A swell is brewing up within the Department of War. Disparate winds are converging at conflicting angles, leaving the future direction of the US military establishment less knowable than in more pacific times.
At the GOFOs meeting, Secretary Hegseth rightly singled out “fat generals and admirals” as a locus of the force’s current problems. Standards are not high enough and enforced inconsistently. Apparently the Department will hold servicemembers in combat roles to male standards exclusively across the board.
Big if true. Appearance and fitness standards have been sliding too far, especially in the platform services. Hegseth also mentioned minimizing mandatory powerpoint training and increasing field training time.
There are tons of combat, expeditionary, and support roles that require high physical fitness. Even in the most modern military jobs removed from the battelfield, anyone who has manned a 24/7 operations and intelligence center knows that the schedule wears heavily on one’s physical constitution.
Physical fitness is key for maintaining the mental prowess which fosters the aggressive creativity demanded both on the battlefield and in the (less and less) secure headquarters of modern warfare.
Just because the recruiting pool contains more obese young Americans is not an excuse. Resources must be aligned to bring these recruits into standards before they ship for boot camp or initial training. If military members cannot be trusted to keep fit, they cannot be trusted on the battlefield.
On a humorous note, Hegseth added that these standards will apply from private to four-star. One can hope, as many stars have found ways to exempt themselves from physical training over the years.
While these developments are promising, less helpful were the Commander in Chief’s comments about deploying the National Guard to American cities and the focus on the Western Hemisphere.
If the coming National Defense Strategy (NDS) makes Western Hemisphere missions the top priority, the Department will shift money around and rapidly lose focus.
Most importantly, US forces will quickly lose focus on the paramount adversary of the CCP, an enemy the institutional services (except for the USMC) never wanted to confront anyway due to the extreme difficulty of the problem set.
While it is doubtful the CCP will decide to invade by 2027, Beijing has drawn a line in the sand and intends to be capable of defeating Taiwan and the US in a Taiwan campaign by that date.
By 2027 the US must have a credible military response to this bragadoccio that casts doubt in everyone’s minds whether Xi could be successful on the offense. It is pitiful to see a Department so political and confused that it simply fails to understand that a gauntlet has been brazenly thrown down in front of the US military.
Kinmen Cocktails is a new short form series that allows comments. Check out our long form articles on strategic problems in the Department of War, and our perennialy popular article on why Taiwan matters.