The true problem facing the US military

I don’t think it’s a secret that the general population sensed there is a growing problem facing the state of our military.

I think that’s incredibly interesting considering if we take a step back, we could make a steal man case that it’s never been more dominant. We could look at how many aircraft carriers we have vs adversaries and it’s more than them combined. We could look at the standard soldier kit and feel the competitive edge. Any kind of hardware we examine while we look at deployable numbers and logistical advantage, and one could understand how this is a topic with no clear outcome.

But yet, given the right context of debate, and you’ll be able to sense an uncertainty from any given ideology.

Why is that?

I think if you ask the left, they’d in many words say what I’ll likely look foolish for attempting to shorten, that we have a problem with nationalism. Though, I’d venture to guess some on the more extreme of the spectrum use more colorful and hyperbolic definitions to arrive at a similar conclusion.

I’d venture to guess an answer from the right would lean towards wokism or a deterioration of social values. This one is a bit more interesting as I can actually agree it’s a problem, though it’s a symptom of a bigger one.

Now those two don’t make up the whole, or even a lions share, but if you ask the independents, most would probably say they just can’t get behind US foreign policy. Here is where I see the crux of the issue. And that’s not to put the group on a pedestal, as they’re riddled with inaction and apathy… but both of the previously talked about sides can empathize with this sentiment depending on the theater of war/projection.

It’s not new or unique, it’s a cyclical timeline that a new superpower has plotted similar trends.

Whenever we operate outside of the interest for the citizens, we fail. Simple as that. I think if we think of the last quagmire (Vietnam), we notice a key difference. That was with a draft.

We’re at a crossroads. It’s honestly not that bad, yet. While many would say it’s all done, we’ve passed the peak… I think it’s important to remember the recent blights were with a volunteer force. I also want to highlight that the issue wasn’t with their performance, as mission critical roles were executed with incredible precision. But the nation as a whole had conceptions that were outside reality, and likely had an ulterior unattainable agenda.

I don’t see the current model being successful in the long term with the current trajectory, lacking unification. I’m not worried if an event with clear moral dictations forced us into a draft, but the current volunteer based model doesn’t seem sustainable. Just like teachers and cops, the motivation for civic duty for near minimum wage isn’t enough when individuals have to do mental gymnastics to find altruism in their device.

Given the current climate, and the infatuation on blame, I don’t think we’re going to find reconciliation anytime soon sadly. But I hope for the rising youth we can change that. We owe it to ourselves, the young, and the world we have a large effect on to do some introspection.

Let me link you to two book. IT IS BAD.
These are written by personal friends of mine. Yes. I know them. Personally. Matthew Lohmeier, was my neighbor - and worked at the base I lived on. He was fired because he went against the wokeness being forced in the Air Force. Irresistible Revolution: Marxism's Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military

Irresistible Revolution is a timely and bold contribution from an active-duty Space Force lieutenant colonel who sees the impact of a neo-Marxist agenda at the ground level within our armed forces.

He now lives elsewhere with his family away from the bull#, but still speaks out on this.

My other friend is Stuart Scheller. You may have seen him recently on Tucker. He is best friends of a very close friend of mine. Crisis of Command: How We Lost Trust and Confidence in America's Generals

Combat-decorated Marine officer Stuart Scheller speaks out against the debacle of the Afghan pullout as the culmination of a decades-long and still-ongoing betrayal of military members by top leadership, from generals to the commander in chief, comes to light.

Both of these men are straight up legit and honorable Patriots and speak as to why our military is in a very dangerous place and a complete #show. Id highly suggest reading their own words, because I was never in the military and cannot even express anything the way they can.



(I get absolutely nothing for recommending these books, but since the topic is brought up...)

a reply to: shaemac

Again, I agree the wokeness is a problem.

The military isn’t a place for culture battles or even many forms of self expression. It’s a duty, and I still admire those who answer that call.

There’s two possible reasons for it, both as concerning. One is that TPTB want to force it on us, the other is they’re so concerned about filling the ranks they have to lessen prerequisites. The former certainly is a possibility, but I think the latter is more probable. People who are gay are around ~5%, and those who are the other letters of that alphabet less than 1%.

It’s hard to fill the ranks when people don’t believe in the mission(s).

And boy has it been a blow the last few decades for the young to believe in the cause. The only saving grace is the proportional change of combat vs non combat roles, and the cost of education. There are still a lot of great jobs you can feel good about and take some of the burden of school off.

But I think many people battle with the idea of being owned during a time period the winds change so quickly.

It’s not just government either. Think of other countries, they have one predominant culture or even ethnicity. While we thrive in the sense we are a new world, one that focuses on individuals and an idea, the idea has come into question by many for a range of different reasons.

