As tensions increase between the China and the United States during China’s Unrestricted Warfare to collapse America, there are concerns about Unrestricted Warfare moving into a Shooting War over issues like Taiwan. The American military’s dalliance with “woke” ideologies are concerning and are tangibly degrading professionalism, operational planning, and output of the Defense Industrial Base.
Administration officials such as Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth deny “wokeness” is an issue and the Army has been pushing their interpretation of internal polling data that “safety” is the real issue in regards to failures to meet recruiting and retention goals – which immediately triggered Republican Congressional requests to see the complete, unredacted data instead of the Army official interpretation of the data. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Milley blamed allegations of “wokeness” as the real issue causing recruiting and retention – concurrently with West Point being sued for left leaning admission policies. Despite denials from Administration officials of the existence of wokeness, there is growing evidence that the U.S. Military is in a crisis and this can possibly translate into catastrophic consequences for the U.S. military in kinetic conflict with China.
Negative Effect on U.S. Navy and Air Force Readiness
The Navy and Air Force are the lead services in deterring Chinese aggression and responding to hostility in the Western Pacific. Woke policies have reduced readiness of the ships and aircraft as well as the combat effectiveness and morale of the Service Members. The key metric describing readiness for U.S. Military units is what is known as “Operational Readiness” (OR) rates. Things are not looking good in this area. In a stunning admission, the Commandant of the Marine Corps revealed that the OR rate for the 31 Amphibious Vessels of the U.S. Navy was 32%. That means of the 31 ships, only 9 were ready. Each deployed Expeditionary Strike Group normally has three of these ships, so the rest of the amphibious ships (22) have various maintenance issues preventing them from deploying. Not a good situation in anyway – this means only 9 of the 31 Amphibious ships are available for worldwide contingencies. The USS Boxer, one of the large and valuable amphibious warfare ships will shortly and incredulously be out of service for a year and a half for maintenance issues.
The Air Force has similar issues. The premier incoming fighter for the Air Force is the F-35A, the Air Force version of the Marine F-35B which unexplainedly ejected a pilot in 2023 after takeoff from Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina. The Air Force OR rate for the F-35A is 55% and repairs are slow. This OR rate is falling, not climbing as more F-35s are introduced into service, an odd phenomena – OR rates should be climbing as more and more of the force becomes more familiar on how to keep these critical assets mission ready.
So how does wokeness play into these hard metrics? A lot. There is a direct correlation between OR rates and training, cohesion, and lethality of frontline units. When the Navy obsesses over terms to be more gender-inclusive, when the Air Force Academy promotes critical race theory over combat knowledge, when the Department of Defense embraces corrosive DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) training, these ideologies steal valuable time from focusing on the true mission of the Military, deterring conflict and if necessary winning. General Milley was infamously curious about “White Rage”, he should have been just as curious on true causal factors of poor OR rates such as wokeness – which will directly lead to more American casualties and losses in possible conflict with China.
Unnecessary American Casualties
In the Army War College Parameters Journal, an article come out that ignited a debate. In the article, the authors identified casualties of 3,600 a day in future conflict, losses not seen since the American Civil War, and thus their intuitive conclusion: Bring back the draft. This paper purports to be interested in intellectual truth but avoided any possible correlation between the political indoctrination of wokeness and a poorly trained and led military that can lead to these high casualties.
An American aircraft carrier has approximately 5,000 Sailors on board between the ship’s crew and Air Wing. If the carrier is going in harm’s way with fewer escort vessels and aircraft because of poor OR rates – this could lead to mass casualties and loss of life. This is sons, daughters, husbands, wives, friends, and loved ones unnecessarily put at risk because of the focus on DEI over military readiness. The Arleigh Burke Destroyers – the most numerous combat vessel in the U.S. Navy, has been delivered for years with a vacant position for a much needed, Close In Weapons System to protect the ship from Chinese missiles. It is intuitive that our ships need to have maximum protection in harm’s way, yet the Services prioritize wokism over making sure American ships are fully equipped.
Loss of Territory to Advancing Chinese Forces
Although some American military leaders theorize wokeness is a strength – it only emboldens China. The debacle of Afghan withdrawal was woke theater and communicated loss of resolve and strength by America. The Joint Staff and the Central Command Staff were once the most brilliant military staffs in the world but have been overtaken by wokeness and have lost their military art form. This is a green light for China to advance and seize territory.
A U.S. military hampered by wokeness could struggle to respond with decisive force before Chinese troops dig in with their gains. Having to retake seized land would require bloody amphibious operations hindered further by fewer amphibious ships available due to low OR rates. A highly trained and equipped military focused on readiness would be far better at deterring conflict with China. Woke ideologies will cause severe human and strategic costs to America.
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