PROJECT 2025 –  #12 - July 12, 2024

BLOG DISCLAIMER
This blog was created as a public service. It is a Cliff’s Notes version of the actual 900 pages of text found in PROJECT 2025. It is not a commentary. Most importantly - It DOES NOT reflect my opinion in any way.
With this section, I have created a more streamlined, concise version for convenience
 
SECTION TWO – THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE – Part 1
            The Department of Defense (DOD) is the largest part of our federal government. It has almost 3 million people serving in uniform or civilian capacity worldwide and consumes approximately $850 billion annually—more than 50% of our government’s discretionary spending. It is also deeply troubled… Wasteful spending, wildly shifting security policies, exceedingly poor discipline, and program execution, a profoundly unserious equity agenda, and vaccine mandates have taken a serious toll.
 
DOD Policy
U.S. defense strategy must identify China unequivocally as the top priority for U.S. defense planning while modernizing and expanding the U.S. nuclear arsenal and sustaining an efficient and effective counterterrorism enterprise. The reality is that achieving these goals will require more spending on defense.
            We need to:
1.     Prioritize US Forces to defeat a Chinese invasion of Taiwan before allocating resources to other missions.
2.     Make burden sharing a central part of a US defense strategy.
3.     Transform NATO so that US allies are capable of fielding the majority of conventional forces while relying on the US primarily for our nuclear deterrent.
4.     Sustained support for Israel, even as America empowers Gulf partners to take responsibility for their own coastal, air and missile defenses.
5.     Enable South Korea to take the lead in its conventional defense against North Korea. 
6.     Prioritize enhancing the capability of allies and partners to take the lead in combating terrorism in their regions.
 
DOD Acquisition and Sustainment
U.S. forces should develop a faster timeline to develop weaponry and retire or terminate outdated, underperforming programs more rapidly. Decision-makers to stay within the law but bypass unnecessary departmental regulations that are not in the best interest of the government .
 
DOD Foreign Military Sales
The United States must regain its role as the “Arsenal of Democracy.” In fiscal year (FY) 2021, U.S. government foreign military sales (FMS) nosedived to a low of $34.8 billion from a record high of $55.7 billion in FY 2018. Ensure that senior U.S. military leadership emphasizes exportability in the initial development of defense systems that are both available and interoperable with our partners and allies. 
                  End Informal congressional notification or “tiered review” which is a hinderance to ensuring timely sales to our global partners. The tiered review process is not codified in law; it is merely a practice by which the Department of State provides a preview of prospective arms transfers before Congress is formally notified. 
 
DOD Personnel
The men and women of America's armed forces are the most critical component of our National Defense strategy, but in recent years, they have been overextended, undervalued, and insufficiently resourced. Their families helped them to carry their burden of service, but the assistance they received is disproportionately less than the sacrifices they make. Young civilians who would thrive in a military environment are disenfranchised when educators and influencers discourage them from learning about military service and preparing for the honor of wearing America's uniform.
 
DOD Personnel - Needed reforms
1.     Improve recruiting by suspending the use of private medical records of potential recruits at Military Entrance Processing Stations (MEPS), creating unnecessary delays and unwarranted rejections
2.     Improve military recruiters’ access to secondary schools and require completion of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery —the military entrance examination—by all students in schools that receive federal funding 
3.     Exceptions for individuals who are already predisposed to require medical treatment (for example, HIV positive or suffering from gender dysphoria) should be removed, and those with gender dysphoria should be expelled from military service. 
4.     Strengthen protections for chaplains to carry out their ministry according to the tenets of their faith 
5.     Codify language to instruct senior military officers (three and four stars) to make certain that they understand their primary duty to be ensuring the readiness of the armed forces, not pursuing a social engineering agenda. 
6.     Reinstate servicemembers to active duty who were discharged for not receiving the COVID vaccine, restore their appropriate rank, and provide back pay 
7.     Eliminate Marxist indoctrination and divisive critical race theory programs and abolish newly established diversity, equity, and inclusion offices and staff.
8.     Audit the course offerings at military academies to remove Marxist indoctrination, eliminate tenure for academic professionals, and apply the same rules to instructors that are applied to other DOD contracting personnel. 
9.     Reverse policies that allow transgender individuals to serve in the military. Gender dysphoria is incompatible with the demands of military service, and the use of public monies for transgender surgeries or to facilitate abortion for servicemembers should be ended. 
10.  Audit all curricula and health policies in DOD schools for military families, remove all inappropriate materials, and reverse inappropriate policies.
 
Written by Christopher Miller

[BIO – Wikipedia - BA, GWU and MA, Naval War College; Colonel (ret.) US Special Forces; 8/20 – Director National Counterterrorism Center; 9/20 – Acting DOD Secretary]

[HISTORICAL NOTE – 5 January 2021 “(Miller) issued orders which prohibited deploying DC National Guard members with weapons, helmets, body armor or riot control agents without his personal approval…after rioters breached the Capitol Police perimeter, Miller waited more than three hours before authorizing the deployment of the National Guard.”]