I also don’t think the world has challenged us in a way since 9/11 that’s given us reason (at least widely perceived) for unification. And unfortunately, we fumbled that opportunity to what amounts for incompetence or malevolence.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

Have you ever fought a war?

originally posted by: Brotherman
a reply to: CriticalStinker

Have you ever fought a war?

I’m mid thirties.

Should I have? And there in lies my point.

Edit: more directly, no.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

It is unusually difficult to "get behind a foreign policy" when, due to the interconnected nature of the current world, there is nothing that is absolutely "foreign" anymore.


Think about it.


Any policy move made by any nation will, by trade, currency, immigration, resources, or "sphere of influence" impact, and influence! a number of other countries, and their policy responses. And then the whole thing ripples and amplifies across the entire globe.

Economies are interconnected. Treaties are interconnected. People have families in multiple countries. Corporations, well, need I say more? Your future, if your wealth is in any way tied to, or influenced by, the stock market (any "market", actually) depends on how the world-wide business pulse is beating.

Isolationism, at least as it once was definable, is a concept as outmoded, and non-functional, in today's world as a Delphic oracle or reading goat entrails.


You can advocate for "America First!" as much as you like, but the reality is that no one country, no matter its strength can function any longer without working in cooperation, and compromise, with every other nation.

We all share this one planet, this one life boat, and any nation that thinks, or tries, to claim it for itself literally threatens the survival of all.

Given those harsh realities, what form, what "guiding mission" would be most appropriate for a national military?

I think many of us here have served in the US Military and even some of us are Vietnam era Veterans. When we have a Traitor in the Oval Office that will not allow the military to patrol our borders of an invasion, well, then that Traitor should be tried and hung for Treason. Speaking as a US Veteran here also.



the crime of betraying one's country, especially by attempting to kill the sovereign or overthrow the government:

The one in the Oval Office is BETRAYING its citizens of this illegal entry of unwanted aliens.

originally posted by: CriticalStinker

originally posted by: Brotherman
a reply to: CriticalStinker

Have you ever fought a war?

I’m mid thirties.

Should I have? And there in lies my point.

Edit: more directly, no.

I did, matter-o-factly I did it 5 times. None of what you say jives with me well, non of what you say encompass the # involved with people that are the dirty hands of the scraping of the #, that was me. I am a US Marine and I do not argue with you, Just asked a question. How do you feel about talking to someone that did what apparently you wish to speak either for, against, or are unsure of? I didn't get into hell and think about America while in the # I was worried about myself and my dudes around me. In any kind of hell thats exactly what your going to do and anyone else that has an idea of staying alive will do.
Advice keep your ass clean and be beloved in the company of your friends, youll need them one day like they need you right now.

a reply to: musicismagic

The problem with the US? they are currently occupying military countries and Syria is no exception. While using Oil as weapons agaisnt Syrians.

Pushing the US for a war with Russia and conflict with China.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

The Canadian military is having the same issues.

I have two close family members who are rather high up in rank. Over our Thanksgiving weekend I asked why do they now allow beards for men, and pants for women in a formal setting, the answer was to attract a broader recruitment base. Among other things they have started to allow, dyed hair, piercings, etc.

When I bought up a letter by zbigniew brzezinski, a former diplomat, and security advisor to the Whitehouse to them I asked the awkward question, do you believe what the US and Canada has done in Afghanistan and Iraq played a role in lack of people wanting to join the military?

I didn't get much of an answer, I think the lack of information I got back sort of spoke for itself.
The reason why I brought up Brzezinski is because he was a man very ahead of his time in terms of seeing where technology would take us. He knew that with communication technologies like the internet a new myriad of woke cultures will arise from it, one of them being seeing for what the US foreign policy actually is like, and how it operates, why? Because he WAS at one point the man behind it all, he basically invented the Taliban.

A quote from him in a letter to the senate foreign relations committee in 2007. He was strongly opposed to going into Iraq in 2003.

The war in Iraq is a historic, strategic, and moral calamity. Undertaken under false assumptions, it is undermining America's global legitimacy. Its collateral civilian casualties as well as some abuses are tarnishing America's moral credentials. Driven by Manichean impulses and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional instability.

www.huffpost.com...

Nationalism isn't dying in my opinion, it's actually starting to take form again in alot of places, and it's creating a lot of contradictions with what neo liberal policies have been pushing for decades now. People don't want to join the military to go and fight on foreign lands to spread "democracy", they want to either have no part in it, or want to become fighters to keep people out, and since the US military is so spread out over the globe, they can't simply just become ultra closed off to the world and leave it, there is still a sense of responsibility left, (which lost all credibility with the perpetual money laundering wars since vietnam) try telling that to new recruits.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

Wasn't Obama in 2012 - 2014 (ish) also quitting a lot of long standing generals and higher ups to replace them with woke individuals?

A real purge happened in US military if true, so I think this is by design.

a reply to: Mantiss2021

No, you're conflating apples and oranges.

America First doesn't mean isolationism.

