Destroying the US military from within

The Obama administration’s announcement that it is going to put women in front-line ground combat positions is but the latest example of a deliberate and systematic wrecking operation it has conducted against the armed forces since 2009.

While this initiative is most ill-advised and, in its own right, is inimical to the readiness and good-order-and-discipline of the U.S. military, its negative impact will be greatly magnified by the myriad other elements of Team Obama’s campaign to hollow-out America’s defense capabilities.

Among the many, well-documented problems with assigning women to line infantry positions are three intractable ones:

• Most women lack the physical upper-body strength and stamina of most men. That may mean such women simply cannot perform certain tasks essential to the performance of their units in combat. It may require a dumbing-down of the requirements for all candidates for ground combat positions. Alternatively, it may give rise to the selective application of such requirements. The predictable result of the first is to undermine unit readiness and the probability of mission success in the event of hostilities. The latter can devastate the affected units’ cohesion and morale.

• It is impossible as a practical matter to provide for separation of the sexes in frontline positions. That guarantees a loss of privacy and greatly increases the chances of pregnancies and harassment that: profoundly affects the personnel immediately involved; causes degrading of their units’ warfighting capabilities; and traumatizes their families or, at a minimum, erodes the essential support for uniformed service that those loved ones provide.

• Men frequently will feel the need to protect women in dangerous situations, particularly if there is an emotional attachment between them. The effect in combat situations can be to complicate, if not to undermine entirely, the disciplined execution of orders that can prove to be the difference between victory and defeat.

The disastrous effect on the U.S. military of such wholly avoidable wounds is compounded by such other Obama administration-directed measures as:

• The cumulative reduction of as much as $1.3 trillion from Pentagon budgets, starting in the President’s first term and extending over the next ten years.

• The prospect of a Secretary of Defense in the person of Chuck Hagel who wants to cut even more.

• The attendant elimination or dramatic slowing of virtually all modernization programs, reduction in maintenance of worn-out weapon systems and other equipment, diminished training and other benefits, etc.

• The serious downsizing and disruption of the defense industrial base – including in some cases the likely elimination of small businesses that provide unique parts for the supply chain. In at least some cases, their loss will require the U.S. military to become even more dependent for critical parts upon unreliable foreign suppliers – notably, Communist China.

• The cumulative impact of a decade of war in which those in the combat arms have experienced extensive and often multiple tours in war zones, exacting a harsh toll on many – both on the physical and psychological well-being of those serving and in terms of their families’ sacrifice.

• The demoralizing effect of the unnecessary loss of two wars – in Iraq and, in the near future, in Afghanistan.

• The conduct of the latter pursuant to a counter-insurgency strategy that has become utterly disconnected from the strategic realities of Islam’s supremacist shariah doctrine. It also needlessly exposes those in the combat arms to hazards ranging from “green-on-blue” violence to life-long parasitical diseases in the vain effort to “win hearts and minds.”

• The erosion of the values of Western civilization of which the U.S. military has long been an exemplar in the interest of not offending pedophiles, women-abusers, dog-torturers and others supposed to be our “allies” in “countering violent extremism.”

• The prospective liquidation of America’s nuclear deterrent, unilaterally if necessary, to advance Team Obama’s lunatic campaign for a “world without nuclear weapons.”

• The imposition of the radical homosexual agenda on an institution that has, until 2010, by culture as well as by law, prohibited openly gay individuals from serving in its ranks.

The Obama administration’s progress in wrecking our military would be bad enough under circumstances in which its defensive capabilities were not of vital importance to our nation’s security.  Unfortunately, thanks in part to the hollowing out of America’s armed forces and other officially approved measures that are empowering and emboldening our enemies, the world is becoming a more dangerous place by the day.

By replacing Ronald Reagan’s historically validated philosophy of “peace through American strength” with the unfounded hope for peace despite American weakness, President Obama is setting the stage for conflicts we will be unable to deter and, failing that, may be hard pressed to win.