Chapter 4, Part 5: The Department of Defense
Day 15 of reading and sharing my notes on Project 2025 (the long title is Mandate for Leadership 2024: The Conservative Promise, in case you're searching for it).
Here's my approach and why I’m doing this.
We're still in Chapter 4: Department of Defense by Christopher Miller. I covered his bio earlier.
This section is DOD Intelligence.
SUMMARY
Miller claims that the intelligence community "will continue to provide inaccurate and politicized intelligence assessments that mislead policymakers" without reforms.
Here are his suggestions:
"Improve the intelligence process."
"Expand the integration of intelligence activities."
"Restore accountability and public trust."
"Eliminate peripheral intelligence obligations that do not advance military readiness."
Miller says the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security "should provide a top-line, dissenting, or clarifying view of DIE and IC assessments as needed."
MY OPINION
He claims this will make intelligence more unbiased, but having a political appointee weigh in to "clarify" seems like it would make raw intelligence more biased, not less.
SUMMARY
Much of this section is fairly vague about improving communication and intelligence analysis.
He recommends using public data better and using more machine learning and AI.
MY OPINION
Given the significant problems with the accuracy of anything produced by AI, this is concerning to me. But not surprising.
SUMMARY
One of his points: "Remove policy obstacles that impede available technical solutions and tailored approaches in order to preclude corruption at the point of collection."
MY OPINION
That is a terribly written sentence that seems intentionally written to hide its meaning. What sort of "policy obstacles"? Just red tape? Or we don't torture people to collect information? There's no way to know.
SUMMARY
There's quite a bit in this section about targeting China (a continual theme) and a bit about Russia.
He mentions re-establishing critical thinking several times and says the intelligence community produces intelligence in a "customer based model (in which the customer is always right)." His solution is to give the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security an expanded role.
Because of a data breach in 2019, the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency took over security clearance investigations from the Office of Personnel Management. Miller says this responsibility should go back to OPM.
The next section is on the U.S. Army.
The introduction paints a bleak picture of the Army, saying it doesn't have a high enough budget, isn't well trained, can't recruit, and has aging weapons at a time when Russia and China are aggressive. And the Army is focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as climate change, instead of war.
MY OPINION
Wouldn't it be lovely to live in a world where we are fighting exclusion and climate change instead of other countries?
SUMMARY
His suggested reforms:
"Rebuild the Army."
"Focus on deployability and sustained operations."
"Transform Army culture and training."
Miller argues for increasing the Army's budget.
MY OPINION
Earlier in the chapter, Miller said the Department of Defense budget was too high and was full of wasteful spending. Apparently, he doesn't think this applies to the Army.
SUMMARY
He wants to 50,000 to the current force "to handle two major regional contingencies simultaneously."
MY OPINION
I understand the need, but I hope we never have two land wars (or any kind of wars) in two regions going at the same time again.
SUMMARY
He wants more stockpiling of munitions and parts so troops can be deployed quickly.
One of his points: "Stop using the Army as a test bed for social evolution. Misusing the Army in this way detracts from its core purpose while doing little to reshape the American social structure. The Army no long reflects national demographics to the degree that it did before 1974 when the draft was eliminated."
MY OPINION
I'm trying to figure out what he's getting at here in light of his (and other authors in the document's) comments on diversity. Is he saying the Army doesn't need to worry about reflecting the many races in this country anymore since there's no draft?
SUMMARY
He says the National Guard shouldn't be having to do "back-to-back federal and state deployments ... in order to stabilize and preserve military volunteerism in our communities."
MY OPINION
I agree, for different reasons.
SUMMARY
Miller argues for preparing soldiers for "large-scale land operations that focus on defeating a peer threat." I had to look up what "near-peer" and "peer threat" meant. (I'm trying not to do a ton of outside research because it would take me years to get through this document.) That's China and Russia.
MY OPINION
The push to be ready for war with China and Russia is really concerning. At the same time, I get preparedness.
SUMMARY
Miller also says we need to addresses the causes of Army suicide rates.
MY OPINION
I wholeheartedly agree.
I'll stop there for now. The next section is on the U.S. Navy.