The Bunker: General hush

SILENT BRASS

Why are U.S. military leaders sitting on their tongues?

The prospects of the U.S. prevailing in its war with Iran, as well as its broader influence around the globe, continue to shrink. Pentagon back-biting under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth continues, but that simply represents the leading indicator of a broader decline and fall of the American empire under President Donald Trump. Think of it as the domino theory, but in reverse. A recent sampling from the public prints:

Pentagon turmoil deepens as Hegseth consolidates control

Pete Hegseth Is a Wrecking Ball

Military leaders warn Hegseth against extending Iran war operations

Hegseth Extends Mideast Deployments Into 2027, Escalating Strain on Troops

Pentagon secretly installs military influencers in civilian roles

Hegseth's Pentagon is hiding Iran war from the American public

In Major Leak Hunt, Pentagon Gives Polygraph Tests to Joint Staff Members

A More Confident Iran Emerges After Six Months of War With the U.S.

As war with Iran weakens US influence, China expands Middle East security role

After CIA director visit to Moscow, Putin pushes harder for military win

America’s absence is inviting the war Europe fears most

Maybe this tidal wave of turmoil is exaggerated. But after nearly a half-century of covering the U.S. defense establishment, The Bunker doesn’t think so.

So where is the U.S. military brass, retired or otherwise?

“Brassy,” according to the dictionary, means “shamelessly bold.” But given what’s happening to the U.S. armed forces lately, The Bunker would be happy for a basic, unadorned “bold.” Yet the turbulence continues without a peep from our uniformed national guardrails. Even more surprisingly, the dozens of senior military officials bounced out of their posts by Hegseth have gone radio silent. These once-proud brass trumpets are not merely muted — they’re mum.

Instead, we’ve had to rely on those with little left to lose. “The Trump administration is committing acts that military officers should consider outrageous and unacceptable,” Frank Kendall, who served as Air Force secretary during the Biden administration, wrote September 1 in a New York Times op-ed. “Many lower-level officers I have spoken with are privately appalled but afraid to challenge what they are seeing.” The administration “REVOKED” (like Trump, the Pentagon has taken to fetishizing capital letters) Kendall’s security clearance last month, before his column was published, citing his alleged “unauthorized disclosure” about the capabilities of Air Force One.

Hegseth is also under fire from fellow Republicans. “I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country,” said retiring Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who once headed the armed services committee’s personnel panel. “He is intimidated by competence.” Tillis cited Hegseth’s penchant for “ginning up culture wars instead of soberly attending to the vital work of our national defense and the health and well-being of our fighting force” — the subtlety gratuitously digs (emphasis added by TB) at Hegseth’s reported drinking problem.

But only crickets from those recently fired by Hegseth.

You know, you don’t need a big military-brass band to denounce what is now happening inside the Defense Department. A single brave soldier, armed with a bugle and playing “Charge,” would be healthy, helpful, and heartening.

NO CAINE MUTINY

Meanwhile, in (what passes for) the good news department

Air Force General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has told Congress (PDF) that the U.S. military “has no plans to send Federal military personnel or Federalized members of the National Guard to polling places during the 2026 elections. Likewise, the Joint Force has no plans to use such personnel to seize ballots, voting machines, or other election-related material.”

LOST IN SPACE

Another job the U.S. defense industry can’t handle

If Beijing or Moscow destroys U.S. satellites in a war, the U.S. defense-industrial base won’t be able to replace them quickly enough. That’s the outer-space bottom line of a new study from the non-profit RAND Corporation. “China and Russia have shown they can threaten or destroy U.S. space assets, potentially weakening U.S. and allied military operations across many domains,” RAND’s August 31 report said. “In a prolonged conflict, the ability to restore these capabilities on a short timeline could be critical.”

The report says that “conceptually,” the U.S. should be able to reconstitute its satellites within 12 to 24 months, instead of the decade it now takes to develop the workforce necessary to replace them. The Bunker is perplexed why the RAND whizzes think what sounds an awful lot like World War III will last 12 to 24 months.

Alas, when it comes to the military-industrial complex, the fear-mongering never stops. “‘Blackout warfare’: China, Russia weapons could instantly darken 80% of U.S.,” read a September 2 Washington Times headline warning of nuclear space-blasts that could fry U.S. satellites, as well as ground-based electronics.

RAND has a roster of recommendations to robustify the U.S. space industry. They range from encouraging kindergarteners to think about building rockets to making “space defense industrial base workforce development” a key Pentagon priority.

This martial malarkey goes beyond planning for World War III. The nation, after all, doesn’t even have the capability it needs to build the warships and warplanes the Pentagon says it requires, never mind its warsatellites. It’s enough to make a taxpayer yearn for those days when just the sky was the limit.

But what do you expect when the Space Force’s Vice Chief of Space Operations, since promoted to head Trump’s Golden Dome space shield of dreams, pays for your research?

PENDING SPENDING

There will never be enough…

No matter how much taxpayers spend — or borrow — to fund the U.S. military, its leaders, and their mercantile allies, will always insist that it’s never enough.

And that’s because they are right. When bogeypeople are everywhere, it’s tough to defeat them, or even defend against them, no matter how much money we spend.

That’s where judgement comes into play. “In the end, this process must be about identifying options for the president and the Congress where the nation is willing to accept risk in exchange for reduced investment in the Department of Defense,” then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in 2011.

Back then, the Pentagon’s budget was $752 billion, half of next year’s $1.5 trillion request. But now our nation is led by scaremongers intent on leveraging fear, ignorance, and a lack of imagination — theirs, as well as our own — to crank up the cash flow, with or without an undeclared war.

All that money has a strange way of dulling the doubts of those pocketing it. The U.S. military’s “collective hope,” ex-Air Force Secretary (and West Point graduate) Kendall wrote in his recent column, “seems to be that if they can all just go on as if nothing unusual is occurring, this time will pass and nothing bad will happen to them — no loss of position, no demotion or forced retirement, no loss of reputation, no removal from a promotion list by Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense.”

But don’t be fooled: While nothing bad may “happen to them,” something bad is happening to us.

WHAT WE’RE READING

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

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