The Bunker: The world turned upside down

This week in The Bunker: President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth continue to methodically make the U.S. military more like their own private militia, while simultaneously shuffling the nation closer to the edge of the world stage; and more.

DEFINING DEFENSE DOWN

DOD is now the Department of Deviancy

More than 30 years ago, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) famously observed that the nation was “defining deviancy down” (PDF) by refusing to crack down on crime. President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete “Hands-off” Hegseth are now doing the same thing to the U.S. military. Allied with their jellyfish enablers on Capitol Hill, they are driving the armed forces off the rails, and metaphorically machinegunning anyone who gets in their way.

And we are letting them do it.

This loco-locomotive has been barreling down the tracks since Trump began his second term nearly a year ago. But it has picked up steam recently as he, Hegseth, and a small insular band continue to push the edge of the envelope when it comes to remaking U.S. national security. Congressional Republicans, who have stood mutely on the sidelines as this slo-mo train wreck unfolds, will end up ruing their silence. Big changes are happening, and they will have significant impacts on the nation’s global role, and, perhaps, the globe itself.

We ignore them at our peril.

THE BILL OF PARTICULARS

It keeps getting longer every week…

• The opening shot in retooling the U.S. military happened back in February, when Hegseth replaced the military services’ top lawyers soon after arriving at the Pentagon. He said the incumbent judge advocates general were “roadblocks to orders that were given by a commander in chief.”
• Trump has dispatched National Guard troops into U.S. cities, and ordered each state to develop a “quick reaction force” to deal with civil unrest, crime and illegal immigration.
• Hegseth has pushed for relaxing the “rules of engagement” on when U.S. troops can attack, blast suspected drug-running boats out of the water, and shoot survivors (“Video at 11!” Or, maybe not.).
• Trump has declared Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro a terrorist, and is unilaterally threatening to go to war with Venezuela for exporting narcotics to the U.S. Yet he released former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández from federal prison December 1, after a U.S. court sentenced him to 45 years for helping import over 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S. (Honduras promptly ordered Hernández rearrested). While the two leaders’ cases are similar, there is one major difference: Maduro is a left-winger, while Hernández is a right-winger. Bottom line: Free the drug kingpin and kill the drug mules.
• Trump, backed by Hegseth, has condemned members of Congress for encouraging troops to disobey unlawful orders. He implicitly threatened six lawmakers with death for sedition because they appeared in a video urging U.S. troops to obey only lawful military orders. (Hegseth agreed with them, before he became defense secretary.) It appears that the FBI is now investigating the lawmakers. Suggesting that all this looks more like a banana republic instead of a democracy is an insult to Chiquita (speaking of Latin America and supporting terrorists).
• Hegseth recently linked kids-book character Franklin the Turtle to the U.S. troops who are killing the suspected drug smugglers. Such tireless taunting wears thin to those, including many in uniform, who are more accustomed to steady, and sober, Pentagon leaders. But it’s not so different from Trump’s repost of an AI-generated video featuring the commander-in-chief dumping poop on his political foes. When did this become accepted presidential behavior?
• Hegseth ignored military protocol against sharing war plans on an unclassified network, and refused to be interviewed by the Pentagon inspector general about it.
• Hegseth has replaced the long-standing Pentagon press corps (including the Washington Post, the New York Times, ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC – and even Fox News) with a stable of Stepford reporters (including conservative provocateur and secret-video king James O’Keefe, former congressman Matt Gaetz, MAGA activist Laura Loomer, and misoutfits like One America News Network, The Federalist and LindellTV, run by pillow-guy conspiracy-theorist Mike Lindell). “Dawning of a new day with patriots reporting the truth,” freshly-minted Pentagon reporter Storm Paglia of far-right Townhall Media posted on X. “Not media liars.” The New York Times sued (PDF) the Pentagon last week, saying its new unilateral restrictions on what its reporters can report violates the First Amendment.