It means not sending hundreds of billions of dollars to the most corrupt countries in the world. It means not adopting polices that are directly and immediately obvious to put ourselves at a disadvantage.

It means not sending troops and money to secure other countries borders while allowing millions of people to sneak across our own border facilitating human trafficking and drug smuggling.

America first means being responsible to American interests before propping up despots and tyrants across the globe.

originally posted by: watchitburn
a reply to: Mantiss2021

No, you're conflating apples and oranges.

America First doesn't mean isolationism.

It means not sending hundreds of billions of dollars to the most corrupt countries in the world. It means not adopting polices that are directly and immediately obvious to put ourselves at a disadvantage.

It means not sending troops and money to secure other countries borders while allowing millions of people to sneak across our own border facilitating human trafficking and drug smuggling.

America first means being responsible to American interests before propping up despots and tyrants across the globe.

Most Americans are sleep at the wheel what you just wrote about.

a reply to: Brotherman

None of what I said was speaking ill of people who served. Having a view that the military was mismanaged by the government isn’t disdain for those that did the ultimate sacrifice.

The point is that people aren’t going to want to do that if we feel that the government isn’t using it for the right reasons.

I think it’s important to remember the recent blights were with a volunteer force. I also want to highlight that the issue wasn’t with their performance, as mission critical roles were executed with incredible precision. But the nation as a whole had conceptions that were outside reality, and likely had an ulterior unattainable agenda.

I can understand and admire why people joined and served, especially after 9/11. I know most of them did it out of patriotism and duty. But if we’re being honest, I think most of us would say we did a disservice to those who did join.

Did we truly focus on the enemies that attacked us? Or did we turn it into other things too?

And if we do feel like the government misused the military, than it’s the citizens duty to speak out against it and try not to vote in people who are repeat offenders, like people who voted for the Iraq war if they were in congress or senate at that time.

I thank you for serving and apologize if I didn’t explain my point properly or if it came off wrong. This isn’t a hate the military thread, it’s an examine how we can make our elected leaders represent them better examination.

a reply to: TDDAgain

I wouldn’t discount that, and I think it’s one of the issues on why the right individuals want to be a part of it. But I think that’s one of the reasons.

People have a range of reasons why they don’t want to do it. At the end of the day it’s sacrifice and selflessness that motivates someone to do something so hard.

I can’t imagine many people have a strong sense that our leaders have our best intentions at heart. That’s not a good model for onboarding people to risk their lives under that direction.

I think people are waking up to the fact that, The military is just the tool used by huge corporations to steal resources from countries who want to enrich themselves. Nothing to do with being a patriot these days.

a reply to: shaemac

Let me give you the condensed version.

45 Goals of the Communist Party
cultureshield.com...

CURRENT COMMUNIST GOALS
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be
used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question
by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations
are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world
government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily
by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the
curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, and policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was
told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion
pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, and healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for
intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of
"separation of church and state." (Remember these goals were published to expose them in 1958) Coincidence?
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to
cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a
minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies,
welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures, which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric
disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who
oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and
retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and
special-interest groups should rise up and use ["] united force ["] to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over
domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.

originally posted by: CriticalStinkerI think if we think of the third from last quagmire (Vietnam), we notice a key difference.

FIFY.

Whenever we operate outside of the interest for the citizens, we fail. Simple as that. I think if we think of the last quagmire (Vietnam), we notice a key difference. That was with a draft.



, but the current volunteer based model doesn’t seem sustainable. Just like teachers and cops, the motivation for civic duty for near minimum wage isn’t enough when .

Im having trouble remembering failed military operations by the US in South East Asia, seemed odd in that way..even with it being a draft..I feel bad for the ones who were drafted into that. And I feel bad for the ones left wondering why they didn't get to finish their jobs…that being said, the combination of draftee and volunteer certainly created a dynamic that was not new to the military, but unheard of in media..just part of the birth of MCI and its integration with civilian population.

The current model must, MUST be sustained, or our military becomes nothing more than one of those private war profiteering companies..how much motivation do You need? 911 created a draft without a draft, and it was a huge success..the hearts and minds campaign started before the first boots hit the ground..I remember numbnuts hollering about this being their 'Vietnam'.as Im sure is usual that attitude was certainly quelled by gunfire and IEDs.

Too many American volunteers have innovated, died in service, were captured etc to allow the US military to be privatized..Sure, we use mercs, that's what they're there for..fodder, but those closest in around the House are American trained volunteers, and should always be..or we fall.

originally posted by: 11SK1180
I think people are waking up to the fact that, The military is just the tool used by huge corporations to steal resources from countries who want to enrich themselves. Nothing to do with being a patriot these days.

Definitely how many see it, and I could see the case for that.

It’s an easier sell to say we’re projecting our nations value rather than its power or oligarchic will.