of Defense. These goals included transitioning to all electric non-tactical vehicles by 2035, carbon-free electricity for military installations by that same year, and net zero emissions from those installations by 2050. As a result, the Pentagon recently announced it will devote over $3 billion of its already stretched-thin military budget to climate-related initiatives in 2023 alone.”

The job and responsibility of the U.S. military is to protect and defend the United States. Social experimentation and political ideology weaken its ability. The military must have at every position the best qualified and capable person possible, regardless of race or gender.

The United States military is being weakened from the top

December 20, 2022

One of the things that has earned the respect of most Americans through the decades is our military. Our armed forces have done wonderful things, like helping to save much of the world in World War II. It was able to do this because of the proper training of competent individuals.

Our military has been regarded as the best, most proficient and capable in the world. On the land and sea, and in the air, there were none better.

Recent developments now place those highly regarded forces in danger of being less ready and able to do their job of protecting America from its adversaries.

The men and women in the ranks are not the problem. They are well-trained and very competent, at least at the present time. The problem lies with much of the civilian and military leadership in the Pentagon and some officers in the services.

Non-military topics like diversity, equity and inclusion, and using the proper pronouns have crept into the thinking of some of the top brass.

The Department of Defense (DoD) has something called the Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan. The DoD explains that “diversity is a strategic imperative — critical to mission readiness and accomplishment.” 

And, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has said that it must be a priority for our military “to look like America and not only in the ranks, but our leadership should look like America.” 

“The new priority turns the Army into a social experiment at the cost of mission readiness,” said Robert M. Berg in National Review. “The new push within the DoD for diversity, equity, and inclusion goes well beyond measures to ensure equal opportunity and instead looks to create preferences that have nothing to do with merit. Our military will suffer if it does not change course.”

Imagine how the performance of sports teams would be affected if the main concerns were having the right mix of ethnicities and such, instead of having the most talented players. That is the direction our military is headed.

Also, the military released thousands of service people who refused to get a Covid vaccine, and the services are now having trouble attracting enough new recruits to meet their targets. Some of that is because those of the right age and physical condition are turned off by the misdirection of the military recently.

The largest military service, the U.S. Army, is revisiting some of the fitness standards and academic standards right now to try to meet its recruitment goals. Lowering standards does not bode well for keeping military readiness at the highest level.

The late Rush Limbaugh, in highlighting the military’s critical areas, said that its job is “to kill people and break things.” The military must have as its primary goals to be as skillful, efficient and well equipped as possible. The services must not emphasize things like race, religion, gender, or other non-merit-based traits. Instead, it must focus on combat readiness. Anything that stands in the way of that mission is dangerous and unacceptable. We must always be prepared to fight and win the nation’s wars.

And now this new twist comes to light, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal. “A little-noticed rule-making proposed by the Department of Defense, NASA and the General Services Administration would require federal contractors to disclose and reduce their CO2 emissions as well as climate financial risks. The rule would cover 5,766 contractors that have received at least $7.5 million from the feds in the prior year,” the Journal reported.

“Smaller contractors would have to publicly report their so-called Scope 1 and 2 emissions — i.e., those they generate at their facilities and from the electricity and heating they use. Firms with larger contracts would also have to tabulate their upstream and downstream Scope 3 emissions, including those from customers, suppliers and products used in the field.”

“In other words, this is a back door for the Administration to force businesses across the economy to report and reduce their CO2 emissions,” the Journal article continues. “As the U.S. military faces strained budgets and growing threats, climate will be a costly new priority in national defense.”

“But the very point of the rule, National Review said, “is to force CO2 emissions reductions across the private economy by leveraging $650 billion in annual federal contracts. By covering Scope 3 emissions, the rule would sweep in tens of thousands of non-federal contractors, including many small businesses.”

Thus, it is not only costly in terms of national defense, but it will affect the ability of these contractors to produce needed military goods as inexpensively and as quickly as possible.

The United States has already done pretty well in reducing CO2 emissions, compared to other nations. China, for example, continues to build new coal-fired electric generation facilities. And China is not focused on foolish “woke” concepts for its military, the largest in the world.

The civilian and military leaders who favor these new off-center ideas need to be replaced immediately with people who know and understand the critical purpose of our military, and who will focus on that.