THE RAMIFICATIONS

What’s happening extends far beyond DOD

The Trump administration has turned the U.S. Department of Defense into a partisan political plaything, a kind of Crossfire With Nuclear Weapons. That enfeebles and turns brittle the esteem in which Americans have long held their armed forces. All this chest-puffing bravado erodes the sense of mission and honor that always has been part of the U.S. military’s ethos.

These moves appear to be the leading edge in a reckless effort to untether security policy from the public interest. A further big push in that direction came December 4, when the White House released its new National Security Strategy (PDF). It is, to put it bluntly, a mercantilist and xenophobic screed. Trump’s 33-page tirade warns of a Europe facing “civilizational erasure,” and pledging to support its “patriotic” parties to prevent NATO allies from becoming “majority non-European.” It codifies the “great replacement theory,” echoing the right-wing notion that non-white immigrants are taking over the U.S.

There are consequences to frittering away the U.S. military’s moral might, and gutting critical supporting governmental organizations like the Voice of America and the U.S. Agency for International Development. “We want to maintain the United States’ unrivaled ‘soft power’ through which we exercise positive influence throughout the world that furthers our interests,” the security strategy claims. And please don’t get us started on the newly renamed Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace.

None of this means The Bunker necessarily endorses Pax Americana and the relative stability the post-World War II international order has wrought. But it does suggest some caution before allowing a huckster whose companies have declared bankruptcy six times to do so unilaterally.

Trump’s latest security strategy document marks a head-snapping change from his 2017 version (PDF), which viewed Russia as a dangerous rival that was seeking to divide the U.S. from its European allies. Even the conservative Wall Street Journal was gob-smacked by the reversal. “U.S. Flips History by Casting Europe — Not Russia — as Villain in New Security Policy,” its headline said. The new strategy also softens the U.S. stance toward China; experts say Beijing has noticed the shift.

The U.S. is undeniably backing away from the global stage. “Border security is the primary element of national security,” the new strategy says (PDF). Not “a primary element,” but “the primary element.” Discounting the threats posed by China and Russia may be wishful thinking, but it does make one wonder why we’re spending $1 trillion annually on the U.S. military if border security is the top danger facing the nation.

Trump pledged, as a candidate, to end the Russian-Ukrainian war during his first day in office. But since then he has dithered as Kiev has burned. He has become a de facto ally of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who refuses to compromise to end the war that Putin himself initiated nearly four years ago. Trump’s latest National Security Strategy calls for restricting NATO’s expansion, embracing Putin’s longstanding desire. Russia declared the new strategy “a positive step.”

Meanwhile, the same day that Trump rolled out his new security strategy, the independent Institute for the Study of War, of Washington, D.C., released its latest assessment on the war. “ISW continues to assess that Putin, in part, launched his full-scale invasion in order to destroy NATO,” it concluded.

With a wink and a nod from the White House, Putin took a major step toward achieving that goal last week.

Dumbfoundingly, all of this is all happening as congressional and military leaders cower like Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion before a wizard blowing smoke.

We’re in desperate need of a Toto willing to yank back the curtain, and reveal the scammer behind it, before it’s too late.

WHAT WE’RE READING

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

→ Not such friendly fire

A string of snafus 20,000 Leagues Under the (Red) Sea long led the USS Gettysburg to shoot down an F-18 fighter a year ago, The War Zone’s Howard Altman reported December 5.

→ “Stop the presses!”

In the first of a series of editorials on rebuilding the U.S. military posted December 8, the traditionally let’s-spend-less-on-the-Pentagon New York Times suggests increased defense spending may be needed to deal with the threats posed by China and Russia.

→ And speaking of money…(PDF)

The U.S. wasted nearly $145 billion over nearly 20 years trying to rebuild Afghanistan following 2001’s U.S. invasion, the federal Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction said in its final report, issued December 3.

Thanks for spending, ahem, time with The Bunker this week. Consider forwarding this on to friends so they can subscribe here.