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PENTAGON WOKE WATCH
SPOT ON! Is the military too ‘woke' to recruit? Military recruiters have leaned on tried-and-true factors to explain the challenges, including low unemployment and a dearth of applicants up to physical, educational and behavioral standards. But political perceptions may be stifling the willingness to serve.
Thomas Spoehr, director of the Center for National Defense at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, recently opined that wokeness is the “chief worry of grizzled American veterans today.”
“The largest threat they see by far to our current military is the weakening of its fabric by radical progressive (or ‘woke') policies being imposed, not by a rising generation of slackers, but by the very leaders charged with ensuring their readiness,” he wrote.
“Wokeness in the military is being imposed by elected and appointed leaders in the White House, Congress, and the Pentagon who have little understanding of the purpose, character, traditions, and requirements of the institution they are trying to change.”
In a Sept. 28 opinion column for Fox, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a West Point graduate and Army officer who served in Germany during the Cold War, discussed the campaign he is launching, including TV ads and a website, to target “woke polices” forced on the military.
“How can we ask young men and women who have decided to risk their lives for America, even die for America, to affirm that our country is inherently racist?” Pompeo wrote.
“How can we ask them to view their brothers and sisters in arms through the narrow prisms of race or gender? The clear and obvious answer is that we cannot — not without putting their lives at risk on the battlefield. A woke military is a weak military.”
NATIONAL SECURITY
BIDEN GOT TO DO THIS RECKLESS ACT INSTEAD – Trump ordered rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan after election loss. President Donald Trump ordered a rapid withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Somalia in the wake of his 2020 election loss, but senior officials never followed through on the plan, according to testimony released by the congressional January 6 committee on Thursday.
Supreme Court rejects Trump's request in dispute over Mar-a-Lago documents. The decision means a special master reviewing documents seized from Mar-a-Lago cannot access classified papers as part of the litigation.
Ukraine makes it obvious DoD has to change how it buys weapons. The war in Ukraine is a different kind of war. The size of the theater, number of troops and technologies used in the conflict are markedly different from conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
CHINA THREAT
China accuses US of ‘Cold War thinking' in security strategy. The Chinese government on Thursday accused Washington of “Cold War thinking” and appealed for efforts to repair strained relations after President Joe Biden released a national security strategy that calls for “out-competing China” and blocking its efforts to reshape global affairs.
Xi Jinping's Endgame: A China Prepared for Conflict With the U.S. He has unleashed an array of military, economic and political campaigns to brace the country for the possibility of confrontation with America. He has bolstered China's military, reorganized the economy and remade society around a more ideologically committed Communist Party. Xi has made clear that his overarching goal is to restore China to what he believes is its rightful place as a global player and a peer of the U.S. As such, he has come to see the possibility of a showdown with the West as increasingly likely.
RUSSIA THREAT – UKRAINE WAR
Death toll rises as Russia bombards Ukraine's cities for a fourth day. Prompted by the expanded strikes, European countries made plans to develop joint air defenses and to train Ukrainian soldiers on European Union soil.
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 233. Civilians in the southern Kherson region have started to flee to Russia amid Ukrainian advances, and evacuees were expected to begin arriving there on Friday. A Russian-installed official suggested residents should leave for safety, a sign of Moscow's weakening hold on territory it claims to have annexed.
These four countries sided with Russia in UN vote on Ukraine annexations. The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday voted to condemn Russia's annexation of four occupied areas of Ukraine amid the ongoing war, but four countries sided with Russia in the vote. Syria, North Korea, Belarus and Nicaragua joined Russia as the five opposing votes.
Ukraine gets more air defense pledges as Russia hits cities. Ukraine's allies vowed Thursday to supply the besieged nation with advanced air defense systems as Russian forces attacked the Kyiv region with kamikaze drones and fired missiles elsewhere at civilian targets, payback for the bombing of a strategic bridge linking Russia with annexed Crimea.
As morale suffers, Russia and Ukraine fight a war of mental attrition. Nearly eight months of war is taking its toll on Ukrainian soldiers, many of whom have been fighting since the beginning of Russia's invasion with little or no break.
Musk's SpaceX says it can no longer pay for critical satellite services in Ukraine, asks Pentagon to pick up the tab. Since they first started arriving in Ukraine last spring, the Starlink satellite internet terminals made by Elon Musk's SpaceX have been a vital source of communication for Ukraine's military, allowing it to fight and stay connected even as cellular phone and internet networks have been destroyed in its war with Russia.
NORTH KOREA THREAT
It's time to accept that North Korea has nuclear weapons. The 30-year U.S. effort to compel North Korea to give up its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons capabilities has rested on offering Pyongyang a simple choice: a relationship with the United States, or weapons and isolation.
South Korea prefers US ‘strategic assets' to nuclear weapons, senior official says. Positioning U.S. strategic assets in South Korea is preferable to deploying nuclear arms there to match the threat from North Korea, a senior defense official in Seoul said Thursday.
North Korea fires another missile, flies planes near border. South Korea says North Korea has launched a ballistic missile toward its eastern waters and flew planes near the border late Thursday and early Friday.
IRAN THREAT
How an Iran nuclear deal would (and wouldn't) change Gulf security stances. As the fate of a renewed nuclear deal is undecided, experts weigh in on how other regional powers would react.
INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
FURTHER CORRUPTING THE ARMY – Mexican congress approves keeping military in police work. Mexico's Congress has approved a constitutional reform that allows the armed forces to continue performing domestic law enforcement duties through 2028.
US MILITARY
Veterans, retirees get 8.7% Social Security cost-of-living boost. Veterans and retirees will see an 8.7% cost-of-living increase in their Social Security benefits starting in December, the largest increase in 42 years, federal officials announced on Thursday.
Army weighs options on extending range of Precision Strike Missile. The U.S. Army is still deciding how much farther out it might extend the range requirement for its Precision Strike Missile that is already capable of reaching 499 kilometers (310 miles).
Future Army medics will lean hard on new tech to help mass casualties. As the Army modernizes for large-scale, high-casualty combat, its medical branch must keep up with the pace of battle.
NOT GOOD – Microsoft's Army goggles left US soldiers with nausea, headaches in test. US soldiers using Microsoft Corp.'s new goggles in their latest field test suffered “mission-affecting physical impairments” including headaches, eyestrain and nausea, according to a summary of the exercise compiled by the Pentagon's testing office.
END of PDB
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
READ NEXT: GOP to Target Woke Pentagon and JCS Chairman Milley After Election >>
Vets are aware that what’s going on under the current Pentagon is pure garbage.