Joe Biden treats the Department of Defense like a rental car.
In just two years as America’s commander-in-chief, the 80-year-old teenager has picked up random hitchhikers, veered into oncoming traffic, and thrown the DoD into reverse doing 90 mph.
“Hey, watch this,” Biden said, as he gunned the military’s throttle.
Military observers have only been able to look on with horror as the president crashes the DoD from one guardrail to another.
When the next president strides into the oval office on January 20, 2025, the new commander-in-chief will get the keys to a wrecked Department of Defense, with cigarette holes in the upholstery and a gas tank sitting on E.
The U.S. Navy, now the world’s second-largest, has more admirals than ships. With less than 300 battle-force vessels, it’s the smallest fleet since 1917. Congress is funding more ships, but the current industrial defense base can’t build them fast enough to replace the rusting hulls that are aging out. President Biden generously promised new Virginia-class subs to our ally Australia, but America’s shipyards can’t even get our own boats serviced. The U.S.S. Boise (SSN-764) has languished in port since 2017, a black hole in the water for taxpayers.
The U.S. Army is in no better shape. Last year, the senior service missed its recruiting goal by 25 percent, or by 15,000 recruits. It’s on track to miss the mark by the same number again this year. That’s two entire divisions missing under Biden’s leadership—an ignominious first in U.S. history.
The U.S. Air Force’s planes are older than its pilots. Our ancient tanker and cargo-plane fleets, vital to America’s air power, are so wizened that many still have ashtrays. Replacements, like the KC-46, aren’t yet operational.
The quiet backbone of America’s defense is our nuclear umbrella. Commonly called the “nuclear triad,” it is comprised of bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and nuclear attack submarines. Most of it was designed with a slide rule. Russia, meanwhile, boasts more nuclear weapons and nearly all have been modernized. China, too, is building its nuclear forces at a pace the former head of Strategic Command, Admiral Charles Richard, described as “breathtaking.”
A new president might not even be able to get our DoD out of the Pentagon parking lot.
The United States maintains just 80 ships to carry our forces to defend our Pacific allies; China sits 6,500 miles from the the American mainland. By contrast, the Chinese have 5,500 ships–and they’re 100 miles from nearby Taiwan.
In its new proxy-war with Russia, the Biden administration has expended the nation’s vital stockpiles of ammunition. Biden’s war department gave away more Javelin missiles in the opening months of the Ukraine conflict than the U.S. has manufactured in the past 20 years.
Old Joe is living like it’s 1999, where the U.S. was the only global superpower.
But if war broke out tomorrow with China, estimates show that we’d run out of ammunition in less than a week. “We’re low on it,” the president admitted to CNN. Perhaps Biden’s plan is to buy back some of the billions worth of equipment he left in Afghanistan, which is now making its way into new conflicts.
Worst of all, the next president will inherit an American military with wrecked morale. From lowered fitness standards to a force held in suspicion by its own leaders (see Biden’s “extremism” training), the men and women defending America face the worst crisis of confidence since the Vietnam era.
To fix it will require a commander-in-chief who will take true ownership.
Nobody washes a rental car.