U.S. military below acceptable standards, according to analysis

Among the numerous troublesome topics bedeviling our lives today is this: “The U.S. military is only ‘marginally’ prepared to defend America’s interests at a time when adversaries are ramping up military capabilities.” This dose of reality comes from the 2022 Index of U.S. Military Strength, an annual 600-page look at our armed forces, started in 2015 by The Heritage Foundation. This edition was released earlier this month.

Of late, the concern for national security has transitioned toward cultural, social and political issues. And “military unreadiness” is the direction our armed forces leadership has moved over the last decade or so.

The military has a very narrow, critical mission. Its overriding concern is national security, and when it comes down to it, effectively fighting and winning against armed enemies. The vision held by any and all nations that might dream of defeating the United States must be that such actions will be met with overwhelming force by what is known worldwide as the most powerful and adept military on Earth. 

That is the goal that must never be sacrificed for political correctness, or social justice distractions.

Throughout history presidents have removed military commanders they viewed as inadequate or insubordinate, based upon the philosophy of the individual president. But that action must never result in weakening our national security.

President Barack Obama, tenure 2009 to 2017, declared at a political rally prior to his election that “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” Among other things, Obama worked to transform the U.S. military, including imposing significant budget cuts.

An editorial in Investor’s Business Daily in October of 2013 noted that since his inauguration, Obama had purged at least 197 military officers. And that included nine senior commanding generals in 2013.

A senior retired general told The Blaze — on the condition of anonymity, because he provided services to the government and feared retribution — that "they're using the opportunity of the shrinkage of the military to get rid of people that don't agree with them or do not toe the party line.” 

“For President Obama, the military of a once-feared superpower is an anachronistic vestige of an America whose exceptionalism and world leadership require repeated apologies,” the editorial stated. “It must be gutted and fundamentally transformed into a force wearing gender-neutral headgear only useful for holding the presidential umbrella when it rains. It is to be ‘his’ military and used only for ‘his’ purposes.”

As a result, the highest levels of military leadership became dysfunctional.

“The Index of U.S. Military Strength assesses the ease or difficulty of operating in key regions based on existing alliances, regional political stability, the presence of U.S. military forces, and the condition of key infrastructure,” states the executive summary of the Index. “Threats are assessed based on the behavior and physical capabilities of actors that pose challenges to vital U.S. national interests. The condition of America’s military power is measured in terms of its capability or modernity, capacity for operations, and readiness to handle assigned missions.”

The Index’s aggregate rating for all military branches is “marginal.” The individual rankings are as follows: 

Army: Marginal. A force only about 62 percent the size it should be earns the service a “weak” rating for capacity. However, 58 percent (18) of its 31 regular brigade combat teams are at the highest state of readiness, thus earning the Army a score of “very strong” on readiness and conveying the sense that the service knows what it needs to do to prepare for the next major conflict.

Navy: Marginal. The Navy is rated “marginal” on a downward slope to “weak” in readiness. It desperately needs a larger fleet of 400 ships, but current and forecasted levels of funding will prevent this from occurring for the foreseeable future.

Marine Corps: Strong. The score rose from “marginal” for two reasons: 1) The 2021 Index changed the threshold for capacity, lowering it from 36 infantry battalions to 30 in acknowledgment of the Corps’ argument that it is a one-war force that also stands ready for a broad range of smaller crisis-response tasks, and 2) because of the Corps’ extraordinary efforts to modernize and enhance its readiness during the assessed year.

Air Force: Weak, down from “marginal.” Though the Air Force possesses 86 percent of the recommended combat aircraft, public reporting of the mission readiness and physical location of these planes indicates difficulty to respond rapidly to a crisis. Its ability to recruit and retain pilots adds to its challenges.

Dismissal of senior officers that didn’t fit the president’s desires — admirals and generals, primarily — and budget cuts have reduced military readiness.

Retired Marine Lt. Col.Dakota Wood, senior research fellow with Heritage, said “This is not an indictment in any way of the men and women who serve in the military.”

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, national security adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence, touted former President Donald Trump’s foreign policy accomplishments, including the rebuilding of the U.S. military after nearly a decade of decline under the Obama administration.

