There is no more unreformable bureaucracy in Washington than the Pentagon. There is also no more bureaucracy in need of urgent reform. The problem?
Reforming the Pentagon would tax the acumen and patience of any politician or bureaucrat.
Even the most inside-the-beltway mavens, such as Donald Rumsfeld, who served as secretary of defense twice, have failed to fix the Department of Defense. Rumsfeld made progress toward reform in the early months of George W. Bush’s presidency, only to be sidetracked by the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the Middle East wars that followed. Just how challenging Pentagon reform is can be demonstrated by the astonishing fact that the DoD has been trying to audit itself for over 30 years, without success. The Pentagon recently delicately announced that its seventh department-wide audit failed to account for where its 2024 budget of $824 billion actually went.
Truly fixing this sorry state of affairs will take decades, not years.
Still, President-elect Donald Trump must start the task. First off, he must confront the painful fact that the U.S. military has failed. That failure is demonstrated by two decades of losing wars in the Middle East. The challenge is that of one of the top DoD leaders who preferred playing politics over winning wars and one of a defense procurement, production, and repair system, particularly for the Navy, that’s simply broken.
Pete Hegseth, Trump’s choice as Pentagon chief, is more a Fox News pundit than a defense intellectual. However, Hegseth’s pugnacious style, which Trump admires, offers an effective vehicle for ruthlessly dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion programs inside the DoD. Trump’s appointment of brainy defense wonks such as Elbridge Colby to head Pentagon policy bodes well. It means that Hegseth can devote himself to purging the U.S. military of the DEI toxins that have infected it since the Obama years. At the same time, the nuts and bolts of defense policy work can advance successfully.
Yet, the Pentagon’s problem is bigger than DEI alone. There’s plenty of talent inside the Pentagon, but there’s also a lot of dead wood. This is the failed system that disciplined nobody for the disastrous retreat from Kabul in August 2021 (save the cashiering of one Marine lieutenant colonel who dared to speak the truth about President Joe Biden’s Afghan debacle). Instead, the Pentagon handed out a bunch of medals.
When you reward failure, you get more of it. That’s what must stop. Doing so is simple and can be done without involving Congress up front. Trump must inform all serving three- and four-star generals and admirals that they are out of a job immediately, effective Jan. 20. Any of them who want to stay on the job will write a one-page memo using normal fonts explaining why they should be retained. If it’s a convincing case, they stay. Otherwise, they are retired at once, free to cash in with defense contractors while enjoying generous military pensions, as they certainly will.
The U.S. military has lots of talented one- and two-star generals and admirals, plus colonels and Navy captains, who are perfectly capable of stepping up to take the places of our failed senior military leaders. Then, do the same with the Pentagon’s top civilians, the leading members of the Senior Executive Service. There’s lots of dead wood there, too. Clear the way for talent that wants to win wars, not play politics while rotting the military with DEI.
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If Trump does this, it sends a powerful message that he really will Make America’s Military Great Again. The problem is failed leadership, not the rank-and-file military members who defend us and this country all over the world. Purge the Pentagon’s topmost ranks, then systemic reform becomes possible. It’s hardly an insurmountable task. All it needs is the presidential pen.
There are only about 40 four-star general officers and 160 three-star general officers on active duty. If Trump is serious about changing how the Pentagon does business, that’s where to start at once.
John R. Schindler served with the National Security Agency as a senior intelligence analyst and counterintelligence officer.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
