A Military in Decline
Wars
are often unpredictable. The outcome of such conflicts is also
unpredictable, but defeat in future conflicts is now being “baked into
the cake” and I suspect most Americans are totally unaware of how
serious this threat is. You can be sure potential and actual enemies are
calculating the odds.
A
recent USA Today article noted that the choice between troops and
modern weapons would require the Army to shrink to “as few as 380,000
soldiers and the Marine Corps to 150,000 troops. There would also be
fewer Navy aircraft carriers and Air Force bombers. Current plans
envision an Army of 490,000 soldiers in the coming years, and a Marine
Corps of 182,000”, added that “The Army hasn’t been that small since
before World War II when it had 267,767 soldiers.”
In
January, the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff sent a letter to Sen.
Carl Levin, the Chairman of the Committee on Armed Forces.
“The
readiness of our Armed Forces is at a tipping point. We are on the
brink of creating a hollow force due to an unprecedented convergence of
budget considerations and legislation that could require the Department
(of Defense) to retain more forces than requested while underfunding
that force’s readiness.” The letter addressed the “sequestration that
has trigged “a cut in operating budgets of more than twenty percent
across the Joint Force compared with the President’s budget.”
While
“Troops on the front lines will receive the support they need…the rest
of the force will be compromised.” The “looming readiness crisis” would
force the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines “to ground aircraft, return
ships to port, and stop driving combat vehicles in training.” After
more than a decade of hard fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Joint
Chiefs warned that “We will be unable to reset and restore the force’s
full-spectrum combat capability…”
The
U.S. military is on life support. In July, The Washington Times
reported that Gen. Raymond Odierno, the Army’s chief of staff, told a
gathering at the American Enterprise Institute that fewer than
one-quarter of today’s youth can qualify for Army service” but what
struck me as odd was his view that this makes “the recruitment of women
even more important.”
In
the long history of the American fighting forces—indeed in the history
of civilization—nations have not called upon their women to be front
line combat personnel. The feminist movement in America has changed that
and the military is under orders to recruit more women in the name of
“diversity.”
It
does not take an expert in military affairs to know that the demand to
include more women in the ranks will degrade unit cohesion throughout of
our fighting forces.
The
Center for Military Readiness devotes itself to this topic and its
findings should be front-page news. Instead, Americans remain unaware of
the deterioration of the nation’s ability to train a new generation to
defend itself and project its strength.
A
recent Pentagon study by the Sexual Assault Prevention & Response
Office (SAPRO) fills two hefty volumes. The Center says it “documents
the dysfunctional consequences of social experiments with human
sexuality in our military over many years” warning that “Failing to see
the big picture, the Department of Defense is moving ahead with plans to
extend problems of sexual assault and misconduct into the combat arms.”
As
someone who has served in the U.S. Army well before women were
introduced as part of the fighting elements, it comes as no surprise
that, between 2004 and 2012, the number of sexual assault cases among
military personnel “escalated from 1,275 to 2,949, an increase of 129%.”
This has occurred in a military that has ”more sexual response
coordinators (25,000) than it does recruiters (19,000).”
From
the chiefs of staff down through all the officer ranks, the pressure
has been on to accommodate the very real differences between men and
women. It is compromising all elements of military service and is most
evident in the area of training. The Center says “It does not matter
what Pentagon officials and women-in-combat activists are promising
now…incremental pressures to assign women to fighting infantry
battalions eventually will drive qualifications standards down.”
The
Marine Corps, an elite fighting force, serves as just one example. They
reported that obvious differences in physiology should rule out women
in combat. “On average, women have 47% lower lifting strength, 40% lower
muscle strength, 20% lower aerobic capacity (important for endurance),
and 26% slower road march strength. In addition, both female
attrition/injury rates during entry level training and discharge rates
were twice those of men and non-deployable rates where three times higher.”
“There
is no incentive,” says the Center, “for ensuring that tough training
standards for elite fighting battalions remain high and uncompromised.”
That is the description for a fighting force that can no longer meet the
rigors of the battlefield.
Every
indicator of how our military’s combat readiness is being degraded is
available to those in the Pentagon and in Congress. Double standards in
the name of “diversity” will undermine the vital element of survival in
combat, team and unit cohesion.
The
Center has called on Congress to acknowledge these ancient and present
challenges and to shape policy for the military as is its responsibility
under Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.
“To
truly honor and respect our courageous servicewomen, Congress should
take this issue seriously,” says the Center. “The highest priority
should be military necessity, not self-interest, political illusions, or
ideology that denies differences between men and women.”
An
under-funded U.S. military, riven with all manner of social
experimentation involving women and gays, is putting the nation and our
global interests at risk.
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