Senator Tom Cotton (R, AR) and Congresswoman Ashley Hinson (R, IA), in their 27 December Fox News op-ed, correctly identified a critical problem with our military as deconstructed by the Progressive-Democratic Biden administration: Commander-in-Chief Biden’s and DoD’s preference for wokeness in over combat effectiveness of our military service men and women. As they put it,
[T]he US Air Force Academy had cadets participate in a seminar that instructs them against using the word “terrorist” and to avoid gender specific phrases. When we’re training cadets how not to offend terrorists rather than how to destroy them, we need to seriously review our priorities.
However, the corrective action they suggested is wholly inadequate.
When Republicans take control of Congress next year, we must return the military’s focus to its core mission. We should start by firing every last Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer on the Department of Defense’s payroll. All unnecessary and onerous administrative training, especially so-called “extremism” trainings, should be eliminated.
Leaving aside the erroneous claim of “control of Congress”—Republicans will have a majority only in the House of Representatives—the Cotton-Hinson proposal can be no more than Step 3. Eliminating those personnel will by itself change nothing; the individuals would be promptly replaced by others of similar ilk by the managers at the top.
The first step in return[ing] the military’s focus to its core mission is the Critical Item. The personnel in the Office of the Secretary of Defense must be fired—every single one of them, from SecDef Lloyd Austin on down. At the same time, all of the incumbent personnel in the Offices of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard also must be fired.
The second step is another Critical Item, and it must deal with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Every officer and senior NCO in the JCS beginning with CJCS Mark Milley and his staff and including each of the Service Chiefs and their staffs must be relieved and either retired or reassigned to the Combatant Commands to serve in situ in actual line jobs—whether combat, supply, or maintenance.
Without a complete replacement of the current crop of managers—they cannot be called leaders—removing the subordinate personnel will have no effect.
To those who warn that such a sweeping, essentially simultaneous turnover of the top management of our military establishment will leave our military rudderless and without direction, consider: the Combatant Commands remain intact (so far—the damage being done hasn’t materially harmed those Commands, yet). And: with the current crop of managers at the top, our military establishment already is without direction and has been—dangerously so—for the last two years.