This is yet one more area of governing that President Joe Biden would be well advised to continue. But that doesn’t fit into the Democrat’s play book.

A Trump mandate: We have to restore America’s military strength

Everyone knows that the U.S. military is critical to the nation’s security, and that it is also important how foreign countries perceive America’s strength. That perception of our military and its civilian leadership can encourage careful, thoughtful and peaceful behavior by other countries, or a cavalier, carefree “we’ll do as we please” approach.

Now that the Barack Obama presidency is over, we must begin restoring the military and the world’s perception of America’s strength, both of which have been severely damaged over the last eight years. The security of not just our nation, but also of the world to a large degree, depend upon a strong America.

Back in 2015 Obama stated that the U.S. is now “the most respected country on Earth” thanks to his administration. That comment drew ire and fire on Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor.” Host Bill O’Reilly and Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer both reacted strongly to the comment, with O’Reilly countering, “No, we’re not respected by Putin, we’re not respected by ISIS and other terrorists, so I don’t know what he is referring to.” Krauthammer wondered, “what planet he's living on,” and pointed out that “allies who’ve depended on us for so long are finding themselves left hanging in the wind.”

The rest of the segment detailed the many foreign policy failures of the Obama administration that contradict Obama’s delusional statement.

Two years ago The Heritage Foundation said this about funding for the military: “Consecutive years of across-the-board budget cuts have significantly weakened the U.S. military. The military will likely need several years of reinvestment to return to a sound footing.”

It is instructive to look at just how Obama’s eight years have affected the armed forces from the perspective of active members of the military.

A poll conducted by the Military Times and Syracuse University's Institute for Veterans and Military Families was a voluntary, confidential online survey taken by 1,664 active members of the U.S. armed forces. 

The poll reflects that 51.5 percent of those responding had a generally unfavorable view of Barack Obama’s presidency, and that 29.1 percent had a very unfavorable view, the largest response of the five possible answers. Only 36.4 percent had a generally favorable view, and only 18.0 percent had a very favorable view.

The Marine Corps had the strongest level of disapproval at 60.3 percent, followed by the Army at 53.0, the Air Force at 49.6, and the Navy was the least disapproving at 45.9. Enlisted service members had a 52.1 percent disapproval rate, while 48.8 percent of commissioned officers disapproved.

Seventy-one percent think overall force levels are too low, and 43 percent think more deployed forces are needed, compared to 32 percent who think fewer deployed forces are needed.

Asked how the following “social” measures affected readiness, participants responded: Repealing “don’t ask don’t tell” helped, by 24 to 18 percent; gender integration within combat units hurt, by 30 to 15 percent; and transgenders in service hurt, by 41 to 12 percent.

Participants believe the U.S. is less safe because of drawdowns from Iraq (59 percent) and Afghanistan (54 percent), and less emphasis on large-scale overseas missions (42 percent), but more safe from greater reliance on special forces (58 percent) and training missions (51 percent). And they believe the top four significant threats to the U.S. come from the Islamic State and al-Qaida (70 percent), domestic Islamic terrorists (67 percent), China (64 percent), and Iran (49 percent).

They say the military is smaller and weaker, and the threats against the nation have increased.

In a campaign speech last September, candidate Trump outlined his view of the U.S. military, and said he planned to ask military brass to present a plan soon after he takes office to defeat and destroy ISIS, and that he will ask Congress to eliminate the defense sequester.

Among the goals he seeks are: Building an active Army of about 540,000; a Marine Corps based on 36 battalions; a Navy nearing 350 surface ships and submarines; an Air Force of at least 1,200 fighter aircraft; and developing a new state-of-the-art missile defense system. And he intends to offset the spending for these goals by cutting waste and streamlining the bureaucracy, rather than increases in the $600 billion or so spent each year on the military.

"I'm going to make our military so big, so powerful, so strong, that nobody – absolutely nobody – is gonna (sic) mess with us," he said in a video posted on his campaign website.

Along those lines, his choice to run the Defense Department is retired Marine General James Mattis, a man well respected for his service and expertise, and who is expected to operationally strengthen all armed forces.

A strong military is just smart: Better to have one and not need it, than to need one and not have it. Blessedly, we now have a president who understands that a strong military presence can solve a host of problems before they ever materialize.

