The Bunker

President Trump has been betting on a yet-to-be-discovered COVID-19 vaccine to protect him and the nation, just as the U.S. military keeps reinventing silver bullets to win its wars. Both have achieved—if that’s even the right word—similar “success.”

One of the simplest ways for the Pentagon to save money is to reduce the number of humans in uniform. War-waging robots have long been the stuff of science fiction, but as flying drones have made clear recently, they’re becoming more real every day.

The U.S. is doing what soldiers call “walking the point”—out front, all alone, vulnerable to incoming fire—to ratchet up pressure against Iran.

This week The Bunker looks at two very different commanders-in-chief and their relationship with the military, and a pair of military technologies—one ours, one theirs—that are kind of like the pandemic, and simply won’t go away.

The curtain is rising for perhaps the most divisive presidential election we’ve ever seen, there’s a politicking time bomb just offstage, and the President seems to be falling out of favor with the troops serving what he calls “my generals.”

A resource from POGO.org

The share of Chinese firms in “critical” links in the Pentagon’s supply chain jumped 50% between 2010 and last year.

Taxpayers continue to pay about $1 million a week to correct a problem, according to Hull, that wouldn’t exist if Lockheed fulfilled its contractual obligations.

The U.S. military fights racism the same way it fights wars. But, just like in Afghanistan, victory against racism in the ranks remains a distant dream.

Last week, leaders of eight of the nation’s biggest defense contractors went begging, titanium cups in hand, for federal dollars to ease the pinch the COVID-19 virus is inflicting on their bottom lines. All the usual suspects were there. Except one.

Last year, there were 53,000 U.S. contractors working for the Pentagon in the Middle East, 50% more than the 35,000 U.S. troops they were there to support.

So did the Russians pay its allies in Afghanistan to kill U.S. troops there, as The New York Times reported June 26? It’s amazing how quickly such shadowy intelligence can cleave opinion into two warring camps.