National Security Takes a Back Seat

The U.S. Department of Defense seal is seen on the lecturn in the media briefing room at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, on Dec. 12, 2013. (Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images)

Commentary

On Jan. 20, 2021, Joe Biden swore the following oath before God and the world to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” From Article II of the U.S. Constitution: “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.”

Defense of the Constitution of course includes defense of the country. The Founders probably thought that “national defense” was implicit in the Executive’s duties and responsibilities and thus didn’t call that phrase out specifically. After all, a war had just been fought and won with the British to win America’s independence. Without “national defense” (later, “national security”), the country would cease to exist over time.

Since his inauguration, Biden has demonstrated through direct actions that he has essentially abrogated his responsibilities for securing America’s national security/defense. Consider these actions, all of which have made America much weaker:

1. The botched Afghanistan withdrawal that left tens of billions of dollars of U.S. military equipment behind. The Taliban are happily transferring some of that gear to terrorists in the region and are reportedly considering selling some to the Russians. There has been rampant speculation that the communist Chinese have gained access to some of the equipment for the purposes of studying capabilities and reverse-engineering them for incorporation into the inventory of the People’s Liberation Army at some point in the future. Lastly, no one in the Biden administration has been fired, demoted, or otherwise held accountable for the debacle.
2. The wide-open U.S.–Mexico border. Without secure borders and tightly controlled immigration, there’s no U.S. national security. Certainly not when criminals, would-be terrorists, narco-traffickers, human traffickers, gang-bangers, and other ne’er-do-wells are free to enter America without fear of incarceration or deportation. Estimates are that nearly 6 million illegal immigrants have streamed across the border since Biden reversed the Trump administration’s immigration policies in one of his first actions. Breitbart reported last October that there have been “5.5 million encounters” along the border, but no one knows how many people slipped through undetected. The Biden administration is even leveraging UN dollars to “pre-legalize” illegal immigrants before they enter the United States, as reported by the Center for Immigration Studies. Fentanyl-related deaths in the United States have increased to an average of 100,000 per year due to cartel-provided access to the drug (the drug and its precursors are manufactured in China).
3. The Chinese balloon caper. The Chinese balloon story first broke on Feb. 2 when the Billings Gazette exposed the Biden administration’s political gamble to ignore the balloon’s intrusion into U.S. airspace (a direct violation of U.S. sovereignty). Speculation is rampant about the balloon’s mission payload: surveillance (PHOTINT, multi-INT, etc.), a simple test-run for other types of balloon missions, collecting data on U.S. surveillance and communications systems, and a psychological warfare mission. The latter involves testing our resolve, showing the world that China “owns” Washington, exposing the weakness of the current administration in the face of foreign pressure, psychologically conditioning Americans to “eventual Chinese hegemony,” etc. The most likely mission was surveillance, and giving that Chinese balloon free access to traverse the continental United States to collect data on U.S. bases is just the latest indication that Biden et al. couldn’t care less about U.S. national security. Consider the list of bases that were doubtless surveilled by the sensors on that balloon. The Biden administration allowed that balloon free access for close surveillance of those facilities. The U.S. response to the balloon was as weak as weak could possibly be. That it was allowed to collect data over ICBM silos and other sensitive installations with impunity is unconscionable.

None of the above actions enhance U.S. national security. Quite the contrary. But perhaps the most insidious threat to U.S. national security has been the directed implementation of LGBTQI-related policies throughout the Department of Defense (DoD).

The process began when Biden signed his “Executive Order on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation” on his very first day as president. The EO directed all federal agencies to end sexual discrimination on the basis of “gender identity”—in short, to codify what was previously understood to be gender dysphoria and mental disorders.

The DoD dutifully complied to the extent that LGBTQI-related policies have now transcended the importance of military readiness and combat readiness as “job number one” throughout the services. The policies have wrought havoc in unit good order and discipline, caused division in the ranks, and reallocated scarce training resources away from combat-related team training.

Elaine Donnelly’s Center for Military Readiness has been monitoring U.S. military readiness since 1993. Its mission statement: “The Center for Military Readiness is an independent, non-partisan, public policy organization with a unique mission: reporting on and analyzing military/social issues. CMR promotes high standards and sound priorities in the making of military personnel policies and takes the lead in defending elements of military culture that are essential for morale and readiness in the All-Volunteer Force.”

The center recently conducted a comparison of the 2016 Barack Obama/Ashton Carter transgender policy (pdf) to the transgender policies of Joe Biden/Lloyd Austin (pdf). The shocking results of the Biden transgender policy incrementalism from CMR’s Feb. 7 press release include:

• Changes made to official DoD vocabulary to reflect transgender ideology.
• The specific involvement of the military service academies and Reserve Officers’ Training Corps programs at civilian universities in what amounts to the grooming of aspiring military officers.
• Directives to hold commanders directly responsible for all alleged “biases against transgender individuals.”
• Directives that permit cross-dressing and other “transitioning” behaviors both on-base and off-base.
• Directives that enable “de-transition” procedures if costly treatments don’t resolve gender dysphoria.
• Restrictions on the collection and disclosure of data on “incidents of harmful behaviors” involving sexual orientation and transgender persons.

Concluding Thoughts

The DoD’s actions cited above indicate the real national security priority of the Biden administration—to inflict woke ideology and personnel policies throughout the department, including in frontline combat units. None of these measures enhance national security; to the contrary, they instill divisiveness in the ranks, create problems with the military chain of command, and detract from combat effectiveness and military readiness in general by forcing people with strong religious values to compromise their principles and condone transgenderism in the ranks.

The policies are of a-piece with other Biden policies implemented and actions taken that have degraded U.S. national security since January 2021 and must be reversed to restore unit cohesion and improve readiness throughout DoD.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.