THEN, 2020: Equal opportunity for all was the goal in a merit driven culture. Military readiness was high, and deterrence was active.
NOW, 2021-2024: On 25 June 2021, President Biden signed an Executive Order that: “Establishes a government-wide initiative to advance diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility in all parts of the Federal workforce”.
That Executive Order charged, “all agencies with assessing the current state of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility with their workforces, and developing strategic plans to eliminate any barriers to success faced by underserved employees”.
Biden also ordered agencies to, “seek opportunities to establish or elevate Chief Diversity Officers within their organizations.”
That order, of course included the Department of Defense. The DoD is a different type of organization by design and necessity. They take in a cross-section of Americans every day and indoctrinate them into a culture of accountability, trust and respect. They are trained to kill and blow things up and defeat any and all enemies and do it without losing their moral compass. It’s a tall order and not easy to accomplish.
It begins the day an American raises his/her hand and takes a solemn oath. From that moment forward they live and breathe in a powerful and pervasive culture that provides every single service member equal opportunity and freedom to not only succeed but to excel as an individual and team member; to be all they can be every day. And the entire organization understands that their individual advancement is based on merit, not some artificial senseless identity-group pronouncement that, “it’s-your-turn.”
DIVERSITY? President Truman’s Executive Order Integrated the Armed Forces, 26 July 1948. The U.S. military has led the nation over the past 76 years in creating a cohesive organization from a cross-section of all Americans.
INCLUSION? The U.S. military has been and is today the master of the culture of acknowledging, embracing, supporting and accepting those of all racial, sexual, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds. All a soldier needs to know is that those to his right and left have his back. He/she could care less about their heritage.
EQUITY? Equity is pure poison to the military ethos. All military training is based on standards for every military individual and team task; how to, how many, how fast, how far, how accurate. Every day some soldier somewhere will perform a task to a new, higher, better, faster standard and thereby set the precedent for all future training of that task. Not everyone can or is expected to meet that new standard but it is there for everyone to see and try. To have a military built around the concept of equity (“ensure everyone can achieve the same outcome”) serves only to dumb-down the entire organization to the point that it becomes mediocre from top to bottom.
That is what has happened to our military since June 2021 and remarkably degraded our capabilities. Why is that important?
DETERRENCE
Our strength for decades has provided deterrence. NATO is a great example with consistent combat readiness and strong leadership since 1945. Soviet Union/Russia has been held inside their borders with the exception of the annexation of Crimea in 2014 under Obama/Biden and most recently the Ukraine invasion which Biden initially described as OK if it is, “a minor incursion.” Deterrence means our potential enemies believe we can take them on and defeat them; it keeps them at bay. With degraded strength and deterrence today, our enemies no longer fear us, our allies no longer trust us and neither respect the current Commander in Chief. From that our vulnerability, especially over the next two months, is potentially at the highest point in our history.
WITHOUT DETERRENCE THERE WILL BE SERIOUS NATIONAL VULNERABILITY, FOR EXAMPLE TODAY…..
THE GRID. One example of our vulnerability is our power grid. It consists of about 55,000 power stations like the ones in your community. If a specified nine of the 55,000, yes just nine, of them were taken down simultaneously by some sophisticated hackers from the China/Russia/Iran/North Korea cabal, the entire country could be without power indefinitely. An estimated 9 of 10, about 300 million, Americans would die within the first year.
EMP. A second vulnerability is an electromagnetic pulse. EMP can emanate from a high-altitude nuclear detonation that does not blow things up or harm people. What it can do is fry all the electronics over a very large area of the U.S. Or, with simultaneous blasts, can cover the entire country. Every vehicle would immediately stop in place and never move again plus all of our daily electronic items to include the power grid would be nonoperational.
A fascinating book published in 2009, One Second After by William Forstchen, describes a post-EPM all-to-realistic environment that would be similar to passing us back in time about 300 years. It is a very scary possibility that we now live with in today’s world. EMP survival is nearly impossible. Hello China/Russia/North Korea/and soon-to-be nuclear-capable Iran. Just place some submarines with nuclear-capable missiles off the coasts of the U.S. and in minutes it could all be over for this nation. We are that vulnerable today.
A few days ago, President Biden reportedly gave permission for Ukraine to use our long-range tactical missiles capable of attacking deep into Russian territory. Putin has already warned Biden that doing so, “would mean NATO and Russia are at war.” So, there we are. To make it worse, the missiles, reportedly, will be used against the ten thousand cannon-fodder North Korean soldiers recently deployed to the Ukraine border in support of Russia.
A note about North Korea and Kim Jong Un. Kim began a very aggressive program a decade ago to advance his nuclear weapons and intercontinental missile delivery capability. When he verbally implied he could use them to attack the U.S., President Trump went to Asia three timed to meet personally with Kim. There is no public record of their private conversations but after the third visit, Kim shut down his entire nuke/missile programs. Of course, after Biden’s inauguration Kim was full-bore back advancing his nuclear and missile programs while his people starved. Not a word from the Biden White House.
Kim is a certifiable nut case who wants to be recognized on the world stage and has joined the China/Russia/Iran cabal with his sophisticated toys of destruction. It does not take much imagination to conger up a scenario wherein China/Russia would/could, use their lacky Kim to take out our power grid thereby taking the U.S. off the world stage and giving China/Russia/Iran free reign throughout the world.
Back to President Trump’s meeting on 21 January.
WHAT SHOULD PRESIDENT TRUMP DO?
Do first things first. On 21 January 2025, there should be a classified, not publicly announced, meeting at any location led by the president and attended by all (44) of the 4-star generals and admirals in the U.S. military plus the 3-star Commandants of the Service Academies.
This is his message directly from the Commander in Chief to every single senior military leader. He could tell them….
The Executive Order issued to you from President Biden June, 2021 on the subject of DEI is as of this moment null-and-void.
Upon return to your headquarters, you will each issue direct orders to every element in you command that DEI as a subject, as operational guidance is hereby immediately discontinued in its entirety. There will never again be any DEI training, lectures or indoctrination by any one at any time anywhere in your command.
Take care of the DEI people. Reassign them to their previous military occupational specialties or provide training for them to be reclassified. DEI is not their fault; they must not be punished for following the previous Commander in Chief’s directives.
Today is Tuesday; this will all be completed before the end of this week. No press release is required or desired. This is internal business.
Is there anyone in this room who does not understand my intent or understand exactly what you personally are to accomplish? This task does not get delegated to anyone else, you do it.
Are there any questions or comments from anyone on this subject?
If you cannot do this, you may resign this week. Rebuilding our deterrent strength is too important to our national security to accommodate your personal views or desires on the subject of DEI.
CONCLUSIONS
It is possible that every officer attending the meeting on 21 January was nominated by Biden for their current position and therefore have previously convinced the Congressional confirmation hearing committee that they were 100% on board with DEI.
Based on their previous Congressional testimony, the attendees may have an intellectual conflict going forward. However, I predict that most of the chain of command will comply with the Commander in Chief’s directives. But it will take time, perhaps years, to completely drain the DEI swamp and replace it with a strong, overarching, deeply engrained, operational culture of accountability, trust and respect up and down the entire chain of command.
BOTTOM LINE
Our country cannot afford to sacrifice our national security for a half-baked operational culture that cannot successfully function inside any military organization.
Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of two books, Vision to Execution and Fix the Systems, Transform America as well as the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com.