And, a president who strongly and unwaveringly supports what is good for America is a great improvement over the weak and tragic performance of the last eight years.

The U.S. armed forces have been weakened by budget cuts and ideology

In recent years America’s military has experienced operational readiness issues. A good bit of this is due to budget cuts resulting from the 2013 sequestration, but some sources also blame philosophical ideas about the military within the Obama administration.

Sequestration, as explained by CNN at the time, is “a series of automatic, across-the-board cuts to government agencies, totaling $1.2 trillion over 10 years. The cuts would be split 50-50 between defense and domestic discretionary spending. More than $500 billion will be cut from the Defense Department and other national security agencies, with the rest cut on the domestic side…”

The Pentagon, under then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, planned to reach its mandated cuts through furloughs of hundreds of thousands of civilian workers in combat readiness training and weapons maintenance. He said at the time that the $46 billion in cuts the first year would significantly affect military readiness, and the longer the sequestration lasts, the deeper cuts that will be required to achieve the mandated savings.

Just how badly this has affected military readiness is demonstrated in a Fox News story earlier this month. The U.S. Air Force, the smallest of the four major armed services, has cut staff to the degree that many military personnel now work extra shifts performing administrative jobs previously performed by civilians.

These cuts have put the Air Force in the position of being short 4,000 service personnel to maintain its aircraft and 700 pilots to fly them. Personnel are now cannibalizing parts from planes no longer in service and stored at a desert site called "The Boneyard" and from planes on display in museums to repair active aircraft.

Master Sgt. Bruce Pfrommer, who has worked on B-1 bombers for more than 20 years, told Fox that at Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota, where the 28th Bomber Wing is located, only nine of the 20 bombers there can fly. Those aircraft are closing in on 10,000 flight hours each, compared to about 1,000 when Pfrommer started working on them 20 years ago.

"Our retention rates are pretty low. Airmen are tired and burnt out,” Staff Sgt. Tyler Miller, of the 28th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at Ellsworth, told Fox. "When I first came in seven years ago, we had six people per aircraft — and the lowest man had six or seven years of experience," Miller said. "Today, you have three-man teams and each averages only three years of experience."

The Navy also has operational issues. A Government Accountability Office report issued earlier this month, titled “Navy’s Optimized Fleet Response Plan” (OFRP) discusses problems facing our sea-going service. While the report does not specifically mention sequestration budget cuts, the symptoms support this as a least part of the problem.

An excerpt from the OFRP tells us that:
• Over the past decade, high operational tempo has reduced the predictability of ship deployments for sailors and for the industrial base that supports ship repair and maintenance. For example, carrier strike group deployment lengths have increased from an average of 6.4 months between 2008 – 2011 and 8.2 months between 2012 – 2014, to 9 months for three carrier strike groups in 2015.
• Increased deployment lengths have resulted in declining ship conditions and materiel readiness, and in a maintenance backlog that has not been fully identified or resourced, according to Navy officials.
• The declining condition of ships has increased the duration of time that ships spend undergoing maintenance in the shipyards, which in turn compresses the time available in the schedule for training and operations.

In its 2016 assessment of the four major military branches, the Heritage Foundation shows how true Panetta’s prediction was. The assessment rated the Army as “weak,” and the Navy, Marines and Air Force as “marginal,” rating the U.S. military overall as “marginal.”

In addition to budget cuts, reports of military brass being displeased with President Obama’s policies also pose questions.

Writing in Politico in 2013 Rosa Brooks noted, “In my interviews, however, many senior military leaders complained of feeling baffled and shut out by a White House National Security Staff.”

“The NSS wants to run the show, day to day and minute to minute,” laments a former military official, “so they have no time—they’re almost incapable of strategic thinking.” Another recently retired senior general said, “I don’t understand the process by which the White House is making strategic or foreign-policy decisions. … There’s an appearance of consultation, but you know you won’t be listened to.”

The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution provides that the federal government “provide for the common defense.” But in Article Four, Section Four, it states specifically that the “United States shall guarantee to every State a republican form of government and shall protect each of them against invasion.” No other power of the federal government shares that strong a requirement for performance.

No reasonable observer would contend that the federal government is obeying its Constitutional mandate to “provide for the common defense.”

How does the Commander in Chief plan to fix this?