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March 23 - May 16, 2023
71 percent of the 34 million seventeen-to twenty-four-year-olds in the United States could not meet the military’s entry requirements, most often due to obesity, drugs, physical and mental health problems, misconduct, or aptitude.
only around 1 percent of the population that could qualify—the other 29 percent—had some interest in serving. When you did the math, it meant that the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines were all competing for the same three hundred thousand to four hundred thousand young Americans.
nearly 80 percent of recruits have a relative who served, which suggests military service has become somewhat of a family business. And second, an inordinate number of recruits—41 percent—come from the South.
Despite the need, the Obama administration deactivated V Corps (commonly known as Fifth Corps) in Germany in 2013, about eighteen months after announcing the withdrawal of two brigades and seven thousand soldiers from Europe. A year later, Russia annexed Crimea and occupied eastern Ukraine.
Causal implication
China was increasing its defense budget at no less than 6 to 8 percent annually.
Increasing... What about absolute?
We needed to go from an “up or out” philosophy to a “perform or out” approach.
the first problem that jumped out was the fact that some child-care facilities were only 70 percent or so filled. The 30 percent vacancy rate was due to a lack of child-care providers, and that was because the civilian hiring system was so slow.
I directed that military children take priority over the children of DoD civilian employees.
The military’s practical estimates, based on years of experience and insight, focused on what was likely to occur. This was different from the legal assessment, which listed the ranges of what could occur, that made its way to the president.
Trump’s instincts weren’t always wrong about the policy or end state he wanted to achieve. However, the odds of success were spoiled or the goal tarnished by the process he often followed (little to none); the strategy he usually pursued (narrow and incomplete); the consensus he normally built behind it (minimal and insufficient); and the manner in which he generally communicated it (coarsely and divisively).
Fourth Estate—the collective name for DoD agencies and activities that are not part of the military branches, ranging from the OSD and the Joint Staff to the Defense Logistics Agency and Missile Defense Agency. There are more than two dozen of these organizations, and they include more than 380,000 people and spend more than $100 billion—nearly 15 percent of the entire DoD budget—annually.
A discussion would stop stone cold and pivot as a new thought raced through his head—he saw something on TV, or somebody made a remark that threw him off track. Somehow, we often ended up on the same topics, like his greatest hits of the decade: NATO spending; Merkel, Germany, and Nord Stream 2; corruption in Afghanistan; U.S. troops in Korea; and, closing our embassies in Africa,
gave his assessment and then chirped in his support to “hit them hard,” which over time became his tedious signature phrase. It made him sound tough and appealed to Trump, but I thought this was reckless and not necessarily the role of the NSA.
the secretary of state was responsible for overall U.S. foreign policy and the national security adviser was charged with its coordination across the federal government.
was also more open-minded and he postured less when we met or spoke one-on-one, as compared to a group setting.
In the latter situations, he relished the drama and display of holding court and pitting people and sides against one another.
as compared to the melee of bad ideas pushed or supported by his White House sycophants.
Pompeo, Milley, and I traveled to Mar-a-Lago to brief the president.
$$$
To my surprise, this really angered Trump. He wasn’t yelling, but he was both frustrated and mad. He sat there, hunched over, shaking his head, with a grimace on his face, looking up at Milley and saying, “That was stupid” and “Why would you do that,” adding that “it makes us look like we can’t hit the target.” This, of course, wasn’t the case, and we were confident the Iranians knew that.
This action was about subtlety, something for which Trump was not known.
This was one of the mysteries of Donald Trump as commander in chief. Sometimes he would express concern about being drawn into a conflict, and he was always talking about getting out of the “endless wars.” In the same vein, he would call off strikes we had already agreed to. At other times, like now, he would complain we were not being tough enough and want the most aggressive options possible. His views on the use of force swung back and forth like a pendulum, though even a pendulum has some predictability. The president rarely gave us much at all.
If some of our people were murdered, and we could have prevented it, how could I go to Dover Air Force Base weeks later to greet the flag-draped coffins that arrived home solemnly in the backs of the large Air Force jets, and then sit with the grieving spouses, children, and parents knowing that I could have saved their loved ones?
Insufficient
Together, Pompeo, Milley, and I watched the operation unfold on a big screen, through the lenses of drones flying high above the airport. Others were at the White House. President Trump was still in Florida.
Soleimani op
These types of statements and ideas troubled me, and others. To think that we would find more than four dozen targets simply because it was a clever rhetorical link to history plugged into a presidential statement was irresponsible. Moreover, announcing it without any consultation with military and civilian leaders responsible for effecting such a mission was disconcerting.
We needed much more thoughtful deliberation and coordination on these things, and less shooting from the hip.
The president’s vow to strike Iranian cultural sites provoked its own little firestorm, prompting me to disagree with him publicly.
the U.S. military “will follow the laws of armed conflict,” which prohibit attacking cultural, historic, and religious sites that have no military value.
The president’s comments were frustrating because they were wrong and provocative, and they created unnecessary friction between him and his cabinet.
The simple fact was that Trump usually exaggerated and often made statements that could not be confirmed; others were outright fabrications.
We needed to assess, first, did they aim to kill or aim to warn? The Iranians had done the latter in the past by intentionally shooting missiles far off target, claiming victory in their media, and then standing down.
