The Bunker: Borders, subs, and flab

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This week in 2024’s final Bunker: President-elect Trump makes clear he wants the U.S. military to carry out “mass deportations” of undocumented immigrants; lawmakers charge the Navy with submarine shenanigans; the U.S military needs a major rebuild; and more.

THE NEW DOD

“Department of Deportation”

President Trump talks a big strategic game, but then often fumbles tactically. In his first term, for example, he pledged to build a 1,000-mile wall along the southern U.S. border to keep undocumented immigrants out. He insisted Mexico would pay for its construction, even as the number of that country’s unauthorized immigrants residing in the U.S. has been falling for nearly two decades, and now accounts for barely 1 in 3 of such residents. By the time Trump left office in 2021, Mexico hadn’t paid a peso. But U.S. taxpayers ponied up about $15 billion to build a scant 47 miles of new walls, along with bolstering about 400 miles of existing barriers along the 2,000 mile border with Mexico.

Nonetheless, the nation’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants remain a potent political issue, and the president-elect has paid no political penalty for his bait-and-switch. That’s why, in Trump 2.0, he’s come up with a Plan B: enlisting the U.S. military to throw them out. “TRUE!” Trump posted November 18, responding to a Truth Social post proclaiming that the president-elect would declare “a national emergency” and order the U.S. military to spearhead “a mass deportation program.”

My former colleagues at Time asked Trump November 25 about deploying U.S. troops on U.S. soil to begin corralling undocumented workers. Generally, the Posse Comitatus Act bars troops from domestic law enforcement. Trump countered that the law “doesn’t stop the military if it’s an invasion of our country, and I consider it an invasion of our country.” (Numbers show the “invaders” are retreating.)

Retired Army Major General Randy Manner warned against such a roundup in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing December 10. He said U.S. troops lack training for such a mission, that it would hurt readiness, morale, recruiting and retention, and erode the public’s trust in the U.S. military. “This would fundamentally shift the role of the military from national defense to include domestic law enforcement, raising serious legal, operational, and ethical concerns,” Manner said (PDF). “The military is designed to defend against external threats, not police its own citizens.”

Regardless of where you stand on undocumented immigrants coming into the U.S., deploying the U.S. military to wrangle them, and then force them back home, is a boundary far more significant than the Rio Grande.

CONGRESS DIVES FOR ANSWERS

Why the sub fleet is called the silent service

The Navy has long prided itself on the ability of its submarines to sail stealthily beneath the waves, able to unleash unsuspecting hellfire on the nation’s enemies. But lawmakers are suddenly wailing that the Navy isn’t only keeping China and Russia in the dark. Turns out the sea service is keeping Congress in the deep when it comes to buying these nearly $5 billion (PDF) boats (yes, that’s the preferred Navy term for subs).

“We are concerned with the lack of transparency that has occurred between the Navy and Congress over the last 18 months,” lawmakers said in the just-issued 696-page report accompanying the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act. The bipartisan report says the service withheld information from Congress and the White House, about its spending plans and cost overruns for Virginia-class attack submarines. “The Navy negotiated a funding strategy with industry that would have addressed cost growth, future cost to complete, workforce wage increases and infrastructure investments at both shipyards,” the report said, referring to Connecticut’s General Dynamics Electric Boat and Virginia’s HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding, where the subs are being built. “The Navy did this in isolation and failed to not only inform Congress but also the Office of Management and Budget.” That led to the Navy’s unexpected $5.7 billion supplemental request last month.

The lawmakers basically accused the Navy of blackmail:

At no point during the normal budgeting and legislative process did the Navy inform Congress that there was large cost growth on the fiscal year 2024 submarines and the one fiscal year 2025 submarine being requested. Unfortunately, the lack of communication regarding program challenges and potential solutions has left Congress with few options to address this situation and likely none that will rectify it going forward. … Denial of requests for information and veiled threats of reprisals against briefers to Congress who may provide requested information creates a dangerous precedent that is out of line the checks and balances inherent to the branches of government of the United States.

In response, thus far, the Navy has maintained radio silence.

THE PENTAGON TURTLE

Slow and costly won’t win the next war

If the U.S. wants to prevail in the next major war, it needs to be able to crank out more weapons more quickly. U.S. stockpiles have been drained by the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. And those aren’t even on the scale of the big wars the Pentagon never stops telling us it is getting ready to fight.

So what’s a purported superpower to do?

Build more, simpler, cheaper, and quicker. “With their custom components and bespoke integration, the DoD’s preferred munitions are more like the artisan products featured on Etsy than the mass-produced weapons that came off assembly lines during World War II,” Bryan Clark and Dan Patt argued December 11 at Breaking Defense.

The latest example of such Pentagon pathology comes from Richard D. Hooker, Jr., a former professor at the U.S. National Defense University. He wrote December 10 in Defense One that the Army is a top-heavy bureaucracy that has sapped its war-fighting strength. He cites the 2006 creation of the service’s Installation Management Command, ordered to “reduce bureaucracy” needed to run Army posts. Yet the IMC is headed by a three-star general, with a two-star deputy, and a one-star chief of staff. This constellation oversees 30,000 soldiers and 70,000 civilians. IMC is just one of several Army commands growing like kudzu and requiring constant reports from subordinates. “The Army should shutter those organizations not deemed essential, reduce the officer-to-enlisted ratio, and streamline its bloated staffs,” Hooker concludes. “Leaner and flatter are watchwords in the private sector — and are clearly priorities for the incoming administration. America’s Army should adopt them as well.”

WHAT WE’RE READING

Here’s what has caught The Bunker’s eye recently

→ Crash course

More than 70 years after it crashed in Death Valley, Eric Brooks, in SFGATE December 15, tells the tale of a super-secret spy plane that remains hidden in plane sight.

→ Constitutional loyalists?

The incoming Trump Pentagon team faces a stark choice: staying constitutional or becoming prostitutional to a commander-in-chief who has exhibited little concern for constitutional niceties, Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson wrote in the New York Times December 12.

→ The Russians are coming 2.0

NATO nations need to boost their defense spending back to Cold War levels to deter Russia, Secretary-General Mark Rutte said, Politico reported December 12.

This is the final edition of The Bunker for 2024. Happy holidays! We’ll return to your inbox January 8. Forward this on to friends and encourage them to subscribe here.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Mark Thompson has been covering the Pentagon for more than 45 years.