The Bunker: U.S. Pulls a 180

The Bunker, delivered to our subscribers Wednesdays at 7 a.m., is a newsletter from the desk of National Security Analyst Mark Thompson. Sign up here to receive it first thing, or check back Wednesday afternoon for the online version.

This week in The Bunker: In a breath-taking reversal of U.S. tradition and history, President Trump cuts Ukraine off at the knees and embraces Russia; why the Navy can’t build ships; Army endangers recruits; and more.

PULLING BACK

President Trump over-reaches

Elections have consequences. But even the most tuned-in American voters should be surprised by the direction U.S. foreign policy has taken since President Donald Trump assumed power (deliberate word choice!) on January 20. There’s a good chance he mortally wounded NATO when he and Vice President JD (“Just Desserts” or “Juvenile Delinquent,” depending on where you sit) Vance tossed an exploding IED into the lap of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during their Oval Office bloodbath February 28. Trump all-but delivered his coup de grâce March 3, when the U.S. suspended all military aid to Ukraine.

A bullying Trump and a hectoring Vance declared a democratic Good Guy a dictator. Meanwhile, the dictatorial Bad Guy and his minions sitting in the Kremlin could barely contain their glee. If you like what the Taliban has done to Afghanistan (with a critical push from Trump), you’ll love what Trump just did to Ukraine. It bodes ill, to put it mildly, for Washington’s role in the world and its historic support for democracy.

The Bunker generally steers clear of foreign policy. But it is making an exception this week because last week marks a tectonic shift in how this nation perceives itself and chooses to project its power. This newsletter usually confines itself to the ways and means of deploying that power. But changes now afoot signal a profound change in how the nation — at least for the next four years — will brandish said ways and means.

Trump’s view — that there is no greater issue at play in Ukraine than the mineral wealth it owes the U.S. — is short-sighted and transactional. In reality, it is the U.S. who should be thanking Ukraine for decimating the Russian military — you know, the Red Army that had us quaking in our combat boots during the Cold War — for roughly 4% of the U.S. defense budget. What has happened over the past three years, since Russia launched an ill-advised invasion of Ukraine, is an amazing, ahistorical armed alchemy that hasn’t risked the life of a single American soldier.

But just as surely as elections have consequences, actions have consequences, too. The world’s greatest military alliance is fraying and may be beyond mending (Elon Musk agreed March 1 that the U.S. should abandon NATO). The trust U.S. allies have had in Washington since the end of World War II is now MIA, swapped for a narrower what’s-in-it-for-me construct. The U.S. nuclear umbrella is shrinking. Antsy nations in the Far and Middle East are likely to weigh joining the A-club. The U.S. Agency for International Development, the biggest bang-for-the-buck going when it comes to spreading U.S. influence beyond its borders, is in tatters.

The Trump administration is seeking to defend itself by building an impossible-to-achieve “gold” missile shield. It is dispatching 3,000 troops to the southern U.S. border to stop undocumented immigrants, and threatening unilateral U.S. attacks against Mexican drug cartels. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has reportedly ordered an end to the Pentagon’s offensive cyberops against Russia. There’s White House logorrhea about seizing, annexing, or otherwise occupying Canada, Greenland, and Panama.

While Russia is gloating over Trump’s treatment of Ukraine, the rest of the globe is paying attention, too. It’s no coincidence that as the U.S. president is spurning Kyiv, China has unnerved its neighbors by stepping up its military drills and live fire exercises.

The president’s sour steps suggest a nation that has become a ‘fraidy cat, leery of joining other nations who share values against common foes. This is no way for the globe’s one-time champion of alliances, buttressed by 250 years of freedom and liberty, to act.

THE FOUNDERING NAVY

Why can’t the sea service build ships?

For decades, the U.S. Navy and its ship-building partners have been unable to produce vessels on time and on budget. It’s a classic chicken-or-egg conundrum. “The Navy continues to expect different performance outcomes in the coming years than it has achieved in the past,” the Government Accountability Office said in a February 27 report (PDF). “There is no basis for expecting industrial base outcomes to improve without changes from the Navy that would motivate a different level of private industry investment and performance.”

The Navy has spent nearly $6 billion to bolster U.S. shipyards without coordinating that spending to ensure it generates the biggest bang for the buck, the agency said. It plans to spend $12.6 billion more by 2028. But that’s not enough. “The Navy’s current approach for managing the ship industrial base has been largely ineffective at encouraging private industry to invest independently,” the GAO said (PDF). “Further, the Navy does not have an industrial base strategy and has not had coordinated leadership to guide future efforts in this area.”

Bottom line (PDF): the Navy has taken delivery of only four of the 11 Virginia-class attack subs it was supposed to get between 2019 and 2023, and only seven of 15 DDG-51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.

WEIGHTY TOPIC

Army puts its thumb on the scale

The Army is finally hitting its recruiting target. For that, it may have to thank enlisting soldiers too heavy and out of shape for the service. Nearly one of four Army recruits have to go through the Future Soldier Preparatory Course (FSPC) because they lack the skills and strength required for basic training. Among other things, the 90-day course cuts slack for potential GIs who exceed body-fat standards by up to 8%, relying on smart eating and exercise to help them meet Army requirements.

But the service may be too eager to put corpulent bodies into combat boots: 14% of those in the course topped the 8% requirement, according to a sample surveyed by the Defense Department’s inspector general. Trainees were permitted into the FSPC with body-fat composition as high as 19% above the limit (PDF). Army medical personnel “identified and acknowledged increased risks to trainees’ health, including the risk of death, while trying to lose weight quickly to meet the body fat percentage standards,” according (PDF) to an internal Army communication.

It’s true that the military’s obesity crisis reflects that of the larger society from which it is drawn. But that’s simply a poor excuse — not a reason — for cutting corners that can jeopardize young lives.

WHAT WE’RE READING

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

→ Crack job

The Air Force has suspended delivery of its new KC-46s after builder Boeing recently found cracks in two of the aerial tankers slated for delivery, The War Zone’s Howard Altman reported March 1.

→ Shifting gears

Silicon Valley is seeking, given its increasingly clout inside the Trump administration, to land an expanding roster of Pentagon contracts, the Wall Street Journal said February 28.

→ Cheat sheet

Nearly 100 Air Force Academy cadets have admitted to — or tolerated — cheating on regularly-required weekly tests, Mary Shinn of the Colorado Springs Gazette reported February 28.

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