How Trump Can Restore Integrity, Lethality To America’s Military

It’s safe to say that America has suffered greatly under the Biden-Harris administration. From a wide-open southern border to economic hardship, the laundry list of pains inflicted upon the public have been nothing short of horrific.

While no institution has been spared from these radical policies, there’s one in particular whose suffering Americans who care about the future security of the United States should take heed of: the military.

For the past four years, America’s armed forces have been undergoing a “reimagining.” Not content with simply allowing the military’s infrastructure to decline, the leftist ghouls running the White House have prioritized shoehorning neo-Marxist ideology into the service over the capabilities of America’s warfighters, prompting troops to abandon ship and dissuading new recruits from jumping on board.

Such destructive policies have left the United States’ defense apparatus in a vulnerable state. With foreign conflicts breaking out across the world and foreign adversaries becoming increasingly aggressive, it’s imperative the incoming Trump administration hit the ground running on restoring the military to the lethal and efficient fighting force it once was.

Personnel is Policy

As any good general knows, a military is only as capable as the individuals who comprise it. Unfortunately for the Pentagon, convincing qualified men to join today’s service has become a nightmare.

Under the Biden-Harris administration, every branch of the military (with the exception of the Marine Corps) has struggled to meet its recruiting targets. While all branches met their FY2024 recruiting goals, many of them abandoned long-held enlistment standards to hit them. Traditional requirements that enlistees possess a high school diploma or GED were scrapped, while fitness standards were lowered to increase the pool of eligible applicants.

While legacy media have attempted to blame the crisis on Republicans, Brent Sadler, a senior research fellow for The Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Security, told The Federalist that the military’s inability to bring in new talent is largely a problem of its own making. He specifically highlighted the Biden Defense Department’s promotion of so-called “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) ideology, arguing the overzealous focus on racial and gender politics is “very divisive and counterproductive” to the force’s overall mission.

These policies are geared toward “social engineering and social activist desires than anything attached to making our military stronger, bigger, and more lethal,” Sadler said. “The only [branch] that never had a [recruiting] hit was the Marine Corps because they never visibly bought into this social agenda. And this is why Pete Hegseth was named, and will likely be, the next secretary of defense — to [refocus the military’s] commitment to the soldiers, sailors, airmen [and make it] a lethal force.”

Will Thibeau, director of the American Military Project at the Claremont Institute, told The Federalist the “first thing” the incoming Trump administration should do to kneecap DEI policies in the Pentagon is to “ban consideration of race and sex when it comes to military programs and personnel” and ensure military leaders are “making decisions based on who is best for the jobs for which they’re hiring.” The Army veteran recently authored a report for Claremont documenting how the military’s infatuation with DEI ideology is hampering its overall readiness.

“Let’s return to the Truman era policy where race is not even a category on personal files. There was no box to check; there was no entry for race; it was just you and your capabilities. And that’s the point to which we should return,” Thibeau said.

Both Thibeau and Sadler advocated for restoring “standards” to the military, with the latter further encouraging the incoming administration to “invest” more time and resources into its recruiting outreach efforts.

Accountability and Forever Wars

While significant, abolishing DEI is only one step the Trump administration must take to regain public confidence in the military, according to Sadler and Thibeau. The D.C. establishment’s willingness to engage in foreign forever wars and politicized Pentagon leadership have done tremendous damage to the institution.

For decades, the U.S. military has been bogged down in conflicts in several Middle Eastern states, despite leadership having virtually no agreed upon consensus of what success looks like. Such needless engagements have placed troops’ lives at risk, such as the Biden-Harris administration’s reckless 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal that left 13 service members dead. No senior military officials have reportedly been held accountable for the tragedy, although Trump has pledged to “ask for the resignations of every single official” responsible for the pullout upon taking office.

“Americans are sick of forever wars,” Thibeau said. “They’re sick of the possibility that the conflicts in which the military fights might not be worthwhile, and that’s devastating to recruitment. It’s devastating to those who would perhaps trust their sons and daughters to fight.”

The Army veteran noted how when Americans “say they want to join the military, they want to join an institution that is unique and genuinely based on merit and professionalism, and not politics and ideology like the rest of our culture.” He specifically emphasized the need to “restore integrity” to the Pentagon’s “senior class of officers,” and hold those who are “politicizing their service” accountable.

As The Federalist previously reported, numerous military officers promoted by President Joe Biden have used their positions to push DEI and other leftist ideologies throughout the force. Other officials, such as former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Mark Milley, have openly attacked Trump. In his 2023 retirement speech, the general seemingly referred to the incoming commander-in-chief as a “wannabe dictator.”

“Are we going to hold people accountable for politicizing their service? No one wants [leaders who politicize their service], and those who [do] should be held accountable for it,” Thibeau said.

Revitalizing Broken Infrastructure

The final major task ahead for the Trump administration is revamping the way in which the Pentagon maintains an adequate and efficient infrastructure.

In recent years, certain military hardware developed for combat have experienced routine mechanical problems, costing taxpayers tens of billions of dollars in repair and maintenance fees. Concerns have also emerged about how the Defense Department is spending its nearly $1 trillion annual budget. Last month, for instance, the agency revealed it failed its seventh annual audit in a row.

“We have to reform the entire way that the military does business and purchasing,” Thibeau said. “We should get those [procurement] programs out of the Pentagon [and to] the warfighter level, and then we can have an understanding of what technology, what products, what services, perform best in the field.”

Sadler encouraged the incoming administration to “keep doing” annual Pentagon audits, arguing “the only way we’re gonna get better is to … make clear to the bureaucracy and the institutions that just because you failed this one, it doesn’t mean we’re not gonna do it next year.” He also underscored the importance of getting the Pentagon bureaucracy “out of the way” when it comes to handling major military infrastructure projects, such as Navy shipbuilding.

“The more that we can get the Navy, Pentagon, and politicians out of that process and enable good, sound engineering, the better,” Sadler said.

The size of America’s naval fleet and the country’s shipbuilding capacity have diminished significantly in recent decades. Concerns over its impact on long-term U.S. maritime power have prompted action from Congress, with a bipartisan group of lawmakers introducing the SHIPS Act on Thursday. According to U.S. Naval Institute News, the bill aims to “reform the commercial maritime and shipbuilding sectors so the U.S. can better compete with China.”

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood