OPINION:
The history of the U.S. military does not follow a straight line of organizational well-being or even success.
Our military has been forged in battles that resulted in both successes and failures. Its most cherished victory came in our Revolutionary War, when George Washington’s bedraggled, undernourished and battered army crossed the Delaware River on a cold December night and routed the Hessian forces encamped at Trenton.
That battle changed the trajectory of our Revolutionary War, which ended at Yorktown with the defeat of the mighty British Empire. It changed the course of history. We should use it as a marker for the future. We are approaching a crossroads of failure or great accomplishment.
In the nearly 250 years since then, our military has seen defeats, near defeats and dramatic success. It has survived a Civil War in which brother fought brother, and it led the world to victory in two world wars.
Our military’s leadership has been flawed and, at times, flawless. Our commanders in chief have on occasion been bolder than our military leaders, but they, too, have made mistakes or led perfectly.
It is abundantly clear that the framers of our Constitution understood the need for a strong military coupled with a strong commander in chief to provide for our common defense.
Still, the source of American military power is derived from our citizens. The foundation has been and always will be our people. The young men and women who serve are the ones who stand on the ramparts, protecting us from the barbarians at the gate. Thanking them is useless without action and a commitment to excellence.
Today, we are failing them. Despite annual defense budgets of billions of dollars, the state of our military is not good. Recruiting is down. Readiness is down. The Air Force is facing its largest pilot shortage in peacetime history. Naval forces readiness is on a continual decline with decreasing steaming hours. Holistically, the state of our military is becoming one of the major national security issues of our time — one that carries untold potential consequences.
The military-eligible men and women of the United States are sending a message. Their message is seen in the difficulty the Army, Navy and Air Force have in recruiting to their programmed numbers and, in the case of the Army, falling significantly short. Our young adults have several reasons for not wanting to serve our nation in the military, and their loved ones agree with them. This lack of desire or propensity to serve is a sign of an unwell military.
Americans also lack trust not only our current civilian leadership, but in our military leadership as well. The military talks of accountability, yet our country lost a 20-year war in Afghanistan that ended with a withdrawal debacle. Unfortunately, no senior officers or leaders have been held accountable.
Today, we see risk-averse leadership despite enormous adversarial pressures on military forces deployed overseas. Constant attacks on U.S. military forces and locations in the Middle East go virtually unanswered. Domestically, we see the rise not of war-fighting but of the primacy of diversity, equity and inclusion ideology that, despite the words, tends to cut at the fabric of military service.
We are on a path that generates concern because we are a nation that has experienced military failure before, and history has shown it can happen again.
Before we degrade further, we need to change.
Start with people.
We need leaders and commanders who understand the primacy of the mission. The mission is to deter and, if deterrence fails, to fight and win our nation’s wars. They must have a warrior personality that understands why men and women will fight and, if necessary, die for this nation.
It is an understanding of what leadership entails and the personality of men and women at war. Many current military leaders do not understand the war-fighting principles that are needed. To gain a better understanding of these timeless principles, we should go back in history to review success in critical times.
How the great Gen. George C. Marshall, the “architect of victory” in World War II, approached changing the leadership of the military on the eve of war and adapted his methods. It is not too early to discuss the need for modern “plucking boards,” a review board to remove underperforming military and civilian leaders. These boards allowed Marshall to create an American leadership core that won World War II.
Organizationally, it is well past time to look fundamentally at how we are “organized for combat.” For example, why does the Army have two four-star commands that look to the future? Why do we have a four-star African Command when it had previously been merged with a four-star command based in Europe? Why does the Army have Security Assistance Brigades when that foreign defense mission falls under the mission tasks of Army Special Forces? Our bureaucratic commands do not foster innovation; they foster bureaucracy.
We need to examine and restructure our defense industrial base. With the drawdown of defense contractors and supplies over the past three decades, we need to address the capacity to surge building weapons when needed and how we procure them. These concerns have been laid bare by our military support of Ukraine. It is fair to question if American citizens are being served efficiently by major defense corporations.
Finally, we must ensure the military strategy dovetails with the president’s National Security Strategy. A new national security team should evaluate the current and emergent threats we face as a nation and come up with a comprehensive strategy that includes not just policies but also programs to support the strategy. This would follow the approach of the 1950 National Security Council Memorandum 68, one of the most influential documents on national security in the Cold War. To be successful in this pivotal time, we need a new and revised document that is similar in style.
In executing a holistic process of change, planning should start now so that it effectively begins on the day of the next presidential inauguration.
A bold plan that is aggressively executed will begin the process of change, ensuring success and putting allies on note and adversaries on notice. And in doing so, it will change the military for the better.
• Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg is a former national security adviser in the Trump administration and was chief of staff of the National Security Council. A former Army general officer with numerous combat deployments, he commanded the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and is now co-chair of the Center for American Security at the America First Policy Institute.
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